[E-rundbrief] Info 2038 - UN panel supports Palestinian statehood, end of occupation

[Matthias Reichl]

E-Rundbrief Info 2038 - Jacob Magid (Information Clearinghouse): UN 
panel votes 163-5 in support of Palestinian statehood, end of occupation.

Bad Ischl, 21.11.2020

Begegnungszentrum für aktive Gewaltlosigkeit

www.begegnungszentrum.at

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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/55915.htm

UN panel votes 163-5 in support of Palestinian statehood, end of 
occupation

By Jacob Magid

November 20, 2020 "Information Clearing House" - "Times Of Israel" - 
NEW YORK — The United Nations voted overwhelmingly to approve a draft 
resolution in favor of Palestinian self-determination, with Israel and 
the United States voting against.

The proposal on Thursday in the UN General Assembly’s Third Committee 
— the committee that deals with human rights and humanitarian affairs 
— passed 163 to 5, with 10 abstentions. Canada, which typically votes 
alongside Israel in such resolutions, stood with the majority.

The resolution emphasized “the right of the Palestinian people to 
self-determination, including the right to their independent State of 
Palestine” and “stressed the urgency of achieving without delay an end 
to the Israeli occupation that began in 1967 and a just, lasting and 
comprehensive peace settlement between the Palestinian and Israeli 
sides,” based on a two-state solution.

It is part of a large package of 20 pro-Palestinian resolutions that 
are passed by the General Assembly every year, which the Israeli 
Mission to the UN has long argued proves the bias of the international 
forum.

In addition to Israel and the US, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia and 
Nauru also voted against the resolution. Australia, Cameroon, 
Guatemala, Honduras, Kiribati, Palau, Papa New Guinea, Rwanda, Togo 
and Tonga all abstained.

Last year, Canada voted in favor of a nearly identical resolution, 
with its envoy justifying the move as a response to US Secretary of 
State Mike Pompeo’s decision to repudiate a State Department legal 
opinion that deemed Israeli settlements to be illegal. In previous 
years, Canada had voted alongside Israel, but refusing to do so for a 
second straight year indicated that the vote was a principled stand.

“Canada’s vote today is a reflection of our longstanding commitment to 
the right of self-determination for both Israelis and Palestinians,” 
Canadian envoy Bob Rae said in an address to the General Assembly, 
noting the draft’s support for a two-state solution — a framework that 
the Israeli government has not officially rejected.

Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki praised the 
vote, calling it “a natural response from the international community 
to the Israeli occupation’s violations, as well as a response to the 
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s visit to the colonial Israeli 
settlements.”

Pompeo visited a winery near the settlement of Psagot on Thursday, the 
first such visit by a top US diplomat. There, he announced new US 
guidelines requiring all US exports from Israeli controlled areas of 
the West Bank to be labeled as “made in Israel,” in a reversal of 
decades-old policy that differentiated between both sides of the Green 
Line.

Until now, US policy has required products made in the West Bank to be 
labeled as such. But with Pompeo’s newly announced rules, which he 
said were “consistent with our reality-based foreign policy approach,” 
all producers within areas where Israel exercises authority — most 
notably Area C under the Oslo Accords – will be required to mark goods 
as ’Israel,’ ’Product of Israel,’ or ‘Made in Israel’ when exporting 
to the United States.

Pompeo insisted that the US still remains committed to achieving 
“sustainable peace” and will “continue to oppose those countries and 
international institutions which delegitimize or penalize Israel and 
Israeli producers in the West Bank through malicious measures that 
fail to recognize the reality on the ground.”

The concluding remark of the statement appeared to take a direct shot 
at the European Union, which has led a policy obliging all 28 member 
states to label exports produced in Israeli towns beyond the Green 
Line as having been made in the settlements.



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     Matthias Reichl, Pressesprecher/ press speaker,
     Begegnungszentrum fuer aktive Gewaltlosigkeit
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