How many UN resolutions have targeted Israel compared to other countries since 1946?
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Executive summary
Counting UN resolutions aimed at Israel is contested and depends on which UN body, timeframe and classification one uses; NGOs and the UN press both document large numbers of recent Israel-focused texts — for example, the UN General Assembly adopted major Israel/Palestine resolutions in 2025 with votes of 149–12 and 139–12 [1] [2]. Advocacy tracking by UN Watch reports dozens of Human Rights Council resolutions against Israel since 2006 and said the 2025 General Assembly was expected to adopt 17 Israel-related resolutions versus eleven on the rest of the world [3].
1. What people mean when they ask “how many”
Questions about how many UN resolutions “target” Israel usually conflate different tracks: General Assembly (GA) resolutions, Security Council (SC) resolutions, Human Rights Council (HRC) texts and special reports or emergency sessions. Each organ has different mandates and voting rules, and GA and HRC resolutions are non‑binding while SC resolutions can be binding. Sources show recent GA and HRC activity focused on Israel/Palestine [1] [3], but they do not provide a single definitive tally across all UN bodies since 1946 (available sources do not mention a comprehensive count since 1946).
2. Recent tallies and advocacy numbers — who is counting what
UN Watch, an NGO that monitors UN activity, reports comparative tallies such as “since 2006, the UN Human Rights Council has adopted 112 resolutions against Israel, 45 against Syria, 16 against Iran…” and argued that the GA in 2025 would adopt 17 Israel-related resolutions versus eleven for the entire rest of the world [3]. That framing is advocacy-driven: UN Watch’s intent is to highlight perceived bias, and its database organizes texts to support that narrative [3].
3. What the UN press covers — formal GA and HRC actions in 2025
UN press coverage documents high‑visibility GA votes in 2025: a June emergency GA resolution demanding a Gaza ceasefire passed 149–12 [1], and a December GA resolution welcoming an ICJ advisory opinion passed 139–12 with 19 abstentions [2]. The GA also adopted two December resolutions directing Israeli withdrawal from occupied Palestinian territory and the Syrian Golan Heights, with vote totals reported in media accounts as, for example, 151–11–11 and 123–41–7 respectively [4] [5]. These items confirm intense GA activity in 2025 [1] [2] [4].
4. Security Council action and contested narratives
The Security Council also acted in 2025 — notably adopting Resolution 2803, which some states and UN experts criticized as entrenching an approach seen as favoring security arrangements over Palestinian self‑determination [6] [7] [8]. The U.S. framed some subsequent GA resolutions as contradictory to SC consensus and called GA moves “one-sided” [6] [9] [8]. These competing statements show that counts alone don’t capture political disputes over legitimacy and legal effect [7] [8].
5. Historical context — limits of the available reporting
Comprehensive, authoritative counts of every UN resolution “targeting” Israel since 1946 are not presented in the sources provided; Wikipedia lists many Israel-linked UNGA items but is not a definitive tally and was last updated in October 2025 in the material here [10]. Security Council, GA and HRC archives exist [11] [10], but none of the current sources supplies a unified historic total dating back to 1946 (available sources do not mention a definitive aggregate count from 1946 to present).
6. How to interpret the disparity claims
Advocates who say Israel is singled out point to high counts of HRC and GA texts (UN Watch figures, p1_s1). Others — including some member states and diplomatic statements — argue GA measures are legitimate expressions of the international community’s position or respond to ongoing occupation, humanitarian concerns and ICJ findings [1] [2] [12]. UN experts and NGOs also dispute Security Council approaches that they say sideline Palestinian rights [7]. The debate is intrinsically political; numeric comparisons are used by both sides to support broader claims about bias or justice [3] [7].
7. What a careful answer would require
A verifiable answer requires: (a) defining which UN organs and document types count; (b) deciding which resolutions “target” a state (criticism, condemnation, or other specific measures); and (c) auditing primary UN archives (GA, SC, HRC and committee records) to compile and classify every text. None of the sources provided here contains that full, audited dataset dating back to 1946 (available sources do not mention such a dataset). For journalists or researchers, the UN document databases and Security Council Report are the appropriate next steps for a comprehensive historical tally [11].
Bottom line: recent UN activity shows intensive focus on Israel/Palestine in 2025 with multiple high‑profile GA votes and many HRC texts documented by NGOs [1] [2] [3], but current reporting in the provided sources does not supply a single, authoritative count of all UN resolutions targeting Israel versus other countries since 1946 (available sources do not mention a comprehensive historical total).