Category: diplomacy

Don’t Believe the Rampant Disinformation over Israel’s Escalation in Lebanon

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Truthout August 2, 2024: The US is misrepresenting the strike on Majdal Shams and even the geography and political status of where it took place. Israel has been trading strikes with Hezbollah, the Lebanese political party and armed group, ever since October. So far, the strikes have killed at least 542 people in Lebanon, including 114 civilians and at least 22 soldiers and 25 civilians in northern Israel and Israeli-occupied territory…

Interviews: Middle East,
KPFA Oct. 2023-July 2024

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Twelve more interviews on KPFA Evening News aired Sundays on KPFA-FM and Pacifica Radio Network affiliated stations October 7, 2023 through July 2024

Russian Aggression, US Hypocrisy & Is UAE a Safe Haven for Oligarchs?

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There’s No Justification for Russia’s Aggression, But U.S. Double Standards on Illegal War Are Hard to Stomach: Nothing can excuse Putin’s invasion, but the hypocrisy could hardly be more striking. The Progressive March 1, 2022

Al Jazeera quotes Zunes March 7, 14 and 29
*The limits of Iran’s influence on Yemen’s Houthi rebels
*Analysis: Can the UAE be a safe haven for Russian oligarchs?
*Can Russia return to the world stage as other aggressors have?

News on Syria? Why Are Left Activists Falling For Fake News On Syria?

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On Rising Up with Sonali April 18, 2018: After President Donald Trump declared “Mission Accomplished” in Syria in the wake of US air strikes last week, the question about the veracity of reports on the chemical attack in Douma has taken on a new urgency. Inspectors with the Organization For the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) are still awaiting access to the sites of the attack. Is it possible to accept that Syria’s government really did attack civilians and still be against U.S. militarism in Syria? Dr. Zunes posits it absolutely is.

Bipartisan Assault on Middle East Peace

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29 May 2012 Foreign Policy In Focus/Institute for Policy Studies
Also: Huffington Post, Antiwar.com, Rise Up Times, Salem News (Oregon)
and interviewed on The Scott Horton Show.
Earlier this month, the House of Representatives passed 411-2 a dangerous piece of legislation (H.R. 4133) which would undermine the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, weaken Israeli moderates and peace advocates, undercut international law, further militarize the Middle East, and make Israel ever more dependent on the U.S.

WikiLeaks Cables on Western Sahara Show Role of Ideology in State Department

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Over the years, as part of my academic research, I have spent many hours at the National Archives poring over diplomatic cables of the kind recently released by WikiLeaks. The only difference is that rather than being released after a 30+ year waiting period — when the principals involved are presumably dead or in retirement and the countries in question have very different governments in power — the WikiLeaks are a lot more recent, more relevant and, in some cases, more embarrassing as a result.

However, those of us who have actually read such cables over the years find nothing in them particularly unusual or surprising. Indeed, the only people who would be surprised or shocked by what has been released in the recent dump of diplomatic cables are those who have a naïve view that the U.S. foreign policy is not about empire, but about freedom, democracy, international law, and mutually-respectful relationships between sovereign nations. There is little indication that the foreign governments in question are particularly surprised at any of the content in these cables either.

It would be a mistake, however, to assume the interpretations of events by State Department personnel contained in these documents are accurate reflections of reality. While many career Foreign Service officers are sincere and dedicated people, the nature of their role forces them to see the world from inside the prism of a hegemonic power. They cannot expect to have a more enlightened view of developments within a Middle Eastern state than, for example, a representative of the British Foreign Office would have had a century earlier.

For my doctoral dissertation on what motivated U.S. military intervention in Latin America and the Middle East during the 1950s, I spent many hours reviewing cables sent to and from U.S. embassies in Guatemala and Iran in the months prior to the U.S.-backed coups in those countries. I read frantic messages sent by senior diplomats in the U.S. embassy and top officials in the State Department and the White House regarding what they feared to be imminent Communist takeovers of those countries. Neither of these fears was based on reality, of course, but it was widely believed to be true.

By contrast, there is absolutely nothing in the hundreds of cables I reviewed in the lead-up to the coups indicating that the desire to overthrow Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossedegh was based primarily on his nationalization of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company or that the plans to overthrow Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz was based upon his nationalization of some lands owned by the United Fruit Company. It was based on a sincere, if grossly exaggerated, fear that there was a real threat that these countries would become dominated by pro-Soviet Communists. This certainly does not rule out the likelihood that powerful corporate interests which had a stake in ousting these nationalist leaders helped create the climate that led to such paranoid speculation. However, as far as those who made the key decisions were concerned, it appears to have been based primarily on this fear of Communist takeovers.

There is a tendency among critics of U.S. foreign policy to assume a level of rationality in decision-making that has led to the emergence of many popular conspiracy theories. Yes, there have certainly been conspiracies. Yes, in the final analysis, powerful corporate interests do play an important role in U.S. foreign policy. Yet what is often overlooked is the role of ideology, of the way that those embedded in U.S. embassies are willing to take the prevailing line simply because that it what they are pre-disposed to believe and they didn’t have the opportunity or the willingness to figure things out otherwise. This is why, absent of corroborating evidence, I’m skeptical about leaked documents regarding large-scale Iranian support of Iraqi insurgents and other claims which appear to legitimate U.S. militarism.

Our man in Rabat

One of the clearest examples of this phenomenon of allowing ideology to interfere with honest reporting comes in a recently-released cable from the U.S. charge d’affairs in the U.S. embassy in Morocco, Robert P. Jackson.

In his lengthy analysis regarding the conflict over Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara, he makes the preposterous assertion that the independence struggle is essentially an Algerian creation, ignoring decades of popular resistance and longstanding Sahrawi nationalism which pre-dated Algeria’s support for the nationalist Polisario Front. He bases this claim on the fact that because the Polisario has failed to claim Sahrawi-populated parts of southern Morocco as part of the Western Sahara state, this somehow proves that the struggle is “less nationalist than geopolitical, linked to the much older dispute between Algeria and Morocco, and hardly boosts the case for an independent state.”

In reality, the reasons for this distinction between the two Sahrawi-populated regions is that the Polisario — unlike Morocco and its supporters — understands international law: The Sahrawi-populated Tefaya region is universally-recognized as part of Morocco whereas Sahrawi-populated Western Sahara is recognized as a non-self-governing territory under foreign belligerent occupation and therefore has the right to self-determination, including the option of independence. If Morocco would allow the Tefaya region to become part of an independent Western Sahara, there certainly would be no objections by the Polisario, but they simply understand that they have a much stronger case regarding Western Sahara itself. Instead, this U.S. diplomat implies that this willingness to recognize this important legal distinction somehow delegitimizes the nationalist struggle.

Jackson goes on to criticize the United Nations for recognizing the Polisario, along with Morocco, as the two principal parties in the conflict, insisting that the Algerians — who have no claim to Western Sahara — are the key to peace because of their support for the Polisario. Rather than pressure Morocco to abide by a series of UN Security Council resolutions and a landmark decision by the International Court of Justice to allow for an act of self-determination, he calls on UN special envoy Christopher Ross, a veteran U.S. diplomat, to “budge [Algerian] President Bouteflika and his government” to allow Morocco to consolidate their conquest.

This cable is very reminiscent of the longstanding effort by State Department officials during the Cold War to delegitimize national liberation struggles by claiming they were simply the creation of Cuba, the Soviet Union, or some other nation-state challenging U.S. hegemony. Indeed, in a throwback to Cold War rhetoric, Jackson insists that the Polisario Front, which has been recognized as the legitimate government of Western Sahara by over 80 governments, is “Cuba-like.” In the cable, Jackson calls for U.S. support for Moroccan calls for a census and audit of international programs in Polisario-led refugee camps, but not support for the international call for human rights monitors in the occupied territory. In addition, rather than recognizing the right of Sahrawi refugees to return under international law, he unrealistically suggests that the Sahrawi refugees all be resettled in Spain.

Contradicting findings by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and other observers which provide evidence to the contrary, he insists that “respect for human rights in the territory has greatly improved” and “once common beatings and arbitrary imprisonment have also essentially ceased.” Despite an unprecedented level of popular resistance against the occupation, he insists “support for independence is waning.” He praises Morocco’s development efforts in the occupied territory, even claiming that Al Aioun, the occupied Western Sahara capital, is “without any Shantytowns,” which is news to those of us who have actually been there and seen them.

In a rare moment of candor, Jackson acknowledges that Morocco’s “hard-line stance may have been bolstered by what was perceived in the Palace as uncritical support from Washington.” However, he falsely claims that most governments in the UN Security Council support Morocco’s “autonomy” plan for Western Sahara, which not only promises a very circumscribed level of self-governance but prohibits the people of Western Sahara from voting on the option of independence as required under international law.

Not long after this cable was written, Jackson was promoted by President Obama to his first post as full ambassador, to the U.S.-backed dictatorship in the Republic of Cameroon. This serves as yet another example that a willingness to tow the official line rather than critically examining the evidence is the key to advancement in the U.S. Foreign Service.

Still No Peace

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President George W. Bush has been using somewhat stronger language than he has uttered previously about the Israeli-Palestinian situation and has made some optimistic predictions of a peace agreement within a year. Nevertheless, there is little reason to hope that the president is any more serious about or is any more likely to be successful in bringing about a negotiated settlement to the conflict.

The United States still rejects the application of international law in settling the conflict, opting instead to use as its starting point the status quo based on Israel’s 40-year occupation. This underscores the longstanding and inherent contradiction between the United States simultaneously playing the role of chief mediator in the conflict and being the chief military, financial and diplomatic supporter of the more powerful of the two parties. As a result, Israel, the occupying power, has little incentive to compromise and the relatively powerless Palestinians under occupation have little leverage to advance their struggle for an independent viable state.

Harry Siegman, who headed the American Jewish Congress from 1978 to 1994 and subsequently served as a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, has faulted the Bush administration for failing to acknowledge “the consensus reached long ago by Israel’s decision-making élites that Israel will never allow the emergence of a Palestinian state which denies it effective military and economic control of the West Bank.” Observing what most independent observers of the peace process have noted since the election of a right-wing coalition government in Israel in early 2001, Siegman writes that “Israel’s interest in a peace process – other than for the purpose of obtaining Palestinian and international acceptance of the status quo – has been a fiction that has served primarily to provide cover for its systematic confiscation of Palestinian land….”

As far back as 2004, Dov Weissglas, senior advisor to the Israeli prime minister, admitted that the U.S.-backed Israeli government’s decision was to effectively suspend diplomatic efforts to create a Palestinian state. As Weissglas told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, “When you freeze that process, you prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state, and you prevent a discussion on the refugees, the borders and Jerusalem. Effectively, this whole package called the Palestinian state, with all that it entails, has been removed indefinitely from our agenda.” Citing the support for this policy by both the Bush administration and Congress, he went on to observe that the Israeli government could do this “with authority and permission. All with a presidential blessing and the ratification of both houses of Congress.”

Indeed, the Bush administration, the leadership of both parties in Congress, and the leading Republican and Democratic presidential candidates have all made clear that they will not pressure Israel to move the peace process forward or even to comply with a series of relevant UN Security Council resolutions. For example, as reported by the BBC, when asked why the United States refused to insist that Israel abide by a series of UN Security Council resolutions addressing the outstanding issues in the peace process, President Bush responding by proclaiming that “the choice was whether to remain stuck in the past, or to move on.” This was necessary, according to the president, because “the UN deal didn’t work in the past,” ignoring the fact that these earlier UN efforts failed as a direct result of the United States blocking the Security Council from enforcing its resolutions regarding Israel’s international legal obligations.

The resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian impasse comes down to four major unresolved issues: Israeli settlements, Israeli withdrawal, the status of Jerusalem, and Palestinian refugees. Each of these issues is summarized below. In each category, the Palestinian position is far closer to the international legal consensus while the U.S. position is much closer to that of the Israel’s rightist government, underscoring the reasons for the failure of the much-vaunted Roadmap for Peace and the peace process in general.

Israeli settlements

The issue: Since its forces invaded and captured the territory in 1967, the Israeli government has colonized large segments of the occupied West Bank (including greater East Jerusalem), seizing Palestinian land to construct scores of settlements reserved for Jews only. A series of walls and fortified fences snake deep into the West Bank to separate these settlements and surrounding areas from much of the Palestinian population. Since the occupied Palestinian territory in which these settlements, the highways connecting them, and the surrounding farmland inside the separation barriers are integral to creating a contiguous Palestinian state, maintaining the settlements makes the establishment of a viable Palestinian state impossible.

International Law: The Fourth Geneva Conventions prohibit an occupying power from transferring any part of its civilian population onto lands seized by military force. UN Security Council resolutions 446, 452, 465, and 471 explicitly call on Israel to remove its colonists from the occupied territories. A 2004 advisory ruling by the International Court of Justice also ruled that the settlements were illegal.

Palestinian position: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has demanded a freeze on the expansion of settlements as called for in the Road Map and supports the international legal consensus that the settlements are illegal and Israeli colonists should be required to return to Israel. Many Palestinians argue that these abandoned settlements would be ideal for the resettling of Palestinian refugees. It appears that Abbas would be willing to accept Israel maintaining most of the largest settlements in greater East Jerusalem and along the border with Israel, however, in return for an equivalent amount of sparsely-populated territory in what is now Israel.

Israeli position: With the exception of a few isolated outposts – consisting primarily of a small number of mobile homes in parts of the northern West Bank maintained without government sanction by religious zealots – the Israeli government wants to maintain these settlements and the surrounding areas and annex them to Israel. Despite hopes at the Annapolis meeting in November that the Israelis would agree to a settlement freeze, the Israeli government has recently announced the expansion of a controversial settlement on seized Palestinian land just north of Bethlehem and other settlements elsewhere in greater Jerusalem.

U.S. position: Though as recently as the early 1980s, the United States recognized that these settlements were illegal, the current U.S. position is that it is up to Israeli and Palestinian negotiators to determine the fate of the settlements. The Bush administration and a large bipartisan majority of Congress have gone on record condemning the 2004 decision by the International Court of Justice and supporting the Israeli position that it be able to maintain the majority of its settlements, which are increasingly referred to by U.S. officials simply as “Jewish neighborhoods.”

Israeli withdrawal

The Issue: The longstanding international consensus has been for the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip – the Palestinian areas seized by Israeli forces in 1967 – presumably with a 40-mile highway connecting the two (without exits, like the roads connecting West Berlin with West Germany during the Cold War). These two areas constitute only 22% of historical Palestine. Currently, President Abbas’ Palestine Authority – under a coalition government dominated by the Fatah movement – controls most of the populated areas of the West Bank, while Israeli occupation forces, civilian settlers, and the infrastructure to support them has made 40% of the West Bank off limits to Palestinians. Israeli occupation forces control movement between areas controlled by the Palestine Authority through 450 roadblocks and 70 additional checkpoints. The Islamist Hamas movement controls the Gaza Strip, but Israel has effectively placed this crowded enclave under siege, shutting down with the airport and seaport and sealing the borders.

International Law: A cornerstone of international law and the UN system, as reiterated in UN Security Council resolution 242 – long seen as the basis for peace between Israel and its neighbors – regards the “inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war.” Resolution 242 and subsequent Security Council resolutions call for Israel to withdraw from the territories seized in the 1967 war, though the wording implies a possible exception for very minor and reciprocal border adjustments. There is also a widespread legal consensus that Israel’s system of roadblocks and checkpoints in the West Bank and its siege of the Gaza Strip are excessive, going well beyond what is necessary for Israeli security and are therefore in violation of international humanitarian law.

Palestinian position: The Palestinians recognized Israeli sovereignty over 78% of Palestine in the Oslo Agreement in 1993 and are currently calling for sovereignty over only the remaining 22% conquered by Israel in the 1967 war. President Abbas has indicated a willingness to allow Israel to annex small segments of the occupied West Bank along the border in return for an equivalent amount of Israeli land. He has called for an immediately lifting of the roadblocks and checkpoints and – despite his intense rivalry with Hamas – an easing of the siege of Gaza Strip on humanitarian grounds.

Israeli position: Israel has already annexed occupied East Jerusalem and surrounding areas and plans to annex large swathes of West Bank as well, which would divide the West Bank into a series of non-contiguous cantons that would resemble the notorious Bantustans of South Africa during Apartheid rule. It has defended its siege of the Gaza Strip and its strict limitations on freedom of movement in the West Bank on security grounds.

U.S. position: While formally calling for “an end to the occupation that began in 1967,” President Bush refuses to call for a complete Israeli withdrawal, arguing instead that “territory is an issue for both parties to decide.” While calling for the creation of a Palestinian state that is “viable and contiguous,” he has failed to pressure Israel to withdraw from enough occupied land to make that possible. Indeed, during his recent visit to Jerusalem, President Bush explicitly stated that Israel’s internationally recognized pre-1967 borders must be expanded “to reflect current realities” – that is, Israel’s illegally-constructed settlements in the occupied West Bank – a position also backed by the Democratic Party in their 2004 platform. Bush has even defended the ubiquitous Israeli roadblocks and checkpoints as necessary for Israel’s security, though the vast majority are on roads connecting West Bank cities and do not run close to the Israeli border, and has backed Israel in its ongoing siege of the Gaza Strip.

Jerusalem

The issue: Originally designated by the UN in 1947 as an international city under neither exclusive Israeli nor Arab sovereignty, Jerusalem was divided between Israeli and Jordanian control between 1948 and 1967 and has been under exclusive Israeli control subsequently. Israeli Jews were forbidden from entering the Jordanian-controlled half of the city prior to 1967, and Israel has in recent years severely restricted Palestinian Christians and Muslims from entering the city. Israel has substantially expanded the city’s eastern and northern boundaries, which it has populated with Jewish settlers, and has annexed all of greater East Jerusalem, including its large Palestinian population. Given the city’s significance to both populations, any sustainable peace agreement would need to recognize Jerusalem as the capital city for both Israel and Palestine.

International Law: Consistent with the prohibition regarding the illegitimacy of any country expanding its territory by force, the UN Security Council has passed a series of resolutions (252, 267, 271, 298, 476 and 478) calling on Israel to rescind its annexation of greater East Jerusalem and to refrain from any unilateral action regarding its status. The UN has also called for a negotiated settlement that recognizes the legitimate rights of all peoples.

Palestinian position: In addition to its religious significance for both Palestinian Christians and Palestinian Muslims, Jerusalem has long been the most important cultural, commercial, political, and educational center for Palestinians and has the largest Palestinian population of any city in the world. President Abbas has called for Palestinian sovereignty over Palestinian-populated areas and has expressed a willingness to accept Israeli sovereignty over Jewish-populated areas, even those areas seized from Arab landowners in the aftermath of the 1967 war.

Israeli position: Israel has unilaterally annexed Jerusalem and its environs and has categorically rejected these UN resolutions, insisting that – with the possible exception of administrative responsibility regarding Islamic holy places – there would be no Palestinian rule within the city, even over Palestinian-populated neighborhoods. The Israeli Knesset recently passed a law requiring a two-thirds majority to alter the status of the city, which makes it unlikely for a more moderate Israeli government in the future to compromise on this issue.

U.S. Position: President Bush has refused to call for Palestinian sovereignty over even the Palestinian-populated segments of the city, only going as far as declaring it to be “a tough issue” that is up to the two parties to resolve among themselves. An overwhelming bipartisan majority of Congress has effectively recognized Israel’s annexation of greater Jerusalem. Over the past 15 years, the United States has blocked a series of UN Security Council resolutions confirming previous calls on Israel to rescind its annexation and has even blocked resolutions which simply refer to Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem as “occupied territory.”

Refugees

The Issue: As a result of both escaping from the fighting and, in some areas, a calculated policy of ethnic cleansing by Israeli forces, over 700,000 Palestinians fled into neighboring Arab countries in the late 1940s during Israel’s war of independence. Israel confiscated their land and refused to allow them to return. The surviving refugees and their descendents now total four million, most of whom still live in refugee camps and, with the partial exception of Jordan, are denied full citizenship rights. These refugee camps were the base from which the Palestinians armed struggle – including terrorist groups – emerged from the 1950s through the 1980s.

International Law: UN General Assembly resolution 194, reiterated annually, calls on Israel to allow refugees to return in accordance with international humanitarian law, which guarantees the right of anyone to leave or return to their country of origin. This right of return was codified with the assumption that such refugees would be able to return within weeks or months, however, not after several generations. The applicability of this international legal principle to the current situation is therefore open to debate. UN Security Council resolution 242 simply calls for “a just resolution to the refugee problem.”

Palestinian Position: The Palestinians continue to officially demand the right of return, though there are indications that this demand is largely a bargaining chip to force Israeli concessions on the other outstanding issues. It appears that the Palestinians would be willing to accept the resettlement of refugees within the boundaries of the new Palestinian state and in other Arab countries in return for financial compensation, Israeli acknowledgement of its culpability in the tragedy, and for the ability of a small number of first-generation refugees to return.

Israeli Position: Israel categorically rejects any right of return for Palestinian refugees or any responsibility in the origins of the refugee crisis, noting that the return of Palestinian refugees and their descendents would result in a non-Jewish majority in Israel.

U.S. Position: Both the Bush administration and a broad bipartisan majority of Congress have gone on record demanding that the Palestinians unilaterally renounce their right of return. During his recent visit, Bush only called for compensating the refugees and reiterated his support for Israel as a “Jewish state.”

http://www.fpif.org/articles/still_no_peace

The Failure of Annapolis

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Despite the best efforts by the Bush administration of putting a positive spin on the recently-completed summit in Annapolis to restart the “Performance-Based Road Map to Peace,” there is little reason to expect that it will actually move the Israeli-Palestinian peace process forward as long as the United States insists on simultaneously playing the role of chief mediator and chief supporter of the more powerful of the two parties.

Though the Road Map was originally put together in 2002 as an international effort – with the United Nations, Russia and the European Union (which take a more balanced approach to the conflict) on equal footing with the United States – it’s the United States alone that is now in charge of monitoring the process. According to text of the Annapolis agreement, “implementation of the future peace treaty will be subject to the implementation of the road map, as judged by the United States” (emphasis added).

President George W. Bush added that “The parties further commit to continue the implementation of the ongoing obligations of the road map until they reach a peace treaty” and “The United States will monitor and judge the fulfillment of the commitment of both sides of the road map.”

Alarms Raised

Given that the United States has consistently sided with Israel, the occupying power, throughout the peace process in its disputes with the Palestinians, it gives little hope that Palestinian concerns will be adequately addressed. This has raised alarms among international observers, such as Saudi Foreign minister Saud al-Faisal, who stressed that it was “absolutely necessary to establish an international follow-up mechanism that monitors progress in the negotiations among the parties, as well as the implementation of commitments made” (emphasis added).

Phase I of the original Road Map included 24 points that were required of the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority, including an end to Palestinian violence, Palestinian political reform (including free elections), Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian Authority areas re-conquered since 2001, and a freeze on the expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied territories. Even though the document made clear that these were to be pursued simultaneously and in parallel to each other, the United States has accepted Israel’s interpretation that Israel was not required to address any of its obligations under Phase I until the Palestinians had first completely lived up to all of its obligations under Phase I.

In other words, unless or until the weakened and isolated Palestine Authority could somehow prevent every Palestinian with access to guns, explosives or rockets from attacking any Israelis, the government of Israel was under no obligation to pursue any of its responsibilities under the Road Map.

Furthermore, through a series of presidential statements, exchanges of letters and congressional resolutions, the United States has already gone on record supporting the Israeli position on most of the outstanding issues. Examples include refusing to acknowledge the right of return of Palestinian refugees, accepting Israeli annexation of greater East Jerusalem, not requiring Israel to completely withdraw from territories seized in the 1967 War, and allowing Israel to maintain large settlement blocs on the occupied West Bank.

Limited Leverage

With Israel’s extraordinary military superiority over any combination of Arab forces ruling out a military option and with the United States blocking the United Nations from placing sanctions on Israel, the only leverage the Arab states currently have is to withhold diplomatic and economic relations from Israel until Israel withdraws from the occupied territories. As a result, those wishing to enable Israel to successfully annex the occupied territories have been pushing the Arab states to unilaterally end their economic boycott and recognize Israel without Israel being obliged to end its occupation and colonization of the West Bank and the Golan Heights.

Just prior to the Annapolis conference, a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, drafted by Democratic Senator Charles Schumer of New York and Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, insisted that success of the Annapolis conference would be based not on Israeli willingness to live up to its international legal obligations but “on the cooperation we receive from the larger Arab world.” The letter insisted that Arab states wishing to attend the conference should unilaterally “recognize Israel’s right to exist and not use such recognition and as bargaining chip for future Israel concessions” and “end the Arab League economic boycott of Israel in all its forms.” The letter made no mention of the establishment of a Palestinian state, and end to the Israeli occupation, the withdrawal of illegal Israeli settlements, or any other Israeli obligations. As Jim Zogby of the moderate nonpartisan Arab American Institute put it, “if the goal is for Arab states not to participate in the upcoming conference, this would be the way to go.”

The letter was signed by 79 Senators, including presidential hopefuls Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Christopher Dodd and Joseph Biden.

Special Bond

Fortunately, the Bush administration resisted this effort to sabotage the conference by refusing to establish such pre-conditions, yet once again the United States appears to be putting the onus of responsibility on those under foreign military occupation and their allies rather than the occupiers themselves. Given that the Palestinians have already given up 78% of historic Palestine in the 1993 Oslo Accords, Israeli and U.S. demands that they give up even more of their homeland will indeed be hard for the Palestinians to accept.

This bias toward the occupying power was evident in Bush’s speech in Annapolis, in which he reiterated the U.S. contention that the Palestinian Authority, whose areas of control are confined to series of tiny impoverished cantons surrounded by Israeli occupation forces, must take the lead. Despite these unfavorable conditions, Bush insisted that prior to the final status issues being addressed, the Palestinian Authority must first “accept its responsibility, and have the capability to be a source of stability and peace – for its own citizens, for the people of Israel, and for the whole region.”

By contrast, in the same speech, President Bush simply called on Israel to “remove unauthorized outposts” and “end settlement expansion,” not to withdraw from the much larger and more problematic settlements which have been authorized by the Israeli government despite that all Israelis settlements have been deemed illegal under the Fourth Geneva Convention by four UN Security Council resolutions and a ruling by the International Court of Justice. Nor is there any mention of any other Israeli responsibilities under international law as specified by other outstanding UN Security Council resolutions, such as withdrawing from occupied Palestinian territory seized in the 1967 War, rescinding the annexation of greater East Jerusalem, or taking responsibility for a just resolution of the Palestinian refugee situation.

Rejecting Amnesty’s Calls

The Bush administration also ignored calls by Amnesty International that the conference establish measurable benchmarks requiring both Israelis and Palestinians “to halt and redress the grave human rights abuses and serious violations of international humanitarian law that continue to destroy lives on both sides.” The United States continues to reject calls by Amnesty International and others to allow for the deployment of international human rights monitors and to live up to its responsibilities as a signatory of the Fourth Geneva Conventions and other international human rights treaties to use its influence to enforce international humanitarian law. The Bush administration has strongly backed calls by Amnesty and others that radical Palestinian groups end their attacks on Israeli civilians, but has refused to support similar calls that the Israeli armed forces end their attacks on Palestinian civilians.

Nor has the Bush administration acceded to calls by Amnesty and others to pressure Israel to release the thousands of Palestinian political prisoners not charged with terrorist offenses who are currently jailed, to end its demolitions of Palestinian homes, to end the blockade of humanitarian supplies to the Gaza Strip, and to honor its prior commitment to remove some of the 560 military checkpoints and blockades which prevent the movement of people and goods within the West Bank.

Despite the belated U.S. support for the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel, the bipartisan U.S. refusal to take seriously human rights and international law in addressing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will make the emergence of a viable Palestinian state impossible and doom the peace process. For the reality is that Israeli security and Palestinian rights are not mutually exclusive, but mutually dependent upon the other. Until the United States recognizes that reality, there is no hope for peace.

http://www.fpif.info/fpiftxt/4787

Broken Peace Process

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There’s little reason to hope for a breakthrough at the Middle East peace summit in Annapolis, unless there is a fundamental shift in U.S. policy in addressing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And there’s little evidence to suggest such a change is forthcoming.

Indeed, Yossi Beilin, the Israeli Knesset member and former cabinet official who served as one of the major architects of the Oslo Accords, called for the conference to be canceled, fearing that it will only be “an empty summit that will only attract Arab ambassadors and not decision-makers alongside an Israeli leadership that prefers [appeasing Israeli hardliners] over a breakthrough to peace.” As a result, he argues that the meeting is doomed to fail and, as a result, would “weaken the Palestinian camp, strengthen Hamas and cause violence.”

The reason for such pessimism is that ever since direct Israeli-Palestinian peace talks began in the early 1990s, U.S. policy has been based on the assumption that both sides need to work out a solution among themselves and both sides need to accept territorial compromise. As reasonable as that may seem on the surface, it ignores the fact that, even if one assumes that both Israelis and Palestinians have equal rights to peace, freedom and security, there is a grossly unequal balance of power between the occupied Palestinians and the occupying Israelis. It also avoids acknowledging the fact that the Palestinians, through the Oslo agreement, have recognized the state of Israel on a full 78% of Palestine and what Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is asking for is simply the remaining 22% of Palestine that was seized by Israel in the 1967 war and is recognized by the international community as being under belligerent occupation.

International Law

However one may respect Israel for its democratic institutions (at least for its Jewish citizens), its progressive social institutions (like the kibbutzim), and its important role as a homeland for a historically oppressed people, the fact remains that the Palestinians have international law on their side in demanding, in return for security guarantees, an Israeli withdrawal from all of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. The U.S. position, however, is that 22% is too much and that the Palestinians must settle for less.

According to Israeli journalist Uri Avnery, the only way the conference could pave to way the peace would be if President George W. Bush decided “to exert intense pressure on Israel, to compel it to take the necessary steps: agree to the establishment of a real Palestinian state, give up East Jerusalem, restore the Green Line border (with some small swaps of territory), find an agreed-upon compromise formula for the refugee issue.” The United States, which provides Israel with over $4 billion in military and economic aid annually and has repeatedly used its veto power at the UN Security Council to protect the Israeli government from being compelled to live up to its international legal obligations, has the power to do so.

According to Shlomo Brom of Tel Aviv’s Institute for National Security Studies, “Judging from previous experience, US pressure can be very effective.” There’s no evidence that the United States plans to use that kind of clout, however, to move the peace process forward.

Illegal Settlements

The Palestinians, Saudis and other Arab participants have been pushing for a comprehensive package of Israeli actions that would include a freeze on the growth of illegal settlements in the occupied territories, the release of Palestinian political prisoners, the relaxation of travel restrictions and checkpoints in the occupied territories and an end of construction of parts of the separation barrier inside the West Bank as called for by the International Court of Justice. Failure for Israel to agree to such conditions and the failure of the United States to push Israel to agree to such conditions has led to concerns that the conference would be simply a propaganda coup by the Bush administration and Israeli government to give the appearance of an ongoing peace process when, in fact, they are unwilling to make the necessary comprises for a sustainable peace.

Israel has recently announced the release of approximately 400 Palestinian prisoners, though thousands – most of whom have never engaged in terrorism – remain incarcerated. Some of the roadblocks that have crippled travel and commerce in the occupied West Bank have been lifted, but scores of others still impede Palestinians from traveling from one town to another.

There are some indications that Israel will announce at the conference a freeze on the construction of additional settlements in the West Bank. However, they have agreed to such a freeze on several previous occasions, including in an annex to the 1978 Camp David agreement, the 1992 loan guarantee agreement, the 1993 Oslo Accords, their response to the 2001 Mitchell Report, and other times, only to continue construction anyway without the United States insisting they live up to their promises. And Israel has ruled out withdrawing from these illegal settlements, every one of which violates the Fourth Geneva Convention, which deem it illegal for any country to transfer any part of its civilian population onto territories seized by military force.

Indeed, UN Security Council resolutions 446, 452, 465, and 471 explicitly call on Israel to remove its colonists from the occupied territories. However, both the Bush administration and an overwhelming bipartisan majority in Congress have gone on record that Israel should not be required to withdraw from the majority of these settlements.

It’s these settlements, along with the separation barrier snaking its way deep into the West Bank to separate them and surrounding areas from Palestinian population centers, which has made a peace settlement impossible, since the apparent goal of formally annexing them into Israel would divide up a future Palestinian mini-state into a series of non-contiguous cantons consisting of as little as half of the West Bank. These Jewish-only settlements connected by Jewish-only highways effectively have created an apartheid-like situation on the West Bank. Any Palestinian state remaining would effectively be comparable to the notorious Bantustans of South Africa prior to majority rule. Despite this, this partial Israeli disengagement from most Palestinian-populated areas while controlling much of the land surrounding them – known as the Convergence Plan – has received the support of the Bush administration and an overwhelming bipartisan majority of Congress.

Photo Op

Unless Israel and the United States are willing to address the core issues – boundaries that would insure a viable contiguous Palestinian state, withdrawal of troops and settlers from the West Bank (except perhaps for some along the border in exchange for an equal amount of Israeli land), and a just resolution of the refugee problem – the conference will amount to little more than a photo op.

Indeed, the current unilateral Israel initiative is not much worse than the so-called “generous offer” put forward by former Prime Minister Ehud Barak at the Camp David summit in 2000. Arafat’s understandable refusal to accept such a limited proposal was then used by the United States and Israel as supposed proof of the Palestinians’ lack of desire for peace.

The Annapolis meeting is ostensibly designed to re-start the process along the so-called “Roadmap” for Israeli-Palestinian peace, originally announced in 2002, which was to be based on the principle of Israeli support for the establishment of a viable Palestinian state alongside Israel following democratic reforms by the Palestinian Authority and the end of terrorist attacks. Provisions called for in Phase I, which was originally hoped to have been completed by 2003, included an end to Palestinian violence, Palestinian political reform (including free elections), Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian Authority areas re-conquered since 2001, and a freeze on the expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied territories.

However, Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi and a sizable majority of House members sent a letter to Bush insisting that the peace process be based “above all” on an end of Palestinian violence and the establishment of a new Palestinian leadership. There was no mention of any reciprocal actions by the Israeli government, reiterating the longstanding U.S. position that it is not the occupation, but resistance to the occupation, that is the root of the conflict. President Bush agreed and, not surprisingly, the Roadmap stalled.

Recognizing Israel as a Jewish State

The prospects of progress growing out of the Annapolis meeting is made all the less likely due to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s insistence, backed by the U.S. Congress, that the Palestinians, despite having formally recognized Israel, also recognize Israel as a “Jewish state” before substantive issues can be negotiated. Given the sizable Palestinian minority in Israel and concerns that it would legitimate past and future Israeli efforts at ethnic cleansing, this demand is something that the Palestinian government could never agree to and appears to be designed to prevent the peace process from moving forward.

Indeed, the Soviets never demanded as a precondition of any agreements with the United States that the USSR be formally recognized as a “Communist state,” nor has Pakistan ever demanded that India recognize it as an “Islamic state.”

Though the United States has indicated its desire to emphasize an end to Palestinian violence – particularly acts of terrorism – and addressing Israel’s security concerns, there is no indication that the United States plans to address issues concerning human rights or international law outside of providing increased humanitarian relief for the Palestinians.

If progress seems so unlikely, why is the United States pushing for this summit to go forward? One motivation may simply be for the United States to improve its standing among pro-Western Arab regimes by appearing to be interested in the plight of the Palestinians in order to gain support for the ongoing war in Iraq and increasing threats against Iran. Whatever the reason, unless and until the United States recognizes that Israeli security and Palestinian rights are not mutually exclusive, but mutually dependent upon the other, there is little hope for peace.

http://www.fpif.org/articles/broken_peace_process

U.S. Blocks Israel-Syria Talks

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Even as American officials reluctantly agreed last month to include Syrian representatives in multiparty talks on Iraqi security issues, the Bush administration continues to block Israel from resuming negotiations with Syria over its security concerns. In 2003, President Bashar al-Assad offered to resume peace talks with Israel where they had left off three years earlier, but Israel, backed by the Bush administration, refused. Assad eventually agreed to reenter peace negotiations without preconditions, but even these overtures were rejected.

Beginning in 2005, with the knowledge of their governments, private Israeli and Syrian negotiators began crafting a draft treaty to end the decades-long conflict between the two countries. The Bush administration, however, downplayed the talks’ significance.

Following last summer’s war in Lebanon, several prominent members of the Israeli cabinet – including Defense Minister Amir Peretz and Internal Security Minister Avid Dichter – called on their government to resume negotiations with Syria. Although Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni appointed a senior aide to prepare for possible talks, such initiatives did not get any support from Washington. According to the Jewish Daily Forward, it appeared that “Israel would be prepared to open a channel with Syria but does not want to upset the Bush administration.”

Indeed, when Israeli officials asked Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice about pursuing exploratory talks with Syria, her answer, according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, was, “don’t even think about it.” Similarly, the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth reports that Israeli government officials “understood from President Bush that the United States would not take kindly to reopening a dialogue between Israel and Syria.”

Such pressure appears to have worked. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert reportedly expressed concern that it would inappropriate to counter President Bush at a time when his policies are being seriously challenged at home, since he has such a “clear position on this issue” and he is “Israel’s most important ally.” Similarly, Israeli Vice Premier Shimon Peres was quoted as saying, “The worse thing we could do is contradict the United States, which opposes negotiating with Syria.” Interior Minister Ronni Baron told a television reporter, “When the question on the agenda is the political legacy of Israel’s greatest friend, President Bush, do we really need now to enter into negotiations with Syria?”

Hostility to Earlier Initiatives

Israel and Syria came very close to a peace agreement in early 2000. The Israeli government of Prime Minister Ehud Barak agreed to withdraw from Syrian territory occupied since the June 1967 war in return for Syria agreeing to strict security guarantees, normalized relations, the demilitarization of the strategic Golan Heights and the cessation of support for radical anti-Israel groups. Only a dispute regarding the exact demarcation of the border, constituting no more than a few hundred yards, prevented a final settlement.

With the death of Syrian president Hafez al-Assad later that year and the coming to power of the right-wing Likud Bloc in the subsequent election, talks were indefinitely suspended. Assad’s successor, Bashar al-Assad, called for the resumption of talks where they left off, but both Israel and the United States rejected the proposal.

The Syria Accountability Act, passed by an overwhelming bipartisan majority of the U.S. Congress in 2003, demands that “the Governments of Lebanon and Syria should enter into serious unconditional bilateral negotiations with the Government of Israel in order to realize a full and permanent peace.” Congress and the administration insisted that Syria enter new talks “unconditionally” rather than resume them from the two parties’ earlier negotiating positions – in which both sides made major concessions and came very close to success after several years. In so doing, the U.S. government effectively rejected the position of the more moderate Israeli government of former Prime Minister Barak and instead embraced the rejectionist position of the current right-wing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

As a result, it is unclear how the U.S. government’s demand that Syria enter into such negotiations with an occupying power that categorically refuses to withdraw from its conquered land will “realize a full and permanent peace.” Indeed, Congress and the administration appear to want to force Syria to capitulate entirely and accept Israel’s annexation of Syria’s Golan region. If so, this demand is unrealistic. The UN Charter expressly forbids any nation from expanding its territory by force, recognizing Israel’s annexation would violate a series of UN Security Council resolutions, and no Syrian government – even a hypothetically democratic one – could ever accept such a settlement.

It is also noteworthy that Congress and the administration insist that both Syria and Lebanon enter into bilateral negotiations with Israel instead of multilateral negotiations. Such multilateral negotiations, called for by UN Security Council resolution 338, makes particular sense given the interrelated concerns of these three nations. In any case, prior to President Bush signed the Accountability Act into law, President Assad announced Syria’s willingness to accede to U.S. and Israeli demands and resume talks with Israel unconditionally.

In response to these initiatives, Israel announced at the end of 2003 that it would double the number of Jewish settlers in the occupied Golan region of Syria. According to Agriculture Minister Yisrael Katz , who also chaired the government’s settlements committee, “The aim is to send an unequivocal message: the Golan is an integral part of Israel.” This renewed colonization drive is also a direct violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits any occupying power from transferring its civilian population onto territories seized my military force, and UN Security Council resolutions 446, 452, 465 and 471, which call on Israel to refrain from building additional settlements and withdraw from existing settlements.

Israeli Public Challenges Bush

Within Israel, however, there is also a growing awareness that returning the Golan Heights to Syria would not jeopardize Israeli security. While maintaining the high ground may have constituted a strategic advantage 40 years ago, it is far less important in an era when the principal threats to Israel’s security come in the form of suicide bombers and long-range missiles. Israeli army chief Lt. Gen Moshe Yaalon observes that, from a strategic perspective, Israel could cede the Golan Heights in return for peace and successfully defend Israel’s internationally-recognized border.

With Syria calling for a resumption of peace talks, pressure has been growing within Israel to resume negotiations, with polls showing that a majority of Israelis support such efforts. Alon Ben-Meir, a professor of international relations at the Center for Global Affairs at New York University, argues for the need to engage with Syria, otherwise the Bush administration “will forfeit another historic opportunity to bring an end to the Arab-Israeli conflict, however remote that prospect may now seem.”

Many Israelis also recognize the broader implication of resuming dialogue with Damascus, in that it would likely reduce Iran’s regional influence, weaken the threat from Hezbollah, improve Israel’s relations with other Arab states, and encourage more pragmatic Palestinian voices while weakening extremists. “The moment there are negotiations with Syria, then everything changes in the Middle East,” says Danny Yatom, former head of the Israeli intelligence service Mossad, “and we can begin renewing ties with other Arab states.” Robert Malley, former special assistant to President Clinton for Arab-Israeli affairs, notes how “the mere sight of Israeli and Syrian official sitting side by side would carry dividends, producing ripple effects in a region where popular opinion in is moving away from acceptance of the Jewish state’s right to exist, an putting Syrian allies than oppose a negotiated settlement in an awkward position.”

As a result, the pressure from the Bush administration on Israel to reject Syria’s offer for negotiations and the Israeli government’s willingness to give in to such pressure has led to growing resentment in Israel. According to the normally hawkish Maariv columnist Ben-Dror Yemini, “We’ve always said that our arms are extended in peace. That is, unless the Americans twist them.” The eminent Israeli novelist Amos Oz asks, “Why should Israel suspend one of its paramount national interests – peace with its neighbors – for the sake of the pleasantness or unpleasantness of its relations with a foreign government?”

Debra DeLee, head of the liberal pro-Israel group Americans for Peace Now, says that “it takes a lot of chutzpah to tell Israel not to even talk about peace with its neighbor.” She goes on to assert that it was “outrageous…for the President to pressure Israel not to negotiate.”

Putting Syria into a Trap

Ironically, the Syria Accountability Act, passed by an overwhelming bipartisan majority of Congress in 2003, contains a provision prohibiting any U.S. assistance to Syria until the U.S. president “determines that substantial progress has been made . . . in negotiations aimed at achieving a peace agreement between Israel and Syria.” Given the administration’s repeated efforts to block such negotiations from taking place in the first place, it obviously makes it difficult for Syria to comply.

The primary motivation may be more sinister, however.

The Jerusalem Post reported on July 30 that President Bush pushed Israel to expand the war beyond Lebanon, with Israeli military officials “receiving indications from the US that America would be interested in seeing Israel attack Syria.” In the early days of the fighting, U.S. Deputy National Security Adviser Elliott Abrams reportedly met with a very senior Israeli official to underscore Washington’s support for extending the war to Syria, but Israeli officials described the idea as “nuts” and decided to limit their military operations to Lebanon. Haaretz noted that some in Washington were “disappointed by Israel’s decision not to attack Syria at the same time.” Meyrav Wurmser, head of the Center for Middle East Policy at the conservative Hudson Institute and wife of the principal Middle East advisor for Vice-President Cheney, went further, declaring that there was “a lot of anger” in Washington that Israel did not attack Syria, which she argued would have served “U.S. objectives.” U.S. officials also hoped that an Israeli invasion of Lebanon might lead Syrian troops to re-enter Lebanon to defend the country from the Israeli invasion, which could then be used as an excuse to expand the war to Syria itself.

Not everyone in Israel supports attacking Syria on behalf of the United States. As bad as the Assad regime may be, forcing its overthrow could result in a new regime that is far worse. Following a forced departure of the Baathists who have ruled for over 44 years, radical Sunni Islamists would be most likely poised to take advantage of the inevitable chaos.

However, the Bush administration appears quite willing to continue its divide-and-rule policies in the Middle East by preventing the resumption of talks that could end hostilities between Israel and its Arab neighbors. It is yet another reminder that the problem with U.S. policy is not that it is too “pro-Israel,” but that it is anti-peace.

http://www.fpif.org/articles/us_blocks_israel-syria_talks

The United States, the UN, and the Lebanon Ceasefire

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The UN Security Council resolution for a ceasefire to the fighting in Lebanon is certainly good news in terms of ending the carnage. Passed on August 11, Resolution 1701 is also a marked improvement over the original U.S. draft and contains some positive language. Both sides, for instance, are called upon to honor a full cessation of hostilities. And Israel must provide the UN with maps of landmines planted in southern Lebanon during Israel’s 22-year occupation that ended in 2000.

But the ceasefire resolution took longer than necessary to achieve. The fighting could have ended weeks ago, but the United States threatened to veto earlier draft resolutions. Instead, the Bush administration insisted on a version that would have allowed Israel to remain in Lebanon and continue at least some military operations, provisions rejected by other Security Council members. These delays cost the lives of hundreds of civilians and billions of dollars worth of damage to Lebanon’s civilian infrastructure. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, however, was clearly unperturbed by the additional weeks of killings. “This has been time that’s been well spent over the last couple of weeks,” she said at an August 7 press conference with President Bush.

Perhaps more troubling for the future, Resolution 1701 contains some disturbing ambiguities that may make a permanent peace between Lebanon and Israel elusive.

Close Reading of the Text

The initial UN resolution proposed by the United States would have required Hezbollah to “cease all attacks” but Israel only to cease “all offensive military operations.” Given that Israel and the United States had justified Israel’s attacks on Lebanon’s civilian infrastructure as legitimate acts of “self-defense,” such language could have given Israel license to continue fighting. No peacekeeping force would have been able to enter the area under such conditions.

The new resolution calls for “a full cessation of hostilities.” The United States insisted, however, on the inclusion of the wording “based upon, in particular, the immediate cessation of attacks by Hezbollah and the immediate cessation by Israel of all offensive military operations.” Despite this ambiguity, the call for a full cessation of hostilities appears to have been enough to end most of the fighting, despite the Israeli commando attack in eastern Lebanon less than a week after the ceasefire.

The new resolution has some other particularly troubling ambiguities. It calls on Israel to withdraw from southern Lebanon “in parallel” with Lebanese army forces as they moved into positions throughout that part of the country. The lack of a timetable, however, has raised concerns that a full Israeli withdrawal might take many months.

Though the Secretary General and other top UN officials have documented extensive violations of international law by the Israeli armed forces, the resolution simply refers to the “conflict between Hezbollah and Israel.” While preliminary estimates indicate that Israel was responsible for far more death and destruction than Hezbollah, the resolution refers to the suffering of “both sides,” implying symmetry in the two countries’ experiences.

In addition, the resolution speaks of the need to address urgently the causes that have given rise to the current crisis, including the unconditional release of the abducted Israeli soldiers. The original U.S. draft referred to the seizure of the Israeli soldiers as the single “root cause” of the crisis. The compromise language of the resolution, while more ambiguous about the conflict’s origins, makes no reference to the widespread evidence that Israel with strong encouragement from the Bush administration had actually been planning this assault on Lebanon for many months or that Israel had repeatedly violated Lebanese air space and engaged in other border violations in the months and years leading up to the July 12 attack by Hezbollah on the Israeli border post.

And though Israel (both in the recent round of fighting and historically) has launched far more attacks against Lebanon than any Lebanese party has against Israel, the United States successfully demanded that the peacekeeping force only be deployed on the Lebanese side of the border. Similarly, and also at the insistence of the United States, the resolution calls for the “unconditional release of the abducted Israeli soldiers” seized by Hezbollah commandoes inside Israel, but only for “encouraging” efforts to settle “the issue of Lebanese prisoners detained in Israel” who were abducted by Israeli commandoes inside Lebanon.

That the resolution would essentially blame Hezbollah for initiating the conflict while not criticizing Israel’s widespread violations of international humanitarian law indicates that, despite compromising on a number of key points, the United States had a heavy hand in shaping the final version of the resolution.

Other Resolutions, Other Violations

The United States has placed great emphasis on the implementation of UN Security Council resolution 1559, passed in 2004, which calls for the respect of the sovereignty, territorial integrity, and unity of Lebanon “under the sole and exclusive authority of the Government of Lebanon throughout Lebanon,” the withdrawal of foreign forces from Lebanon, the extension of Lebanese government control over all Lebanese territory, and the disbanding and disarmament of all militias.

However, statements from the Bush administration and a series of congressional resolutions have only mentioned the disbanding and disarmament of Hezbollah’s militia, even though Israel’s reoccupation of parts of southern Lebanon was also in violation of 1559. Typical was President Bush’s August 7 statement to the press: “Had the parties involved fully implemented 1559, which called for the disarmament of Hezbollah, we would not be in the situation we’re in today.”

It is striking how much the administration and an overwhelmingly bipartisan majority in Congress have pressed Hezbollah over which the United States has little leverage to abide by UN Security Council resolution 1559 while not calling on the implementation of a series of UN Security Council resolutions currently being violated by Israel, over which the United States has enormous leverage. These include UN Security Council resolutions 446, 452, 465, and 471, which call on Israel to withdraw from its settlements in the occupied territories, including East Jerusalem; UN Security Council resolution 497, which calls on Israel to rescind its annexation of the Golan Heights; UN Security Council resolutions 252, 267, 298, 476, and 478, which call on Israel to rescind its annexation of greater East Jerusalem; and UN Security Council resolution 487, which calls on Israel to place its nuclear facilities under the trusteeship of the International Atomic Energy Agency. The United States either voted in favor of or abstained on every one of these resolutions. Not included in this list are the 42 Security Council resolutions on Israeli violations of international legal norms that were vetoed by the United States and therefore do not have the force of law.

Furthermore, given that Israel’s Arab neighbors have offered full security guarantees in return for a full Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories, one could make a case that Israel is also violating resolutions 242 and 338, the “land for peace” formulation long held up as the basis for a permanent settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The U.S. government clearly believes that enforcement of UN resolutions depends not on any objective legal standard but on the relations that a given government or party has with the United States.

Ceasefire Implications

Israel has been sufficiently bloodied by its ill-fated ground assault against entrenched Hezbollah guerrillas in southern Lebanon that it would not likely try something like that again, even if pressed by Washington. The presence of the Lebanese army and international forces in the south would also likely serve as a deterrent to future Israeli aggression. Further commando raids as well as future air strikes and other forms of collective punishment against the Lebanese people are still quite possible, however, thanks to the successful effort by the Bush administration, with bipartisan support from Capitol Hill, to block the UN from sanctioning or even censuring Israeli war crimes.

Given the political advantages gained by Hezbollah from the recent conflict, the extremist group may again seek to provoke a conflict with Israel. The resolution does not explicitly call for the total disarmament of Hezbollah’s militia nor does it give the multinational force the authority to force such a move. However, it does clearly bar Hezbollah forces from operating south of the Litani River, which would keep the militia at least twenty miles from the Israeli border. It also refers to a previous Security Council resolution (UNSC 1559) and a treaty signed by various Lebanese parties (the Taif Accords) that call for all such militias within Lebanon to disarm and disband. The resolution also bans the “sales or supply of arms and related material to Lebanon except as authorized by the government,” presumably as a means of stopping Iran from providing additional missiles to Hezbollah. It is unclear whether the Lebanese government, even backed by a multinational force, will be able to enforce these edicts.

The inability of the UN to stop the fighting earlier and the weakness of the resulting compromise demonstrate that the power of the United States in the Security Council severely restricts the UN from fulfilling its principal mandate to prevent aggression by one state against another. If a UN member state can get away with launching a full-scale attack on the civilian infrastructure of a neighboring member state following a minor border incident (even when instigated by the militia of a minority party outside the control of the central government of that country), this constitutes a serious breakdown in the international legal order. As with the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the U.S.-Israeli war on Lebanon has shown that the United States and its allies can get away with breaking the most fundamental international laws that have provided at least some semblance of global order since World War II.

And if the United States (the most dominant military and economic power the world has ever known) believes that it and its allies do not have to play by the rules, why should Hezbollah or anyone else?

http://www.fpif.org/articles/the_united_states_the_un_and_the_lebanon_ceasefire