Tirza Short
Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs, Jan. 29, 2025
“Since the UN is the global arbiter of what is “politically correct,” the result has been the endowment of moral and political legitimacy to terrorist aggressors, negating the fundamental values of the international system.”
The year 2025 marks the fiftieth anniversary of United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) Resolution 3379, which declared that Zionism is a form of racism. The resolution was passed after a decade-long process of Soviet and Arab lobbying to delegitimize Israel’s existence.
The vote reflected a process. In the 1960s, the UN redefined “racism,” while its 1970s “postcolonial” resolutions allowed terrorism to be reinterpreted as “armed resistance.” The Palestinian cause shoehorned itself into the Third World by claiming that “Palestine” was “colonized.”1 This narrative persists due to popular ideological trends spread by academia and media.
Nonbinding UN resolutions fuel international court lawfare against Israel, which has only increased following Hamas’s October 7, 2023 massacre. UN demands will be made as political statements even when practically impossible.
For instance, on September 18, 2024, the UNGA adopted a resolution calling on Israel to “end the occupation” or be boycotted within a year. On November 20, 2024, a UN Security Council (UNSC) draft resolution called for an Israeli ceasefire with no hostage release condition.2
A South Africa-led “genocide” case against Israel is still pending at the International Court of Justice,3 and the International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for “war crimes.”4 The claims are not factual;5 they rest on an overarching narrative of “racist,” “colonialist” Israel.6 …Source