The United Nations should stop rubber-stamping anti-Israel resolutions and work instead to advance peace between Israelis and Palestinians, US Ambassador to the UN in New York Linda Thomas-Greenfield said.
She spoke in advance of the UN General Assembly’s anticipated annual passage of a slate of what has been some 20 resolutions targeting Israel, in many cases for its treatment of the Palestinians.
Israel is the only country against whom the UNGA annually issues so many texts. Many of them are voted upon twice, once at a committee level in draft form and a second time at the General Assembly’s plenum.
"As we head into the height of the committee season, we are once again facing a disproportionate number of resolutions with an unfair focus on Israel."
US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield
“As we head into the height of the committee season, we are once again facing a disproportionate number of resolutions with an unfair focus on Israel,” Thomas-Greenfield told the UN Security Council on Friday during its monthly meeting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“These one-sided resolutions and activities are a distraction and do nothing to improve the situation on the ground,” she said.
“These outdated texts do not reflect the changing realities on the ground with new possibilities for cooperation ushered in through the Abraham Accords and other normalization agreements,” Thomas-Greenfield said.
Providing hope for the Palestinian people
“But at the same time, we understand that the Palestinian people need and deserve a political horizon and need something to hope for,” she added. “Rather than simply rubber-stamping these General Assembly resolutions, we should all be thinking about how to collectively advance the cause of peace.”
She spoke at a time when violence is escalating and there is government instability in both Israel and the Palestinian Authority. The peace process has been frozen for over eight years and US President Joe Biden has not put forward any new peace initiatives nor has he spoken of doing so.