And the world is silent…

Three events, occurring over the same 48 hours, in three different locations:

In New York, the UN General Assembly endorsed the Goldstone Report into Israel’s ‘Operation Cast Lead’ against Hamas terrorists in Gaza.

In the waters off the coast of Cyprus, the Israeli navy intercepted a vessel containing 300 tons of weaponry and explosives destined for Hizballah, dispatched by Iran.

In Iran itself, mass crowds gathered to curse the ‘Great Satan’, the United States, on the 30^th anniversary of the US Embassy hostage crisis which followed the revolution that overturned the Shah’s secular autocracy and ushered in the Islamist reign of the Ayatollahs.

UN-surprising

Israel’s relationship with the United Nations has been turbulent to say the least.  In 1947 the UN General Assembly (GA) passed resolution 181 dividing what had been the British mandate of Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state. At that point the new international body was a hero for the Jewish people, granting international legitimacy to the notion of a Jewish state in Eretz Yisrael.

However, the GA is entirely a reflection of its members – the nations of the world.  If in 1947 those countries were well-disposed towards Zionist aspirations, it did not set a precedent. The Soviet Union, which was the first country to voice support for the partition plan, would, within a decade of that vote, have thrown its support behind the Arab states committed to Israel’s destruction.  Before long, the Soviet bloc and the Arab and Muslim world could command an automatic anti-Israel majority in the GA.  The nadir was reached in 1975 when resolution 3379 was passed, equating Zionism with racism.  Although the resolution was rescinded in 1991 (against the backdrop of the USSR’s collapse and an Arab world courting American approval) it would serve as a warning of what was to follow. In the years since, Israel has been subjected to more condemnatory GA resolutions than any other country; while there has never been a single GA resolution condemning any act of violence or aggression by any Arab state or terror organization against Israel.