Why more than 500 scholars think Israel should be unseated from the UN

More than 500 scholars and practitioners of international law, international relations, conflict studies, politics and genocide studies have called on the UN General Assembly and its member states to unseat Israel from the assembly.

The UN General Assembly suspended apartheid South Africa in 1974 until its transition to democracy. The scholars argue there is a stronger case for suspending Israel, given its persistent disregard for international law over more than seven decades, including violations of the UN Charter, Security Council resolutions, and orders by the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

In a joint letter shared with Middle East Eye, the signatories listed a wide range of acts committed by the state of Israel since its establishment in 1948 that have been in defiance of international law. The letter said that Israel has “shown contempt” for resolutions by the General Assembly throughout its history. 

These include Israel’s violation of Resolution 194 (III) (1948), enshrining the Palestinian right of return, and Resolution 181 (II) (1947), enshrining Palestinian state sovereignty. The two resolutions were viewed as conditions of Israel’s admission to the UN, under Resolution 273 (III) (1949).

Additionally, Israel has consistently breached legally binding UN Security Council resolutions, including resolutions related to Gaza since 7 October 2023. This adds to the list of Security Council resolutions violated by Israel for decades, mainly concerned with its unlawful occupation of Palestinian territories. 

Such defiance of Security Council resolutions amounts to a clear violation of Article 25 of the UN Charter, which warrants expulsion from the UN, the scholars said.

Under Article 6 of the UN Charter, the General Assembly has the authority to expel a UN member state upon a recommendation from the Security Council, if the state has “persistently violated” the principles enshrined in the charter.

The scholars added that Israel has also disregarded authoritative legal opinions by the ICJ, beginning with an advisory opinion in 2004 calling on Israel to respect the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination, and another in July 2024 confirming the illegality of its occupation and annexation of Palestinian lands. 

“The legal case for suspending Israel from the General Assembly is even stronger than it was for South Africa,” said Maryam Jamshidi, a Colorado university law professor who is one of the signatories to the letter. “Israel has not only violated the right to self-determination of the Palestinian people for decades, including through committing the crime of apartheid, the International Court of Justice has also made clear that the General Assembly and its Member States must address those violations,” she told Middle East Eye.

In addition to breaching international legal obligations, Israel is also accused of violating the protections enshrined for UN bodies and peacekeepers. 

This includes banning the UN’s relief organisation for Palestinians (Unrwa) and killing members of its staff in Gaza; attacks on UN peacekeepers in Lebanon; declaring the UN Secretary General persona non grata, and barring UN special rapporteurs from entering occupied Palestine since 2008. 

International legal system at stake

Israel is facing charges before the ICJ of violating the 1948 Genocide Convention, in a case brought by South Africa in December in connection with Israel’s ongoing onslaught on Gaza.

The application alleged that Israel has committed acts intended to destroy Palestinians, who are defined as a national, racial and ethnic group, in whole or in part. It also alleged that Israel has failed to prevent or punish such acts.

‘The case for unseating Israel’s government for lack of representativeness is just as strong as it was in the case of South Africa, if not stronger’

– letter to the UN General Assembly

The acts include killings; causing serious bodily and mental harm; mass expulsion and displacement; and deprivation of access to adequate food, water, shelter, clothes, hygiene, and medical assistance.

On 26 January, the ICJ said that it was plausible that Israel had breached the Genocide Convention. As an emergency measure, it ordered Israel to ensure its army refrained from genocidal acts against Palestinians.

But the onslaught continued unabated, with over 43,000 Palestinians killed over the past year, around 70 percent of them women and children.

Following requests by South Africa, the court subsequently issued legally binding interim orders on 28 March and 24 May that called on Israel to halt its assault on Rafah in southern Gaza and ensure the unimpeded delivery of humanitarian aid to Palestinians.

In its May order, the ICJ court also directed Israel to ensure that UN investigators could enter Gaza to investigate allegations of genocide.  

But Israel has defied the court’s orders. The ICJ reported, as part of its decisions in March and May, that the situation in Gaza had deteriorated and that Israel had failed to abide by its order in January. 

The procecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) has also sought arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity perpetrated in the current conflict.

But the case remains outstanding and the arrest warrants have yet to be issued, more than five months after the prosecutor’s application. Israel has challenged the legality of the arrest warrant request, saying it should investigate itself for the alleged crimes.  

In their letter, the scholars warned that the gravity of Israel’s breach of international law and its continued impunity constitute a threat to the integrity of the international legal system.

This reiterates the opinion of UN experts in October, who expressed their concern about the breakdown of the international multilateral system as a result of the international community’s failure to hold Israel accountable for “genocidal acts, ethnic cleansing and collective punishment”.

“The General Assembly and its Member States can and must take meaningful action on both fronts – the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and the integrity of the international legal system – without delay by unseating the Israeli government from the Assembly, in accordance with the Assembly’s authority to approve the credentials of Member State delegations,” the scholars said.

In 1974, the decision to suspend the credentials of South Africa was based on its failure to represent the indigenous Black population. 

According to the letter, the UN South Africa decision was “implicitly grounded in the right of self-determination, which was denied to the country’s Black population by the very nature of apartheid.

“As demonstrated by the ICJ’s July 19, 2024 advisory opinion on the legal consequences of Israel’s policies and practices in the OPT (occupied Palestinian territories), the case for unseating Israel’s government for lack of representativeness is just as strong as it was in the case of South Africa, if not stronger,” the scholars said.

The ICJ’s July advisory opinion said that the General Assembly and UN member states have a legal obligation to realise the Palestinian right to self-determination. The scholars’ letter argues that this provides a strong foundation from which to unseat Israel – otherwise, they argue, the international legal order would be at stake.

“To permit Israel to continue participating in the General Assembly as it commits grave illegalities that pose a threat to international peace and security in contravention of the premises of the UN Charter aggravates a crisis of legitimacy in the international legal order,” they wrote.

“The unseating of the Israeli state, by contrast, signals that the General Assembly, as well as the UN more broadly, remains dedicated to defending and protecting the rights and principles upon which the UN was founded nearly eighty years ago.”