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Guardian. 24 September 2002. Nothing doing.
UNITED NATIONS -- In his speech to the United Nations earlier this
month, President George Bush emphasised the need for action rather than
words.
"We created the United Nations security council, so that, unlike the
League of Nations, our deliberations would be more than talk, our
resolutions would be more than wishes," he said.
"All the world now faces a test, and the United Nations a difficult and
defining moment," he continued. "Are security council resolutions to be
honoured and enforced, or cast aside without consequence? ...Right now
those resolutions are being unilaterally subverted by the Iraqi regime."
The same could be said of various other countries, but most notably
Israel.
Throughout its history, the security council has never once taken
enforcement action over Israel's flouting of UN resolutions or its
violations of international law.
Largely as a result of American pressure, criticisms of Israel in
security council resolutions also tend to be softer than the criticisms
of other countries for similar offences.
Not only that. Thirty-two draft resolutions criticising Israel since
1972 have never seen the light of day because the US used its security
council veto to block them.
A report published today by the PLO's negotiations affairs department
looks at a series of UN resolutions relating to Israel, Bosnia, Kosovo,
East Timor, Rwanda and Iraq -- and compares the follow-up action taken
in each case.
The report discusses existing resolutions in four categories: grave
human rights violations and violations of international humanitarian
law; colonies and demographic manipulation; the right of return for
refugees and displaced persons; and the withdrawal of forces from
territories under to armed occupation.
In the first category, action taken by the security council on human
rights violations included tribunals for the prosecution of war crimes
and crimes against humanity (in Bosnia, Kosovo and Rwanda), an arms
embargo (Kosovo), an international presence (Kosovo and East Timor),
and "all necessary means" (ie military action) in the case of Iraq.
Not even the mildest of these remedies was adopted in the case of
Israel, whose violations -- assassinations, deportations, house
demolitions, restrictions on freedom of movement, etc -- are well
documented.
In the second category -- demographic manipulation -- Israel has sought
to consolidate its occupation of the Palestinian territories by changing
the population balance in two ways.
One is to encourage Palestinian emigration through economic disruption
and land expropriation, as well as direct expulsion in some cases. The
other is through the establishment of illegal Jewish colonies whose
population has risen, since the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993,
from 200,000 to 400,000.
In 1980, the security council issued a resolution saying that these
activities had "no legal validity" and constituted "a flagrant violation
of the fourth Geneva convention." It decided to establish a commission
"to examine the situation."
Israel refused to co-operate with the commission and the security
council responded with another resolution "strongly deploring" Israel's
refusal.
Elsewhere, it has been a different story. In Kosovo, for example,
efforts to drive out the majority ethnic Albanian population and
replace them with ethnic Serbs were denounced by the security council
and backed up with international action.
Similarly in Bosnia and Rwanda, strong condemnation was followed by
comprehensive sanctions and enforcement action.
In the third category -- the right of refugees and displaced persons to
return to their homes -- there is no relevant security council
resolution about Palestinian refugees, though there have been
resolutions regarding Bosnia, Kosovo, East Timor and Rwanda.
"In contrast with the compared cases where the right of return formed a
key component of all peace settlements and was enforced by
international operations," the PLO report says, "no attempts have been
made to enforce the Palestinian right of return and there have been
attempts [by Israel] to declare the Palestinian refugee return issue a
'non-negotiable' one."
In the fourth category -- withdrawal of occupying forces -- the
strongest action taken by the security council was against Iraq,
following its invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Member states were authorised
to "use all necessary means" to end the occupation.
In the case of Bosnia, which in 1992 was occupied by Yugoslav and
Croatian army units, the security council ordered "a general and
complete embargo on all deliveries of weapons and military equipment to Yugoslavia."
In Kosovo, the security council backed up its withdrawal demand with
action to deploy an international security presence.
Unlike these rather short-lived occupations, the Israeli occupation of
the West Bank and Gaza has continued for 35 years.
The trouble with this pussy-footing approach is not simply that it lets
favoured countries get away with things that others would be punished
for. It also sends them a signal that in future they can act as they
please.
"We cannot stand by and do nothing," Mr Bush told delegates to the UN.
He was talking, of course, about Iraq.
But in the case of Israel, we not only can do nothing -- we do do
nothing.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
ProletarianNews
http://www.utopia2000.org
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