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http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-121501un.story
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Peace at any cost is a Prelude to War!
U.S. Rejects Resolution on Mideast
U.N.: Palestinians, Arab allies had called for international community to
intervene in violence.
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Times Headlines
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By WILLIAM ORME , Times Staff Writer
UNITED NATIONS -- Palestinians and their Arab allies forced a confrontation
with Washington early today, with the United States vetoing an Arab-backed
Security Council resolution calling for international intervention to halt "a
dangerous deterioration of the situation" in the Gaza Strip and West Bank.
The draft resolution won the support of a large council majority, with
France, Russia and Ireland joining the expected Asian and African supporters
of the Arab position. In a message aimed as much at the Bush administration
as at Israel, it called pointedly for the "preservation" of Yasser Arafat's
Palestinian Authority as "the indispensable and legitimate party" for future
negotiations in the region.
After hours of often bitter debate, with invited Israeli and Palestinian
speakers joining the 15 council representatives, the document won support
from 12 members, with two abstentions, Norway and Britain. But U.S.
Ambassador John D. Negroponte had announced earlier that "with regret" the
United States would veto the resolution, making a vote formally moot.
The United States signaled from the start that it would block the resolution,
which initially called for protection for Palestinian civilians but made no
explicit mention of Israeli civilian victims of the violence.
"It ignores the central issue, which is the terror attacks," James B.
Cunningham, the deputy U.S. representative to the United Nations, told
reporters when the council began debating the draft resolution Thursday
night.
On Friday, the text was broadened to include a condemnation of "all acts of
violence and terror resulting in deaths and injuries among Palestinian and
Israeli civilians." But Negroponte said that it remained too one-sided in its
emphasis on Israeli actions in the Gaza Strip and West Bank and that it
failed to specifically decry the recent suicide attacks against Israelis.
"Unfortunately, the resolution before us fails to address the dynamic at work
in the region," the U.S. ambassador said. "'Instead, its purpose is to
isolate politically one of the parties to the conflict, through an attempt to
throw the weight of the council behind the other party."
The Palestinian representative to the U.N., Nasser Kidwa, said in a speech
here Friday night that although the Palestinian leadership condemns
terrorism, attacks on Israeli civilians within "occupied Palestinian
territory, including Jerusalem," can be considered legitimate resistance to
foreign occupation. "We absolutely do not accept any attempt to label these
acts as terrorist acts," he said.
The resolution called for an international "monitoring mechanism" to oversee
compliance with steps toward a cease-fire recommended this year by former
Sen. George J. Mitchell's fact-finding commission.
Israel has consistently opposed the introduction of foreign observers, and
the Bush administration--echoing the findings of the Mitchell committee--has
said international monitors could function only if invited by both sides.
U.S. and British diplomats were eager to avert a confrontation with the Arab
states and tried unsuccessfully to have the draft resolution tabled.
Jeremy Greenstock, the British ambassador, warned that a dead-end Middle East
debate could weaken U.N. influence in the region, even as members were
showing unusual unanimity in the quest to dismantle Osama bin Laden's Al
Qaeda terrorist network and rebuild Afghanistan.
"The Security Council should remember that over the last few months we have
been able to speak with one voice," Greenstock said in the closed session
Friday, according to diplomats there.
The fact that the council even voted on the resolution was seen as a victory
for the Palestinians, who have complained bitterly that the Middle East has
been relegated to the sidelines by the war in Afghanistan. Kidwa, the
Palestinian representative, said Thursday that he was angry with what he
called the Security Council's "abysmal failure" to intervene in the Middle
East crisis.
"It seems that the council now acts only when one member wants it to act,"
Kidwa said, referring to the United States.
Yet even before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the Afghan war,
Palestinians had been unable this year to win council backing for resolutions
criticizing Israel and advocating international intervention.
Fears are mounting throughout the Middle East that the escalating
Israeli-Palestinian conflict could destabilize the region. The United States
and its European allies are also concerned that a failure to address the
issue could tear apart their tenuous anti-terrorism coalition. Key Arab
supporters of a global campaign against Al Qaeda--Egypt, Jordan and
TuniPlease see U.N., A23
U.N.: Palestinians, Arab Allies Force Vote
Continued from A22
sia--were central forces behind Friday's push to bring the resolution to a
vote.
The unscheduled Middle East debate came at a time of intense activity at the
Security Council, which has been trying for the last week to reach an
agreement on a mandate for a U.N.-backed peacekeeping force in Afghanistan
while tending to other global trouble spots.
The council was briefed Friday by Lakhdar Brahimi, the special U.N. envoy to
Afghanistan, who was back at headquarters for the first time since he led
negotiations in Germany on a new interim government that is to take office
next week.
Despite the preoccupation with Afghanistan, most council members supported
the Arab call for intervention in the Middle East.
"The situation is very dangerous, and the Security Council should take some
action," said Kishore Mahbubani, the representative of Singapore, which
usually supports Washington.
Drafted by Egypt, the resolution was directly prompted by Israel's
declaration Thursday that it was severing ties with Arafat, a move provoked
by the killing of 10 Jewish settlers on a bus by Hamas militants.
"We must not allow, under any circumstances, that bridges between
Palestinians and Israelis be completely burned and the door to a political
settlement slammed for good," a Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman said
Thursday.
Officials at the U.N. also voiced alarm at the violence.
"I think we are as close as we've ever been to a full military confrontation
between Israel and the Palestinian Authority," Terje Roed-Larsen, the U.N.
special envoy for Israel and the Palestinian territories, said in the Middle
East on Thursday.
Although senior U.N. officials condemned violence on both sides, they were
unusually direct in their criticism of Arafat and the Palestinian Authority.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan issued a statement Thursday, a day after the
West Bank bus attack, saying that the "targeting of civilians is
unacceptable" and urging Arafat "to take decisive action against those
responsible for such terrible acts."
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