The Disastrous Relationship Between Israel, Palestinians and the U.N.

The Ezra Klein Show

New York Times Opinion

Society & Culture, Government, News

4.6 • 11K Ratings

🗓️ 17 May 2024

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The international legal system was created to prevent the atrocities of World War II from happening again. The United Nations partitioned historic Palestine to create the states of Israel and Palestine, but also left Palestinians with decades of false promises. The war in Gaza — and countless other conflicts, including those in Syria, Yemen and Ethiopia — shows how little power the U.N. and international law have to protect civilians in wartime. So what is international law actually for? Aslı Ü. Bâli is a professor at Yale Law School who specializes in international and comparative law. “The fact that people break the law and sometimes get away with it doesn’t mean the law doesn’t exist and doesn’t have force,” she argues. In this conversation, Bâli traces the gap between how international law is written on paper and the realpolitik of how countries decide to follow it, the U.N.’s unique role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from its very beginning, how the laws of war have failed Gazans but may be starting to change the conflict’s course, and more. Mentioned: “With Schools in Ruins, Education in Gaza Will Be Hobbled for Years” by Liam Stack and Bilal Shbair Book Recommendations: Imperialism, Sovereignty and the Making of International Law by Antony Anghie Justice for Some by Noura Erakat Worldmaking After Empire by Adom Getachew The Constitutional Bind by Aziz Rana The United Nations and the Question of Palestine by Ardi Imseis Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected]. You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs. This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Annie Galvin. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Aman Sahota and Isaac Jones. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Rollin Hu, Elias Isquith and Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Carole Sabouraud.

Transcript

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0:00.0	From New York Times opinion, this is the Ezra Klein show. On Friday, May 10th, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution saying Palestinians qualify
0:28.5	for full member status at the UN.
0:30.9	In the end, the vote was overwhelming in favor 143 against nine abstentions 25.
0:46.0	This was new.
0:47.0	The General Assembly had never voted for that before,
0:50.0	but they did so now in overwhelming numbers.
0:53.0	The final vote was 143 to 9.
0:55.8	Israel voted against it.
0:57.4	So did the United States.
0:59.6	Now to make Palestinians, to make Palestine,
1:02.3	a full member of the UN would take a security council
1:04.8	approval. The US would veto that. Our position is in a Palestinian state should
1:08.8	only emerge through negotiations between
1:13.4	Palestinians and Israelis. But the vote itself was a sign of the chasm that is opening between not only
1:16.4	Israel and the UN, but America too.
1:19.1	Israelis have long felt the UN is biased against him. In 1975 the UN voted to declare
1:24.6	Zionism a form of racism, though appealed that in 1991. From 2015 to
1:30.0	2022 the UN Journal Assembly adopted 140 resolutions on Israel.
1:34.0	Over that same period, it passed 6-8 resolutions on all other countries combined.
1:39.3	At the same time, the UN was instrumental in the creation of Israel voting to partition the land of historic Palestine between Jews and Palestinians and giving a majority of it to Jews.
1:50.0	Palestinians feel the UN in particular and international law in general has been a procession of false promises.
1:55.9	Where is their state, their self-determination?
	...

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