United Nations votes on Israel and the Palestinians are usually foregone conclusions. As the late foreign minister and former UN envoy Abba Eban famously quipped, “If Algeria introduced a resolution declaring that the earth was flat and that Israel had flattened it, it would pass by a vote of 164 to 13 with 26 abstentions.”
On Wednesday, Algeria introduced a resolution that condemned Israel for “excessive, disproportionate and indiscriminate force” during the recent protests at the Gaza border and called for the “protection” of Palestinians.
While this particular outcome surprised no one, what happened in the immediate prelude to the vote was highly unusual and appeared to mark a crack in the international body's automatic majority against all things Israel.
Outraged over the failure of the resolution to mention Hamas even once — the source of much of the violence emanating from the coastal enclave — the US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, proposed an amendment that would have condemned the terrorist group.
Algeria, which had proposed the resolution together with Turkey, called for a “no-action motion,” which would have prevented a vote on the amendment. According to General Assembly rules, the motion was put to a vote of all member states.
Surprisingly, 78 countries — including all European Union member states, and yes, even Sweden — opposed Algeria's move. Only 59 countries — the usual suspects from the Arab bloc and the Non-aligned Movement — supported it.
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