The General Assembly and the Popular Force for the Palestinians

Author: جهاد حرب

The United Nations General Assembly resolution regarding the adoption of the New York Declaration clarified two important issues; the first: the broad global support for the two-state solution option, where 74% of the total member states in the United Nations (142 out of 193) voted in favor, which is an important step toward having a plan to implement this option or at least protect it at a time when the Palestinian people are facing genocide, ethnic cleansing, and a lack of hope for a political solution with an Israeli political class rejecting the two-state solution through peaceful means.

In my opinion, this decision, as much as it represents support for the Palestinian people and the preservation of political options and paths, imposes or presents an additional challenge to the Palestinian people regarding their seriousness in the struggle for independence and freedom and the establishment of a democratic state based on solid foundations built on two tracks; the first: achieving a minimum understanding of the political project primarily based on the option of establishing a Palestinian state on the borders of June 4, 1967, and agreeing on the tools and means of popular Palestinian struggle to achieve political goals after the experience of failure of both negotiations and armed struggle that the Palestinian people can no longer bear their heavy costs. The second is to respect the rule of law, restore the spirit of the democratic political system, and entrench its foundations through strict adherence to the constitutional rules stipulated in the Basic Law, reform what has been corrupted by time, and abandon political tricks and deferment initiatives from the other side.

As for the second issue: it concerns the degree of binding nature of the United Nations General Assembly decisions that are often debated when the assembly makes a decision regarding the Palestinian issue. This debate is based on international relations rather than international law, as signing the United Nations Charter and joining it means that member states or signatories to the charter respect the principles and purposes included in the charter and any decisions issued based on it from the structures of the United Nations, regardless of whether it is the General Assembly or the Security Council. Both the Security Council and the General Assembly, as well as the International Court of Justice, lack an implementation mechanism for the decisions issued by them except in one case where the Security Council makes decisions under Chapter VII which allows the Security Council to use force (such as sanctions or military strikes) or to delegate its use to States or one of them.

On the other hand, the binding nature of the General Assembly’s decisions is evident when the United States resorted to the General Assembly for intervention in the Korean War in 1950 after the Security Council was paralyzed from making a decision regarding the military conflict at that time under the agenda of "Union for Peace" or resolution 377/3. This decision, the recourse of the great powers to the General Assembly to obtain legitimacy for the use of military force in itself demonstrates the binding nature of the General Assembly's decisions. Some may view it as exceptional, but the main problem lies in the operational mechanisms of the United Nations, which depend on implementing its decisions based on the operational mechanisms of the international system; based on interests and the superiority of power are two significant elements if available alongside the intentions of the Security Council or the General Assembly and their decisions to be taken for implementation; otherwise, the decisions issued by the Security Council and the General Assembly are neglected.

The Palestinians possess a kind of power, "popular power," to translate this decision by transforming it into tools of international pressure on the Israeli government at both individual state levels and regional organizations to achieve peace in the region based on the two-state solution and to fulfill its obligations that it voted for in the same resolution. This can be done by leveraging the wider Palestinian and Arab energies at both official and popular levels, especially in the Palestinian and Arab communities, and networks and movements that support the Palestinian people, transforming them into permanent and established pressure tools on the governments of Western countries, not just contenting themselves with recognizing the Palestinian state, but continuing that through respecting their commitments similar to what happened with the apartheid government in South Africa.