Professor Anne Bayefsky, President of Human Rights Voices and Director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust, spoke to Arutz Sheva - Israel National News about the United Nations General Assembly resolution drafted by the Palestinian Authority (PA) demanding a complete Israeli withdrawal from Judea and Samaria within six months and many international actions against Israel.
Prof. Bayefsky began, "The stage has now been set for a full-fledged effort by the United Nations to destroy the Jewish state by means of the first-ever wholly Palestinian-drafted resolution. It is scheduled for adoption at an 'Emergency Session' of the General Assembly on September 17 and 18, 2024."
She explained how the PA was allowed to submit such a resolution. "Post-October 7, the General Assembly upgraded the status of what the organization labels the 'State of Palestine.' The move was an obvious reward for terrorism and had the predictable effect on Palestinian strategy: more terror and more intransigence. The upgrade included the power 'to submit proposals' and to 'introduce them.' That was May 10, 2024 and the new powers were to take effect from the start of the 79th session of the General Assembly, which begins today, September 10, 2024. The result was immediate: a 'State of Palestine' resolution dedicated to Israel’s delegitimization and demolition."
"The Palestinian resolution castrates Israel’s very legitimacy by claiming that the country is engaged in apartheid and 'particularly severe forms of racial discrimination,'" she said.
"Apartheid is a crime against humanity. Allegedly, modern Israel – founded in the wake of the most egregious crimes against humanity in our age – perpetrates crimes against humanity. To the resolution’s authors, facts don’t matter. Apartheid 'Palestine' is the planned state where no Jew will be tolerated, while in Israel, Arabs have more rights and freedoms than in any Arab state. It’s a classic Nazi antisemitic inversion technique. Switch victim and perpetrator," Prof. Bayefsky said.
According to Prof. Bayefsky, "The resolution marks the return of the General Assembly’s 1975 Zionism-is-racism libel. In fancier updated lingo, Israel is said to 'treat Palestinians differently on grounds prohibited by international law' that 'amounts to prohibited discrimination and constitutes systemic discrimination based on, inter alia, race, religion or ethnic origin.'”
She stated that "the resolution seeks to terminate the viability of the Jewish state by introducing a global system of boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS)."
"BDS extends to what is referred to as 'Israeli settlements and their associated regime.' The resolution demands an end to 'any engagement, directly or indirectly, with any businesses or services operating in the settlements.' It applies BDS to a definition of 'occupied Palestinian territory' that purports to include Judaism’s holiest sites for over 2,000 years, Jerusalem’s Temple Mount and its Western Wall," she said.
Prof. Bayefsky warned, "The reach of the BDS campaign embedded in the resolution is enormous. It covers 'all states' and 'their nationals, and companies and entities under their jurisdiction, as well as their authorities.' Countries, individuals and businesses are all told: 'do not act in any way that would entail recognition or provide aid or assistance in maintaining…policies and practices that impede the exercise by the Palestinian people of its right to self-determination.' Meaning, whatever Palestinians want, whenever they want it."
"The resolution sets out a whole smorgasbord of BDS plans to financially wreck Israel such as 'abstaining from entering into economic or trade dealings' and 'preventing trade or investment relations.' A Mack truck can be driven through the occasional phony limiting factor – variously described as dealings 'which may entrench its [Israel’s] unlawful presence in the Territory.'"
“'All states' are told to 'implement sanctions, including travel bans and asset freezes.' Against whom? '[A]gainst individuals and entities and officials identified as responsible for the maintenance of Israel's unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.' In effect, an open-ended global pogrom to sanction, ban and bankrupt supporters of Israel, that is, anyone or any business that the jackals deem 'responsible.,'” she said.
Furthermore, "The resolution’s BDS demands include emasculating Israel’s right of self-defense – a Charter right of every UN member state but the Jewish state. Encompassing a gargantuan swath of possible assistance to Israel, the resolution calls on 'all states' to 'cease any direct or indirect transfer, sale, export and diversion of arms' and 'dual use items” and 'technologies' to Israel and 'any' 'cooperation…which may…interfere with the exercise by the Palestinian people of its right to self-determination.'”
She declared, "The resolution’s total arms embargo is quite simply a declaration of open-season on Israelis. It applies anywhere, anytime, to anything that might be used in Gaza or the West Bank/Judea and Samaria – in its words 'in all cases where there are reasonable grounds to suspect that they might be used in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.'”
"The resolution demands the ethnic cleansing of Jews from the land of Israel. It insists upon Israel 'allowing all Palestinians displaced during the occupation to return to their original place of residence.' What 'occupation'? Various elements of the resolution deliberately open the door to 1948," she warned.
She noted, "Reference is made to Israel’s alleged obligations to 'the full implementation of all relevant UN resolutions,' a plethora of poisonous life-threatening demands upon Israel adopted over more than half a century. The resolution makes demands that it specifically defines as 'without prejudice to further reparation owed by Israel for damage caused prior to 1967.' The resolution says it is acting on the Advisory Opinion on the UN’s World Court (ICJ) in July. Not legally-binding, the ICJ opinion was presided over by a Lebanese politician and former UN ambassador dressed up as a judge. In his own opinion he said: 'while Israel’s policies and practices in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967 clearly constitute a violation of the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination, the failure to respect this right dates back to 1948 and not 1967.'”
"Make no mistake: turning back the clock to pre-date the creation of modern Israel is the goal," Prof. Bayefsky declared.
"In the meantime, the resolution sets up a specific plan of action to demolish Israel, including: (1) a new entity to create 'an international register of damage…to the Palestinian people' in order to fabricate astronomical fines as 'reparation,' (2) full support for criminal 'prosecutions' and throwing Israelis into prison in the Hague, (3) the convening of a new international conference 'to advance implementation' of every antisemitic anti-Israel UN resolution throughout history called 'the UN resolutions pertaining to the Question of Palestine,' (4) the establishment of a new UN apartheid committee mirroring the 'Special Committee on the Policies of Apartheid of the Government of the Republic of South Africa' that was created in 1962, this time dedicated to wiping an alleged 'apartheid' Israel off the map (in diplomatic double-talk, 'to examine…to report and make recommendations.')"
She said that "In sponsoring their first independent resolution at the General Assembly, the Palestinians are like kids in a candy store – albeit wearing balaclavas and sporting RPGs. In an extremely long resolution, the Palestinians have dumped in almost everything they’ve ever wanted and made sure to omit everything they don’t."
"There’s no mention of negotiations. No Oslo Accords. No condemnation of Hamas. No mention of the Hamas Charter openly dedicated to genocide, or the genocidal reality of October 7. No mention of Palestinian Authority law and policy that pays Palestinians to kill Jews. No condemnation of the execution of Israeli hostages, Palestinian suicide bombings, rocket attacks, stabbings, beheadings, shootings, car-rammings, or rapes. No call for the release of the remaining hostages. No mention of Israel's right of self-defense. No acknowledgment of the Jewish people's right to self-determination," she noted.
"What happens now? The European Union – which today includes states that have vandalized the Oslo Accords and ignored repeated UN commitments to a negotiated settlement by preemptively recognizing a Palestinian state – will try to talk the Palestinians down from 3,664 words to something shorter. The Palestinians have planned ahead and ensured the resolution contains plenty of redundancies to account for EU sensibilities," she said.
She asked, "What to watch for? The resolution deliberately puts everything back on center stage in mid-December by giving a three-month deadline for the production of a Secretary-General report on its implementation and the supposed realization of Palestinian 'self-determination.'"
Prof. Bayefsky connected the PA's latest actions at the UN to the actions of the Obama Administration before it left office. "In December 2016 President Obama used the Security Council to take an extremely destructive parting shot at Israel by failing to veto a resolution that upended Oslo, breached bipartisan American commitments to a negotiated settlement over many decades, and purported to decide items that had been legally set aside for negotiations."
"Whatever the outcome of the U.S. elections, Palestinians hope to convince the Harris-Biden administration to repeat that Democratic strategy and allow the adoption of a UN Security Council resolution to support full recognition of a Palestinian state before the end of the year," she said.
"The danger to world peace from the current resolution and this intended outcome cannot be overestimated," Prof. Bayefsky concluded.
