U.N. Declares 2014 as 'Year of Solidarity With the Palestinian People

The United Nations has adopted a resolution naming 2014 as the “Year of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.”

To mark the occasion, the U.N. said it will work in the coming year to organize special activities along with governments and non-governmental organizations.

A rally in solidarity with the Palestinian people in Cairo, Egypt, May 13, 2011(AP/Amr Nabil)

The resolution was passed on the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, which was held four days early to accommodate Thanksgiving weekend. The day is usually marked at the world body on Nov. 29, the anniversary of the voting for the “Partition Plan” which in 1947 divided territories held in British Mandatory Palestine between the Jews and Arabs. While the Jews accepted the vote, five Arab states declared war.

According to U.N. Watch, a nonprofit that monitors activity at the U.N., the “Year of Solidarity” resolution was one of 21 resolutions that singled out Israel during this year’s General Assembly session. In 2012, the U.N. passed 22 resolutions condemning Israel.

This is compared with only four resolutions this year that singled out any other country in the world, which were Syria, Iran, North Korea and Myanmar.

“There were will be zero UNGA resolutions on gross and systematic abuses committed by China, Cuba, Egypt, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Zimbabwe, nor on many other major perpetrators of grave violations of human rights,” U.N. Watch reported.

“Broadway may be down the street, but the real theater is here at the United Nations,” Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. Ron Prosor said.

“The worst human rights abusers receive a fraction of the condemnation that Israel – the only democracy in the Middle East – receives,” Prosor said in a speech Monday. “These irresponsible actions have irreversible consequences. The states that rubberstamp the anti-Israel resolutions every year, have given the Palestinians a false sense of reality and fed their culture of victimhood.”

Prosor also addressed the irony of the U.N. condemning Israel for allegedly ill-treating Syrians even though Syrians have massacred more than 100,000 of their own people and Israeli hospitals have been treating Syrian civil war victims.

“If that weren’t enough, the GA will soon vote on another resolution calling on Israel to hand over the Golan Heights and its residents to Syria. It is nothing short of absurd for the U.N. to demand that even more civilians be subject to Assad’s brutality,” Prosor said.

Hillel Neuer, executive director of U.N. Watch wrote: “There are also resolutions recognizing the self-determination of the Palestinians, even though the U.N. already recognized Palestine as a state; yet there is no resolution on the right to self-determination of the Tibetans, who really could use such a text.”

Neuer characterized the Palestinian solidarity year declaration an opportunity for “massive politicization” in 2014 at the U.N.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon on Monday called for Jerusalem to be divided between Israel and a future Palestinian state.

“Jerusalem is to emerge from negotiations as the capital of two states, with arrangements for the holy sites acceptable to all. An agreed solution must be found for millions of Palestinian refugees around the region,” he said.

A year ago, the U.N. General Assembly voted to grant Palestine observer state status.

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