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Fifty Years of Using International Law Against Israel: A Social Justice Narrative Takeover
(Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs) Tirza Shorr - The year 2025 marks the 50th anniversary of UN General Assembly Resolution 3379, which declared that Zionism is a form of racism. Nonbinding UN resolutions fuel international court lawfare against Israel, which has only increased following Hamas's October 7, 2023, massacre. The result has been the endowment of moral and political legitimacy to terrorist aggressors, negating the fundamental values of the international system. A collection of UN resolutions made Palestinian political violence a legitimate form of political expression. UN resolutions provide justification, reinforcement, and prestige for Palestinian terrorism - including that of Hamas. Both sides now "equal," the UN began using the terminology "a cycle of violence" when referring to IDF clashes with terrorists. The politicized international courts are conducive to the "narrative" approach that reinterprets history and disregards a legal, adjudicated examination of evidence, favoring social justice. The "critical justice" reinterpretation of law views facts through the lens of corrective narratives. Therefore, terms such as "occupation," "invasion," and "blockade" are not interpreted conventionally, but in a way that will afford "social justice." Alternatively, direct efforts to remold definitions are employed: on December 11, 2024, Ireland requested that the UN broaden its definition of "genocide," so that Israel would be found guilty in the ICJ case. Israel has become the "canary in the coal mine" at the UN - an indigenous people in their ancestral homeland uniquely targeted for "colonialism." The democratic majority rule principle has been usurped to compel the now outnumbered West to subvert the UN's original vision. The writer is a senior researcher and program coordinator at the Jerusalem Center.