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What would happen if the U.S. did not veto an anti-Israel resolution in the UN?
Israel would be in violation of a un resolution
It has occured dozens of times.
There have been occasions where the US voted to condemn israel too
Nothing. The UN is irrelevant. As Ben-Gurion said, Oom (the Hebrew acronym for the UN) schmoom.
The UN recognized the State of Israel. If it is irrelevant, then there is no State.
UN resolutions are only as strong as others are willing to enforce them
If people obey and enforce them then they are powerful, if people ignore them, then they are useless
kvy613:
That depends on the resolution.
General Assembly resolutions are merely recommendations; states can choose whether to abide by them or ignore them.
The same is true for most Security Council resolutions. Only Security Council resolutions that are worded in a very specific manner are considered legally binding.
If Israel violated a legally binding resolution, in a worst case scenario, the country would face international sanctions and/or international armed force.
Joseph, you’re mistaken: The UN’s recognition of Israel allows Israel to participate in UN proceedings, but does not affect Israel’s status as a state.
allusernamestaken, if the UN had voted down approval of the State in ’47, it isn’t likely they’d have been a State.
Joseph
Yes that is because the British turned over the “Palestine Question” to the UN.
That doent mean they are relevant when it comes to opinions that arent asked of them. The UN has condmened Israel countless times (with and without the U.S.’s vote) while it doesnt look good it doesnt really matter.
Joseph:
From a legal perspective, the 1947 UN Partition Plan was irrelevant – it was a General Assembly resolution, which means it was only a recommendation, and it was rejected by the Arabs, which means it never went into effect.
From a political perspective, the UN’s approval of the Plan certainly helped Israel’s international standing.
Whether or not the individual countries would have recognized Israel without UN support is, of course, impossible to know, as many other factors would have come into play. The important thing to remember, though, is that Israel doesn’t draw its legitimacy from the UN, and its rights aren’t limited to those granted by the Plan.
ubiq: UN Security Council resolutions are legally binding under international law. And Israel has accepted that binding nature by ratifying its membership in the United Nations.
Joseph:
Only certain UN Security Council resolutions are legally binding.
There are states not recognized by the UN. Taiwan is more or less reconized throughout the world as a country, but its not in the UN.
Switzerland was not in the UN until 2002
UNSC resolutions are legally binding. UNSC “presidential statements” are not.
Joseph
do you guess your information?
from The UN library website:
“The nature of the resolution determines if it is considered binding on States…
In general, resolutions adopted by the Security Council acting under Chapter VII of the Charter, are considered binding… Legal scholars have various opinions on this question… “
So while “in general” security council resolutions are legally binding, clearly not all are.
For example in the id 80’s the UNSC declared the middle east a “nuclear free zone” Are you saying that would make it illegal for Israel to have nuclear weapons?
If the wording of the resolution itself states it is to be carried out, it is binding. If it is a recommendation, then obviously the resolution itself makes itself non-binding. But that power of making it binding under the relevant chapter of the UN charter lies in the hands of the UNSC itself.
In any event all this is besides the point. We all agree the UNSC can make legally binding resolutions. Therefore they are, by definition, relevant.
There is debate as to what constitutes a binding UNSC resolution, but it’s generally accepted that a UNSC resolution is binding if it states that there is a threat to or breach of the peace or an act of aggression; and/or the resolution cites Chapter VII of the UN Charter; and the resolution is a “decision” – that is, it includes the word “decide” (as opposed to “recommend,” “condemn,” “demand,” etc.).
Joseph, what is important is that Hashem recognized and continues to recognize it.
The really bad consequences would be if the UN SC then imposed sanctions on Israel for violating a resolution. The closest we came to this was in 1957 when Eisenhower threatened Ben Gurion with UN sanctions for not withdrawing from Sinai and Gaza in return for nothing. No less a figure than Lyndon Johnson, then Senate Majority Leader, wrote to Secretary of State John Foster Dulles to complain!
Charlie: Weren’t UNSC veto-bearing Britain and France on Israel’s side in that conflict?
” Weren’t UNSC veto-bearing Britain and France on Israel’s side in that conflict?”
True, but by that time the UK government had already changed as the result of the disastrous outcome (largely the result of the Eisenhower/Dulles policies).
France’s socialist pro-Israel Prime Minister Guy Mollet was still in power, but in big political trouble as the Algerian War was started and the government’s main focus had shifted westward; Mollet needed all the support he could get to fight the Algerian NLF terrorist campaign (it wasn’t called that back then, but that was what it was). Unfortunately the French campaign degenerated into genocide and Algeria was lost anyway — a lesson for people who think Donald Trump’s similar ideas regarding what to do regarding Syria have any merit whatsoever. Mollet did, however, assist Israel in starting the Dimona nuclear reactor (and thus, nuclear weapons) before he was forced from power in June, eliminating the last barrier to the Eisenhower/Dulles sanctions plans. But by that time Ben-Gurion had been forced to cave.
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