Can Malaysia's Resolution Really BOOT ISRAEL OUT Of THE UN?

Right, so this is an interesting proposal that news has broken on today as it appears Malaysia, who have for a some time been openly critical of Israel’s invasion of Gaza and the atrocities they have committed since look to have found a way, via a draft resolution of getting Israel expelled from the UN. Now I, like many others I daresay have been of the view that this would not be possible, since expulsion of a UN member state requires the actions of the UN Security Council and with the US using their veto on that body in perpetuity to shield Israel from any form of censure, that perhaps suspension of being able to sit at the General Assembly, barred from voting and the like as was done to apartheid South Africa was a likelier possibility. But maybe that isn’t the point? Maybe if it does fail due to requiring UN Security Council approval, it will shine a light on the unforgivable nature of nations like the US and the UK and one notable reason for that is the basis that Malaysia’s not yet published resolution will be allegedly formed upon, but that is really only half the story where the UK’s ongoing shamelessness here is concerned, there’s a double whammy for them should the choose to yet again take Israel’s side and do so over the UN itself.
Right, so Malaysia have had enough and a resolution has now been drafted and is currently being examined by lawmakers poring over the wording to present to the UN ‘soon’ in order to have Israel expelled as a member state. For as long as the UN Security Council is the decision making body here, such a move as far as I can see it will fail, because the United States will almost certainly veto it, however I’m going to row back on being 100% certain on that because of the apparent basis for Malaysia’s resolution, which I’ll come onto in a moment. First, here’s an excerpt on what is still a breaking news story really, though naturally is still yet to be picked up in any UK media outlet, so this has been taken from the South China Morning Post:
‘Malaysia will seek the support of Arab nations at an emergency summit next week for a proposal to expel Israel from the United Nations, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim told lawmakers, accusing it of violating international law and UN directives in its unrelenting war on Gaza.
More than 43,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed and much of Gaza levelled since Israel launched its war in October last year after a Hamas attack killed 1,200 people on its territory.
Muslim-majority Malaysia has been a vocal critic of Israel’s assault on Gaza, banning the entry of Israeli shipping giant Zim while Malaysians have been actively boycotting businesses perceived to be linked to the US, Israel’s principal ally and arms supplier.
Anwar, who has led the outcry, said Malaysia stood firm in its support for the Palestinians to establish their sovereign state, free of the “dispossession, terrorism, cruelty and genocide” committed by Israel.
Anwar said he would present the measure at an emergency summit convened by the Arab League in Riyadh next Monday.
Saudi Arabia’s foreign ministry said last week that the Arab-Islamic summit would address Israel’s continued “crimes and violations” in Gaza and its expansion of military strikes in Lebanon.’
Malaysia really have taken the Israel Palestine situation incredibly seriously, that excerpt mentions BDS by Malaysians against Israel centric businesses, that really does gloss over some of the damage being done in the name of Israeli support. Starbucks for example has just closed 100 stores in the country, though denies this has been down to BDS, claims it is restructuring, but the reality is that they’ve lost some 35% of their sales volume and all of it stems from the company suing a trade union representing a group of their workers who showed solidarity with one of their number who made a social media post expressing support for Palestine. It’s caused global problems for them, no sympathy at all, but in Malaysia, that cost appears to be severe.
That excerpt also mentioned that a meeting of the Arab League has been convened, an emergency meeting of as you might expect majority Muslim states as that is, in order to gain support for the presentation of this resolution, so clearly this isn’t going to come out suddenly this week. Yes it’s being expedited, but done right, because they know they only have the slimmest of slim chances to pull this off and they can’t afford to give the US an out based on a technicality. As such the evidence needs to be there to prove that persistent violations of international laws have been committed. If they’re going to veto this as I would imagine most people would widely expect, they need to own the shame that follows.
There’s another thing that Malaysia also needs to evidence irrefutable proof of, which brings me onto the basis of this resolution and why it may have the slimmest sliver of a chance of succeeding and that is persistent violations of UN rulings and decisions.
How bad would it look if Malaysia managed to present a resolution to the United Nations Security Council, evidencing where the councils own decisions have been thrown back in their faces, dismissed, ignored, violated whatever your adjective of choice might be to describe it, and the US still vetoes the resolution? That would be a veto that would basically say that their loyalty and defence and protection of Israel counts for more than UN decisions do, which would make the United States position on the UN Security Council untenable, despite being a permanent member, and I’ll come back to that point presently.
The basis for Malaysia making this move now follows Israel’s Knesset ruling, that has now officially banned UNRWA from carrying out it’s humanitarian aid duties, go about its UN mandated business to deliver aid via Israel to the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
This of course has followed the tens of UNRWA worker deaths that Israel has perpetrated, not to mention the attempt already to bankrupt the agency, after making up a pack of lies that they were all Hamas, despite providing no evidence for that, and now they’ve pulled the same stunt again, only this time voting in their parliament to boot out UNRWA in defiance of UN ruling as they are expected to adhere to as a UN member state.
So this is what the US will have before it when this resolution comes to the UN Security Council. Are you with Israel or UNRWA? We can hazard a guess where that will probably go, but my God the optics of picking Israel and their genocide over the aid agency helping their innocent victims? You can hear the global demands for the US’s removal from the UN Security Council ringing in your ears already! Fanciful talk you might say Damo, but actually, that might not be completely true.
You see to throw a state out of the UN, it has to be voted on by the UN General Assembly after the UN Security Council agree, that’s the bit we don’t expect to happen to Israel, but what if it’s the US instead? Can it veto its own expulsion? Or even can it’s veto over Israel be ignored if it’s just too much of a global pi**-take to accept such a decision being vetoed again?
There does appear to be a route whereby the UN General Assembly can take a vote regardless of what the Security Council say and it’s something I found on the website of Lawfare Media, though the article in question posits the expulsion of Russia from the UN, Russia also being a permanent Security Council member state and it comes down to UN Charter Article 4 and a discussion of the ICJ from the 1960’s.
Article 4 reads:
1. ‘Membership in the United Nations is open to all other peace-loving states which accept the obligations contained in the present Charter and, in the judgment of the Organization, are able and willing to carry out these obligations.
2. The admission of any such state to membership in the United Nations will be effected by a decision of the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council.’
This places conditionality upon UN membership, that the member state abide by UN decisions and not violate them, allow their obligations to be carried out, very much summing up UNRWA’s work and that by blocking that, the member state is in violation of the UN Charter itself. That’s not the UN Security Council’s remit to obstruct, or at least if it does, it keeps open the door for their position to be challenged, though it’d certainly involve a court case I daresay.
About that court though. The ICJ in 1962 came to an advisory ruling concerning the cost of operations going on at that point in The Congo and the Middle East and whether to apportion it across all member states, you can read the whole story on Lawfare Media’s website I’ll not go into that all here, but the ICJ determined that costs should be apportioned across all member states a clarification of Article 17 as this was, but it was one paragraph of their findings that matters here:
‘In connection with the suspension of rights and privileges of membership and expulsion from membership under Articles 5 and 6, it is the Security Council which has only the power to recommend and it is the General Assembly which decides and whose decision determines status; but there is a close collaboration between the two organs.’
So the General Assembly according to that albeit advisory opinion, can overrule the Security Council. It’d still go to court, but with precedent set, who knows?
As for where the UK getting shamed in all of this comes in, well, the timing of when the resolution being presented by Malaysia going before the UN Security Council, will mean the monthly rotation of who will have to chair this issue amongst current Security Council members means it will be the UK presiding over this and them taking the cowardly abstention way out of this after directing the debate? That’ll look worse than every one of their other previous abstentions won’t it, as if the issue of abstaining over UNRWA being rendered illegal arbitrarily by a rogue member state wouldn’t be bad enough as it was?
The UN will have a choice if the US does as it always does and raises that hand of veto once again. Step up finally and do what you came together to do, or let one rogue state protect another and damn your reputation further in the eyes of the world. Will it take other states leaving the UN in disgust to elicit some action as demanded by the rest of the world and the actual people living in it not being represented by their leaders?
Meanwhile as the US goes to the polls today to pick their next president seemingly on the basis of which one will protect Israel’s right to commit genocide between which one smiles whilst backing it and which one won’t, they are seemingly imposing new restrictions regarding medical assistance being accessible to those in need in Lebanon escaping more of Israel’s atrocity by demanding they go through their pre-approved checkpoint in Jordan only. It’s all about Hezbollah and not health, just who is in charge? Get the details of that story in this video recommendation here as your suggested next watch and I’ll hopefully catch you on the next vid. Cheers folks.