Tag Archives: United Nations

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Are we about to betray the Palestinians… again?

Stuart Littlewood

Stuart Littlewood

Russell Tribunal comes gunning for the international community

Media reports suggest that Britain will again betray the Palestinian people in the UN vote tomorrow on whether to recognise the Palestinian territories as an independent state.

The Guardian, for example, says that Britain will join forces with two other EU allies on the Security Council, France and Portugal, to abstain. Germany, the third EU member of the Council, is also likely to abstain. [report] “The UK had considered voting in favour of statehood but is planning to abstain because it wants to forge a common front with its EU partners. Government sources say the EU – the single biggest donor to the Palestinian authority – is playing an increasingly influential role in the Middle East. It is feared this could be put at risk if the EU fails to act collectively.” Continue reading →

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IDF reportedly laid new minefields in Golan ahead of Sunday demonstrations

Internationally recognised as Syrian territory occupied by Israel. Currently under Israeli civil administration. Claimed by Syria.

Internationally recognised as Syrian territory occupied by Israel. Currently under Israeli civil administration. Claimed by Syria.

Internationally recognised as Syrian territory occupied by Israel. Currently under Israeli civil administration. Claimed by Syria.

Marian Houk, 8 June 2011

There were several Israeli media reports published yesterday (in English) and today (in Hebrew) that the IDF has, in recent weeks, laid new minefields in the Golan — as part of the military preparations against continuing demonstrations at the “border”.

According to these reports, new minefields were laid in the weeks between the May 15 Nakba Day demonstrations [marking the expulsion of some 750,000 Palestinians in the fighting that surrounded the creation of the State of Israel in 1948] and the June 5 demonstrations held on Sunday [to mark the 1967 war and the start of the occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, and Golan].

On May 15, Israeli officials were surprised by an infiltration of Palestinians and their supporters who managed to cross the lines and enter the Golan town of Majdal Shams. One of these infiltrators even managed to get as far as Yaffa, the birthplace and home town of his parents, where he went for a meal, looked around, and then turned himself in to Israeli police.

The Syrian Golan Heights was occupied by Israel in the June 1967 war — and annexed by Israel in 1980, a move that UN members said was “null and void”.

The well-informed Defense Correspondent for the Jerusalem Post, Yaakov Katz, wrote in an article published last night [06/06/2011 22:01] that “In general, the army was pleased with the way it handled the protests on Sunday … In the weeks before, the IDF prepared extensively, laying down new minefields, digging trenches and installing new barbed-wire fences … At least eight of the dead, IDF sources said on Monday, were killed by mines that exploded after the protesters threw Molotov cocktails in fields near the border, causing their premature detonation”. This was posted here.

Laying new minefields in the Golan raises serious questions — including whether proper notification was made, particularly to the Syrian authorities (also to the UN, which has peacekeeping missions there).

It also raises questions about whether such military measures — normally intended to address grave dangers and prevent invasions — are also intended as the Israeli response to protest demonstrations and civilian infiltration.

An earlier report in the JPost yesterday written jointly by Yaakov Lappin and Herb Keinon [published 06/06/2011 00:56] had this account: “Early on Sunday morning, Palestinians from the suburbs of Damascus had been bused to area across from Majdal Shams, and to the abandoned Syrian-border town of Kuneitra. They massed at the border without interference from Syrian troops … Soon after arriving in the Majdal Shams area, some 150 activists broke away from their fellows and descended a steep hill on the Syrian side, advancing toward the Israeli border. IDF soldiers shouted warnings in Arabic via loudspeakers asking the Palestinians to refrain from trying to cross the frontier, adding that those who did so would endanger their lives. The activists ignored the calls, crossed the Syrian border fence and made their way toward an Israeli forward-border fence erected by IDF engineers in recent weeks, entering a mined zone. ‘When the demonstrators continued toward the Israeli fence, shots were fired at their lower bodies. We know of 12 injuries’, an IDF spokeswoman told The Jerusalem Post at noon. Meanwhile, at Kuneitra to the south, a second infiltration attempt was under way. Between 200 and 300 demonstrators gathered in Kuneitra, and climbed on the roof of an abandoned cinema, from where they began throwing rocks at Israeli security personnel. Four land mines exploded on the Syrian side of the border, after the rioters threw gasoline bombs, which exploded in a field, starting a fire that then set off the mines. The IDF did not know how many infiltrators were hurt by the explosions. Throughout the pitched battles, paramedics on the Syrian side of the border asked that the IDF grant them cease-fires to clear the wounded. The army agreed to the request,but then saw activists exploiting the quiet to try and cut the border fence, bringing the truce to an end”. This report is published here.

A short while later [06/06/2011 01:46] Yaakov Lappin wrote in the JPost that “The IDF’s well-planned and cool-headed response to the new threat of flooding the nation’s borders with civilian rioters sent a firm message to hostile neighbors on Sunday that Israel takes its sovereignty seriously. The chaotic scenes of May 15, when Syrian-Palestinian ‘Nakba’ activists managed to cross into Israel, with one man even making it as far south as Tel Aviv, jolted the IDF’s Northern Command to fortify the northern border with a second barbed-wire perimeter and new lookout positions, and to position senior commanders on the ground, who could quickly respond to developments and issue new orders. This time around, although fewer activists turned up on the border, the situation could still have gone out of control and resulted in a far higher casualty count had the IDF not implemented several lessons from last month. The IDF concentrated forces in the right areas this time, near Majdal Shams and Kuneitra, and no one in the army was surprised when reports from Syria, which said that the mass marches set for Sunday had been canceled, proved to be false”. This was published here.

Amos Harel wrote in Haaretz today that “Four battalions are now spending their energy preparing for future border incidents. The 36th Division is meant to be trained for war, rather than border patrols – on what was until recently Israel’s quietest border. If the situation continues, the IDF will need to redeploy and possibly even create new Border Police units.
An initial inquiry found the IDF only fired several dozen sniper bullets at the protesters. A senior officer told Haaretz that only those who actively tried to uproot or cut the fence were targeted. The army also said that the IDF had nothing to do with the deaths of at least eight protesters who were killed when demonstrators rolled burning tires and threw Molotov cocktails onto a minefield on the Syrian side of the border, setting off several mines. But these explanations defending the Israeli troops’ activities, offered by the prime minister and defense minister, will have limited impact. Patience in the West for such incidents is beginning to wear thin. The only reason such incidents don’t have greater ramifications is because they occur against the backdrop of the Syrian regime relentlessly butchering its opponents. But Israel will find it very difficult to come out looking good from further clashes between unarmed civilians and soldiers, if the number of casualties increases”. This is published here.

And the UN is there…
The UN Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO) has been in Jerusalem since 1948.
The UN Disengagement Observer Forces (UNDOF) have been in Syria since 1974, and has a logistical (provisions) base in Israel.
And the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) has been in south Lebanon since 1976 (also with a logistical base in Israel.
See UNTSO deployment map.

Here is the UN description of the UNDOF mandate: “From its numerous positions and through patrolling, UNDOF supervises the area of separation and intervenes whenever any military personnel enter or try to operate therein. This is accomplished using permanently manned positions and observation posts, foot and mobile patrols operating at irregular intervals by day and night, and closes contact and liaison with the host nations. On each side of the area of separation there is an area of limitation with three zones; a zone of 0 to 10 kilometres (6.21 miles) from the area of separation, a zone of 10 (6.21 miles) to 20 kilometres (12.43 miles) from the area of separation, and a zone of 20 (12.43 miles) to 25 kilometres (15.53 miles) from the area of separation. UNDOF inspects these areas every two weeks in order to ascertain that the agreed limitations in armaments and forces are being observed within these areas of limitation. UNDOF assists the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in facilitating the passage of mail, goods, and persons through the area of separation during special crossing events. Within the integral medical resources of UNDOF, medical treatment is provided to the local population on request. In UNDOF’s area of operation, especially in the area of separation, minefields continue to pose a threat to UNDOF personnel and local inhabitants. In consultation with the Syrian authorities, UNDOF instituted a minefield security and maintenance programme in the area of separation to identify and mark all minefields. UNDOF also supports activities to promote mine awareness among the civilian population“. This is posted here.

UNTSO is located in Government House, Jerusalem, a former British headquarters during the Mandate period. The UN website says: “Set up in May 1948, UNTSO was the first ever peacekeeping operation established by the United Nations. Since then, UNTSO military observers have remained in the Middle East to monitor ceasefires, supervise armistice agreements, prevent isolated incidents from escalating and assist other UN peacekeeping operations in the region to fulfill their respective mandates“. This is posted here. Another web page says that “In the Middle East, groups of UNTSO military observers are today attached to the peacekeeping forces in the area: the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) in the Golan Heights and the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL). A group of observers remains in Sinai to maintain a United Nations presence in that peninsula. Currently, UNTSO maintains its headquarters in Jerusalem with its liaison offices in Beirut (Lebanon), Ismailia (Egypt) and Damascus (Syria)”, and this is posted here.

Marian Houk PASSIA 2004

In the photo below, taken at a roundtable discussion in Jerusalem in July 2004, Marian Houk is the woman wearing the sort-of-orange-colored eyeglasses. Photo courtesy of PASSIA:

Marian Houk, a writer, reporter, journalist and analyst with long experience at the United Nations — in New York and in Geneva and more — as well as with the Middle East. She has reported on, and for a time also worked for, the United Nations. She is a former President of the United Nations Correspondents Association (UNCA) at UNHQ/NY (1986), and is currently based in Jerusalem.

Marian Houk is the Editor of UN-Truth news site.

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Palestine and the Fate of the UN

Palestine Flag

An Analysis by Dr. Lawrence Davidson, 12 Nov 2010

The United Nations celebrated its 65th birthday (1945 to 2010) on 24 October 2010. At 65 the world body has lasted 27 years longer than its predecessor, the League of Nations (1919 to 1946). Will the UN go another 65 years? To help answer that question a quick look at what did in the League of Nations is in order.

The League of Nations was certainly not a perfect organization, infected as it was with the colonialist notions of its European founders. We can see that aspect of the organization in its mandate system which served as a cover for imperialism. But ultimately the mandate system is not what brought the League low. The fatal flaw was its inability to achieve its primary goal of preventing war by transcending the power of nationalism and compelling all states to end their quarrels through negotiation or arbitration. What success the League did have in this effort was restricted to a category of relatively weak states. For instance, it successfully brought an end to disputes between Columbia and Peru, Greece and Yugoslavia, Finland and Sweden, and even, in 1921, Poland and a very weak Germany. However, when disputes involved aggressive “great” powers, as they did in the 1930s, the League failed utterly. It was ultimately destroyed by its inability to project authority and influence, as well as punishment, on countries like belligerent Italy and resurgent Nazi Germany. As Mussolini observed while, with impunity, using poison gas on the Ethiopians, “the League is very good when sparrows shout, but no good at all when eagles fall out.” He thought of Italy as an eagle.

As the League was founded in response to the First World War, so the United Nations was founded as a response to the Second World War. Where once there was the horror of the trenches, now there was the horror of the Holocaust. Where once there was mustard gas, now there was something much worse, nuclear weaponry. Thus the prevention of war still formed the central and urgent mission of the United Nations. This time around it should have been easier for the new world body. Where the First World War spurred on imperialism, carving up the Ottoman Empire and introducing the facade of mandates, the Second World saw the dismantlement of empires and, finally, the fulfillment of Woodrow Wilson’s promise of self-determination for most of the non-European world. Most, but not everywhere. For at the end of World War II, as the United Nations Charter was ratified and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaimed, the members of the United Nations were coerced into committing a fatal mistake. Under heavy pressure from the United States, the General Assembly gave its blessing to an arrangement whereby the sin of European and American antisemitism was to be paid for by the Palestinians, a people who had nothing at all to do with Europe’s death camps or America’s death dealing immigration policy. The United Nations blessed the creation of Israel. By doing so it went a long way to assuring its own demise.

It is this background that makes so important, and depressing, the statement made before the General Assembly by Richard Falk on 20 October 2010. Falk is ending his tenure as Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in Palestine. Here are some of the points he made in his address:

1. Throughout his tenure the Government of Israel has been consistently uncooperative, even to the point of refusing him entrance into Israel and the Occupied Territories.

2. The United Nations itself has failed to respond strongly to this challenge to its authority thereby encouraging the view that the world body has not the political will to uphold international law and the principles of its Charter when it comes to the ally of a Great Power.

3. The response of the international community has also been “disappointing.”

4. Falk concludes as follows, “The United Nations will be judged now and in the future by whether if contributes, at long last, to the… realization of the Palestinian right of self-determination, and thereby brings a just peace to both [Israeli and Palestinian] peoples.”

Dr. Saeb Erakat, chief negotiator for the Palestinian Liberation Organization, also spoke about this dilemma in his remarks on the UN’s 65th birthday. He observed that “Israel has undermined the efficacy of and derogated the UN system, the very authority through which it was created.” He then went on to list some of the sources of international law in which Palestinian rights are grounded. These include UN General Assembly resolutions, UN Security Council resolutions, and the Fourth Geneva Convention. All of which Israel has been allowed to violate.

Both Erakat and Falk know that there is virtually no chance that the United Nations can or will even try to force Israel to abide by international law. Whatever its Charter might say, its decision making structure is designed to prevent any challenge to the great powers that have permanent seats on the Security Council. The United States is the great power patron of Israel and has, and will continue, to block efforts to sanction its ally. Thus, like the League of Nations, the UN can deal only with sparrows and but not eagles. It can go after the leaders of Sudan, Serbia and Rwanda, but not those of the United States for its crimes in Iraq, Not China for its crimes in Tibet, not Russia for its crimes in Chechnya, and not Israel for its crimes against the Palestinians or its near fatal corruption of an ancient world religion. It would seem that Israel flies with Mussolini’s eagles.

It is unlikely that the UN will end its days abruptly as did the League of Nations. While Israel does encourage war and mayhem in the Middle East, liking nothing better than to push the United States into a war with Iran, it is unlikely to spark World War III. Thus, it is probable that the United Nations’ fate is to go out with a whimper and not a bang. It will linger on for many decades to come, a tool of the great powers to be used to shoot at sparrows when appropriate. Ironically, this means the final legacy of the United Nations will be the opposite of its original ideal. Ideally meant to keep the peace and hold all nations to the rule of law, it will stand emasculated as an symbol of the ultimate supremacy of power in the world.

Power has been supreme for a very long time. In the 5th century BC the city state of Athens (alleged birthplace of Western democracy) was fighting the Peloponnesian War. Its naval forces came to the neutral city of Melos and demanded its surrender. The historian Thucydides recounts the ensuing debate in which the Athenians told the Melosians “…we both alike know that in the discussion of human affairs the question of justice only enters where there is equal power to enforce it, and that the powerful exact what they can, and the weak grant what they must.” In our modern day such Machiavellian honesty has fallen out of favor. We need to manage our ruthlessness so as to keep our consciences clear. And that is what the United Nations is for. It will run after the sparrows so that the eagles can feel they have some modicum of justice to point to as they “exact what they can” from those they do treat unjustly. The United Nations has become a cover for great power hypocrisy.

Such is the way of international politics. Do we have to put up with this evil? The answer is no we do not. But we cannot look to any of the great powers for justice, fairness, equity or the like, for theirs is the world of Realpolitik and raison d’etat. Hope, such as it is, lies with civil society. The fortunes of justice, fairness, equity are a function of the ability of citizens worldwide to organize themselves for a specific cause, and the great precedent here is the struggle that brought down apartheid South Africa. This strategy, born of mass communications and the ethical potential of individual consciences, knows no national boundaries and thus has enormous potential. It is presently focused on the condemnable behavior of Israel toward the Palestinians. If, in the next quarter century (for it is likely to take that long), the power of mobilized civil society can bring justice to the Palestinians it will create the possibility for a more humane world in practice and not just in theory. It is an intoxicating prospect. And it is one that has a chance of realization.

Dr. Lawrence Davidson

Dr. Lawrence Davidson

Dr. Lawrence Davidson is professor of history at West Chester University. He is the author of numerous books, including Islamic Fundamentalism and America’s Palestine: Popular and Official Perceptions from Balfour to Israeli Statehood.

More articles can be found on RamallahOnline.com and Logos Journal