It is a tale as old as time. Israel uses disproportional force against Palestinians, horrific pictures of causalities grace our screens, there is international outcry and the United Nations passes some resolutions against the violence-and then nothing. We await the next tragedy.

Israel is again in trouble with the UN, after its catastrophic handling and use of brute force on Palestinian protesters, who were protesting the Nakba – the 1948 Palestinian exodus - against the backdrop of the opening of the American embassy in Jerusalem, which was another bellicose diplomatic decision. The UN Human Rights Council voted through a resolution calling on the council to “urgently dispatch an independent, international commission of inquiry” — the UN rights council’s highest-level of investigation.

There was a heartening lack of opposition to the resolution-only two of the council’s 47 members, the United States and Australia, voted against the resolution. It seems that the enormously disproportionate causality rate, with no Israeli injuries to 60 Palestinians dead, and the use of force between the Israeli soldiers, who were armed, and the Palestinians, who were protesting with rocks and slingshots, was just simply too much even for the Israelis to cogently justify, or at least, get away with it.

This condemnation and international show of support is of some relief to the Palestinian cause in the face of Israel’s brute strength and US ally ship. However it would have been much more helpful if these UN resolutions had proven to be a source of change or caused some groundwork for holding Israel to accountability. Unfortunately, the past has shown that UN resolutions do little to deter an affront Israel, who has started wearing these UN resolutions as a badge of honour. It is quite a clichéd way out for an oppressor, to term all reasonable criticisms of it as a mass-conspiracy.