The UN, Palestine– and Beijing

The UN and Palestine–view from Beijing

I’m here in Beijing as an Expert Speaker at the “UN Meeting for Asia and
the Pacific on the Question of Palestine”. The UN’s Division of Palestinian
Affairs holds these conferences periodically in different places around the
world– I’ve been invited a few times before, but was only previously able
to go to one of them– in Malta, 1992.

I think this may be the first one in Beijing: significant both because China
is a member of the Permanent Five members of the Security Council, and because
of China’s steadily rising role in world affairs. Remember, this time
30 years ago, the PRC was still not allowed even to be in the United Nations,
since the US still insisted on giving China’s seat in the UN to Taiwan. Last
week, when Chinese Premier Wen was in Washington, he scored a notable political
success by getting Dubya to publicly warn Taiwan that it should do nothing
to antagonize Beijing on the question of the eventual unification of Taiwan
and China– such as, for example, holding a Taiwan-wide referendum on “independence.”

As a democrat, I’m not sure feel totally comfortable with Beijing’s gruff
insistence on majoritarian PRC control over the political destinies of Chinese-peopled
polities around its periphery like Hong Kong, Macao, or Taiwan. (Though
Hong Kong’s situation under its gradual re-unification process with Big China
is not totally bad, either, far as I can see.)

As a U.S. citizen who is eager to see a right relationship between US power
and that of the rest of the world, I am intrigued by the steady growth in
Chinese influence. (And as a democrat, I have to note that China’s population
is some 4.5 times that of the US. So if we go with a one-peron-one-vote
approach its influence should be much greater than Washington’s.)

Anyway, here I am. There I was yesterday, in a slightly Stalinoid-decored
conference hall– logistic arrangements, including simultaneous interpretation
among the three conference languages of Chinese, French, and English, all
working almost perfectly. In the morning we had a welcome address from
Deputy Foreign Minister Mr. Dai Bingguo. I noted that though he and
the Chinese official who spoke in the afternoon, China’s Special Envoy to
the ME Peace Process Wang Shijie, both spoke in Chinese, they both also seemed
quite able to communicate very well in English, as well. The inverse
could hardly, of course, be said of their counterparts in Washington!

Dai noted the importance of the Palestinian issue in world affairs and stressed
that “only peaceful means” of resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
can work. He urged the greater promotion of the UN’s role in peacemaking.
He stressed that there should be justice in international mediation
efforts– and that there should not be “bias” in mediation. He said
all the rights of the Palestinians including their right to create an independent
Palestinian state should be assured. He said that suicide bombings
should be “checked effectively.” (An Israeli peacenik sitting next
to me, MK Zahava Gal-On, got a little exercized over her understanding of
that phrase. “They want to see the effectiveness of suicide bombings
checked?” she asked me. I told her I understood that “checked” in the
context of Dai’s speeech most likely meant “stopped”. Of such linguistic
misunderstandings can major crises be born.)

Dai also urged a greater role for civil society, and lauded the recent non-governmental
Geneva Accord.

When Chinese Special Envoy Wang spoke in the afternoon, he recalled having
actually been at the Geneva Accord launching earlier this month. And
he spoke quite movingly about the events there.

Very interesting for me to see Chinese government officials lauding the role
of “civil society”– even if only in a context fairly distant from their
own domestic politics.

After Dai, a fairly high UN official who’s a Korean national delivered a
message from Kofi Annan. This was mainly a long criticism of the Apartheid
Wall that the Sharon government has been building inside the West Bank. It
also mentioned the need for a Palestinian state that is “independent, viable,
and contiguous.” He lauded both the Geneva Accord and the Nuseibeh-Ayalon
statement.

Next up was PA Minister of Labor Ghassan al-Khatib. He spoke in particular
about two major forms of Israeli contraventions of international law: its
use of collective punishments against the Palestinians, including assassinations
and stifling movement controls, and the expansion of Jewish settlements in
the occupied territories.

At one point, Khatib said, “If a two-state solution is not possible, peace
is not possible.” As regular readers of JWN might know, that is not
totally my position, since I think that if Israel’s insistence on keeping
huge numbers of settlers in East Jerusalem and the rest of the occupied West
Bank means that it allows no territorial basis for an independent Palestinian
state, then the best alternative would be a unitary binational state in the
whole of Israel/Palestine. (Indeed, I spoke about that myself in the
second session, in the afternoon.)

Khatib argued that all the violence in the occupied territories stems from
the essential fact of continuing Israeli military occupation of the area,
and promised a continuation of Palestinian “steadfastness” (sumoud.)

I should write a little here about the other participants in the conference.
There are the members of the UN’s Committee on the Exercize of the
Inalienable [but actually, massively alienated–HC] Rights of the Palestinian
People. There are the Expert Speakers. There are Chinese and
Palestinian officials. There are representatives from many of the diplomatic
missions accredited to Biejing. Later speakers during the morning included
Ambassadors from a number of Arab and non-Arab embassies here–and representatives
of a number of UN functional bodies active in Israel’Palestine like the UN
Development Program, etc. Intellectually lively, that whole part of
the conference was not.

What was interesting to me about the “diplomatic” aspect of the conference
was two things: who was there and who was not there. Who was there
(and playing quite a prominent role) included two representatives of the
new Afghan government– one of them their Ambassador here, and the other
someone from their Embassy at the UN who is a member of the Committeee on
the Inalienable Rights etc. The Ambassador here in Beijing made a statement
in which he notably stressed that “All Muslims consider East Jerusalem is
a Holy Place.”

So much for the efforts of Zal Khalilzad and the other US neocons runninmg
Afghanistan to re-make Afghanistan in a “moderate” (i.e. pro-US) image.

Who was not officially represented at the conference included not only Israel
and the US, both of which generally treat the efforts of the Committee on
the Inalienable Rights etc with massive disdain, but also the EU, which should
imho have been present to try to boost the role of the UN in the activities
of the Quartet.

But who was/is represented here does include people from numerous African
and Arab countries, as well as Asians; and there’s a sprinkling of people
from some South American and European Embassies, as well.

I spoke in the afternoon. I’d written (and re-written) my remarks during
the lengthy period of time it took me to get here from Charlottesville, Virginia.
I was happy to try to air, before this international gathering, some
of the ideas that are in the book-length report of the International Quaker
Working Party on the Israel-Palestine Conflict, which should be hitting the
newsstands just over a month from now!

So the three main things I focused on were: an analysis of some of the weaknesses
of the Oslo Accords and how they had led to the present situation; the need
to work directly towards crafting a final-status arrangement (which may,
of course, hyave some phasing in the stages of its implementation) rather
than getting lost yet again–as the current Road-Map would have us do–in
the interminable labyrinths of endless “interim” phases and sub-phases; and
the fact that if a viable Palestinian state alongside Israel should
not prove attainable, then a unitary binational state in the whole of Palestine/Israel
would then prove the best alternative.

(The previously written copy of the remarks has already been reproduced by
the tech-support people here– as document # CPR/AMQP/2003/2.)

… Well, doesn’t time fly when you’re having fun writing about things like
lengthy, bureaucratic conferences! It’s time I started getting ready
for today’s sessions. (Dressed, showered, breakfasted, etc.) It’s
7:30 a.m. on Wednesday here now– 6:30 p.m. Tuesday back in Charlottesville.

Later, if posting this piece thru the AOL connection here works well, I want
to write at least a couple of other posts for the blog. One, with some
of my more general impressions of being in Beijing. The other, with
some further thoughts on the Options for a Saddam Hussein Trial. (I
see Juan Cole’s reporting that the Iranians are discussing a request to extradite
him… )