Jewish World Update Jan/Feb 2025

UN Seeks to Make Old City Jerusalem Jew-Free
by Mike Wagenheim
(JNS)—Jerusalem’s Old City, in addition to Judea and Samaria, must be Judenrein—“free of Jews”—by September, according to a UN-approved, Palestinian-drafted resolution.

The resolution, which passed by a 124–14 margin with 43 abstentions, is meant to strengthen a July 2024 advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice, which declared Israeli presence illegal in any area over the 1949 armistice line. The text lacks any mention of Israeli security concerns, Israel’s historic ties to the land, or Hamas’s terror attacks in Israel on October 7, 2023.

Arsen Ostrovsky and Nadav Steinman, CEO and board chair, respectively, of the International Legal Forum, stated, “The United Nations has become the diplomatic arm of Hamas,” calling the resolution “the latest in a litany of obscenely one-sided anti-Israel resolutions at the UN since October 7.”

When Arab nations attacked but failed to destroy Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War, the young Jewish state sought peace. But the Arab League vowed “no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with it.” Thus, the territories beyond the armistice line that Israel regained during the war, including those in its ancestral lands of Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria, remained under Jewish authority.

The resolution calls on the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to withdraw completely from Judea and Samaria, eastern Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip by September 2025, which means evacuating all Jewish communities beyond the armistice line, including Jerusalem’s Old City. It also bans sales to the IDF of any arms that would be expected reasonably to be used in the territory over the 1949 lines and calls for a boycott of all products produced by Jewish people in those areas.

More than 40 countries sponsored the resolution, the first that Palestinians filed after being granted unprecedented privileges for a non-UN member earlier last year. Before the vote, UN Secretary-General António Guterres told reporters he would back implementing the resolution should it pass.

Argentina, Czechia, Fiji, Hungary, Malawi, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Tonga, Tuvalu, and the United States joined Israel in opposing the resolution. Germany, the United Kingdom, Canada, Italy, Ukraine, and Australia were among those that abstained.

General Assembly resolutions have no legal force, but analysts anticipate the resolution’s passage will be used in international courts and other forums to seek additional action against the Jewish state.

Many expect the Palestinians will request that the UN Security Council take up the issue. Security Council resolutions are binding; but the United States would be expected to thwart such an effort, including with its veto power.

Danny Danon, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, called the vote “a shameful decision that backs the Palestinian Authority’s diplomatic terrorism.” He added that the General Assembly “continues to dance to the music of the Palestinian Authority, which backs the Hamas murderers.”

Seth Riklin and Daniel Mariaschin, president and CEO, respectively, of B’nai B’rith International, said the international nonprofit is “appalled” by the “atrocious” resolution.

“Coming from an assembly in which Arab and other pro-Palestinian governments wield an automatic majority to annually condemn Israel more than all other countries combined, the motion is unprecedented in its shamelessly one-sided endorsement of Palestinian claims and political demands, and further erodes the [UN’s] credibility as a serious contributor to promoting conflict-resolution and universal human rights,” they said.

Ostrovsky and Steinman said, “Ultimately, peace will only prevail when Hamas is defeated and the hostages are released, not through tiresome antics and pyrrhic Palestinian ‘victories’ at the UN.”

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