Stephen Zunes

A U.S. decision to stall Security Council action against Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas for war crimes during the 22-day conflict in Gaza last December has come under heavy fire both from inside and outside the United Nations.

The last time–and only time–the United States came before the United Nations to accuse a radical Third World government of threatening the security of the United States through weapons of mass destruction was in October 1962. In the face of a skeptical world and Cuban and Soviet denials, U.S. ambassador Adlai Stevenson presented dramatic photos clearly showing the construction of nuclear missiles on Cuban soil. While the resulting U.S. military blockade and brinksmanship was not universally supported, there was little question that the United States had the evidence and that the threat was real

U.S. support for Israel has taken a qualitative shift to the right during the past year. While previous administrations have generally supported Israel’s negotiating positions, most analysts placed the U.S. position more or less in the center of the Israeli political spectrum. In most ways, U.S. policy makers identified with the more hawkish wing of the center-left Labor party, well to the right of the Israeli peace movement yet more moderate than the rightist Likud bloc. In the year since the September 11 terrorist attacks against the United States, however, the U.S. position has lined up with the quintessential rightist Ariel Sharon.