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The perils of pathetic political games

September 10, 2024 at 6:25 pm

UN General Assembly in New York, United States on March 04, 2024 [Fatih Aktaş/Anadolu Agency]

Israeli media outlets are stirring up a frenzy about the occupation state facing a serious threat from a draft resolution which the Palestinian Authority has presented to the UN General Assembly. The resolution seeks to implement the International Court of Justice’s 19 July advisory opinion. The opinion reiterated the illegality of Israel’s occupation, annexation and settlement expansion, and called for action “to bring to an end as rapidly as possible the unlawful presence of the State of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.” Although “advisory” and thus “non-binding”, legal experts point out that the laws upon which it is based are binding on all UN member states.

Zionist Foreign Minister Israel Katz threatened to “break and dissolve” the PA if it moved forward with the resolution. The PA is already crumbling, its existence is only durable for as long as Israel and the international community decide, yet Israel’s habit of stirring up unnecessary drama to detract from the real issues — its illegal occupation — knows no limits. This time, though, there is a genocide going on in Gaza which the world will not forget even if diplomats try all of their dirty tricks to cast it into oblivion. Hence, threatening the PA with dissolution will not have the same impact as in previous years.

In the warped mind of Israel’s Ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, however, the draft resolution is a “reward for terrorism”.

Danon went on one of his usual rants in a post on X, telling the UN General Assembly that “nothing will stop Israel or deter it from its mission to bring home the hostages and eliminate Hamas.” In other words, the UNGA has been given advance notice that Israel will continue its genocide in Gaza, bombing and butchering civilians — children, women and the elderly included — with total impunity.

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Even with such statements – Katz threatening the already weak PA and Danon promoting Israel’s genocide in the full knowledge that there will be no repercussions for the rogue, apartheid state — the UN will do nothing of note to stop Israel with regard to its settler-colonial expansion or its mass murder of Palestinians.

“The PA has renewed its active efforts against Israel on the international scene,” wails the Times of Israel. And yet, all the PA does is regurgitate draft resolutions, playing its game in a safe space that is so protective of Israeli colonialism that no effort can dent its settler-colonial impunity. That is where the PA stages its responses which purportedly anger Israel so much that it warrants threats to break down an already crumbling institution.

The PA is doing nothing of positive note for the Palestinian people.

No one begs a collaborator for rights, and the UN is nothing more than a facilitator of international law violations. To that, of course, we can now add genocide enabler.

The PA keeps exposing its weakness and, in turn, allows the international community to dictate what happens to Palestinians, and always on Israel’s terms. Katz will not dissolve the PA on account of a non-binding draft resolution that will garner enough votes and no action. When Israel decides that the PA does not serve any further settler-colonial purpose, it will destroy the authority, and won’t need a UN General Assembly draft resolution to do it.

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The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.