The UN General Assembly has placed itself squarely on the side of Terrorist Warlord Yasser Arafat.
Circumventing a US veto in the Security Council, the vote in the assembly was a lopsided 133 to 4, with 15 abstentions, on a resolution demanding that Israel not carry out a plan to "remove" the Palestinian leader."Non-aligned"? Non-aligned with justice, apparently.Arab and non-aligned nations asked the 191-nation assembly to act after the US killed a virtually identical measure in the 15-nation Security Council on Tuesday.
The resolution does not condemn Arafat's illegal use of human shields, which is an explicit violation of the Geneva Conventions.
The session was part of the "10th Emergency Special Session" on "Occupied East Jerusalem and the rest of the Occupied Palestinian Territory". Take a look at the UN's nine other "Emergency Special Sessions" since its founding and you will get a sense of what the UN General Assembly considers to be an "emergency", and through their absence from the list, all of the world's crises that the UN does not consider to be an emergency.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at September 19, 2003 12:09 PMThe four votes against were United States, Israel, Marshall Islands, and Micronesia. Anyone know the 15 abstentions? I haven't seen those listed.
Posted by: Dave on September 19, 2003 02:30 PMVery old and still very applicable (slightly paraphrased) "UN, SNUN" - David Ben-Gurion
Posted by: marek on September 19, 2003 07:28 PMVote tallies are at the end of this document:
http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2003/ga10152.doc.htm