TEHRAN - In yet another sign of mounting international anger at the Israeli regime, the United Nations General Assembly voted in favor of a resolution that backs an open-ended investigation into Israeli practices against the Palestinians. This is the first time ever the world body has backed such a probe, in its history. 

A massive majority of 125 countries voted in favor of a budget for the investigation that will be handled by the United Nations Human Rights Council. For the first time, it gives the council an indefinite mandate (a permanent commission of inquiry) to report and monitor Israeli violations against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and the besieged Gaza Strip. The probe was initially set up by the UN rights council after the 11-day Israeli onslaught in May on the besieged Gaza Strip that killed more than 60 Palestinian kids. 

Israel tried to significantly deduct funds allocated to the UN commission that will be responsible for the investigations, but that backfired after the UNGA gave an overwhelming response with its resolution. 

Palestine’s Permanent Ambassador to the UN, Riyad Mansour, praised the vote and all the countries that rejected Israel’s proposal. He also thanked the UNGA for approving all budgets of the programs relating to the Palestinian cause, including his request to increase funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).

Israel on the other hand has strongly condemned the resolution, accusing the UN of anti-Israel bias, among other things. 

In May this year, the UN’s Human Rights Council voted to create the investigation after the UN rights chief, Michelle Bachelet, said Israeli forces committed potential war crimes in the 11-day bombardment on what is regarded as the world’s largest open-air prison. The Human Rights Council held a special session on “the Grave Human Rights Situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem” and adopted the resolution “Ensuring respect for international human rights law and international humanitarian law in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and in Israel”.

The Rights Council decided to “urgently establish an ongoing, independent, international commission of inquiry to investigate, in the occupied Palestinian territory including East Jerusalem, and in Israel, all alleged violations and abuses of international human rights law leading up and since 13 April 2021”. 

This begs the question if the inquiry involves “alleged rights violations” against Israel; what is the regime so concerned about? 

Perhaps the establishment of facts. 

As the year comes to a close, the international consensus for 2021, as reflected by UN resolutions is that Israel is the world’s worst human rights violator. According to the number of resolutions the United Nations General Assembly made in 2021, the regime accounts for a massive 74 percent (two-thirds) of total UN resolutions that have condemned the regime. While UNGA resolutions are non-binding, they are extremely symbolic and give a glimpse of what the international community thinks about Israel’s human rights violations. 

It comes as a UN Human Rights expert says the international community must hold Israel to account for its decades old occupation of Palestine, five years after the UN Security Council passed a resolution calling for an end to all settlement activities in Palestinian territories. Michael Lynk, the UN Special Rapporteur for the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967 says “on the fifth anniversary of the adoption of Resolution 2334 by the United Nations Security Council, the international community has to take its own words and its own laws seriously”. 

Lynk warned that “without decisive international intervention to impose accountability upon an unaccountable occupation, there is no hope that the Palestinian right to self-determination and an end to the conflict will be realized anytime in the foreseeable future”. Resolution 2334, adopted by the Security Council in late December 2016, stated that Israeli settlements constitute "a flagrant violation under international law" and said that all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including occupied East Jerusalem al-Quds, must “immediately and completely cease."

The resolution declared that the expansion of settlements threatens the viability of a solution to what is widely regarded as West Asia’s biggest source of instability and international law must govern the occupation and the relations between Israel and the Palestinians. The Special Rapporteur added that “If this resolution had been actually enforced by the international community, and obeyed by Israel, we would most likely be on the verge of a just and lasting peace. Instead, Israel is in defiance of the resolution, its occupation is more entrenched than ever, the violence it employs against the Palestinians to sustain the occupation is rising, and the international community has no strategy to end the world’s longest military occupation.”

The Special Rapporteur noted that "in the 20 reports delivered to the Security Council since the Resolution was adopted, the Secretary-General or his representative have stated on each occasion that Israel has not complied with any of the directions of the Security Council,” Lynk said. “Is it not clear by now that the Israeli political leadership has no interest, and no incentive, to end the occupation?”

The UN expert noted that “one statistic above all illustrates the remarkable unwillingness of the international community to enforce its own directions respecting the Israeli occupation, in 2016, when Resolution 2334 was adopted, there were an estimated 400,000 Israeli settlers in the [occupied] West Bank and 218,000 in East Jerusalem [al-Quds]. Five years later, there are 475,000 settlers in the [occupied] West Bank and 230,000 in East Jerusalem [al-Quds], an increase of 12 percent. This dynamic reality on the ground is racing far ahead of the international community’s tepid criticism of Israel’s unlawful conduct.”

"Only an approach based on accountability, equality, and full rights for all can create the possibility of a prosperous and shared future for Palestinians," said Lynk.

Meanwhile, Church leaders in occupied Jerusalem al-Quds have accused Israel of bias against Christians living in the holy city. They say the regime has allowed attacks and vandalism against Christian cities and clergy to go unpunished with the aim of driving, like the Muslims, all Christians also out of the holy city and Judaizing it. They say “radical groups continue to acquire strategic property in the Christian Quarter, with the aim of diminishing the Christian presence”. The remarks come as Christians mark the holy occasion of Christmas in the occupied lands. The comments have also been backed by the highest-ranking cleric in the Church of England. The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby says there is a “concerted attempt” by the regime to force the Christian community away. 

In joint remarks with Anglican Archbishop in occupied Jerusalem al-Quds, Hosam Naoum, published by British media, they speak of a “steady decline” among Christians in the holy city. They are also quoted as saying “church leaders believe that there are now fewer than 2,000 Christians left in the Old City of Jerusalem”. They said an “escalation of physical and verbal abuse of Christian clergy, and vandalism of holy sites by fringe, radical groups” was a “concerted attempt” to drive Christians out.

In 1967, Israeli forces launched a wide scale military offensive against Palestinians of all faiths in the holy city and went on to annex the territory; a move that has not been recognized by the international community.