Israel systematically infringes its duties towards the UN repeatedly violating the protections afforded to UN bodies such as the UNRWA and UNIFIL. This includes causing the death of UN workers, and bombing UN facilities. Furthermore, it resolutely refuses to engage with UN Mechanisms by not allowing visits from the UN Secretary-General, UN Special Rapporteurs, and the UN Independent Commission of Inquiry, among others. Within the halls of the UN, Israel also repeatedly issues defamatory statements against the organisation. These actions reflect a complete disregard for UN systems and are in breach of international law.
Israel’s systematic denial of the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination and relentless appropriation of Palestinian land have led to a critical, historical juncture in which the Israeli state is pursuing genocide and ethnic cleansing against the Palestinians with ruthless, unprecedented force and determination. The very existence of the Palestinian people hinges on ending Israeli impunity and, at long last, realizing their right to control their own political, social, and economic destiny. Additionally, the gravity of the illegalities caused by Israel has raised serious questions about the legitimacy of the international legal system as a whole, threatening its continued integrity.
The General Assembly and its Member States can and must take meaningful action on both fronts —the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and the integrity of the international legal system—without delay by unseating the Israeli government from the Assembly, in accordance with the Assembly’s authority to approve the credentials of Member State delegations.
Unseating a state government’s delegation is an exceptional action, but , in this case, it is grounded in precedent—specifically, the unseating of South Africa’s apartheid government from the General Assembly in 1974—and in law. Fifty years ago, the General Assembly exercised its authority under the credentialing rules to unseat South Africa’s delegation, concluding that the government was unrepresentative and therefore illegitimate due to its failure to provide representation to its indigenous Black population. Even though South Africa’s apartheid practices were central to this decision, the removal of the South African delegation was also implicitly grounded in the right of self-determination, which was denied to the country’s Black population by the very nature of apartheid.
As demonstrated by the ICJ’s July 19, 2024 advisory opinion on the legal consequences of Israel’s policies and practices in the OPT, the case for unseating Israel’s government for lack of representativeness is just as strong as it was in the case of South Africa, if not stronger.