This is exactly the kind of one-sided US policy action that needs to change. Bush’s ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, today vetoed a Security Council resolution that would have:
- * condemned Israel’s recent military actions in Gaza,
* called on Israel to withdraw its troops from Gaza,
* condemned the firing of rockets from Gaza into Israel,
* called on the Palestinian Authority to take “immediate and sustained action” to end the rocket fire,
* created “an international mechanism for the protection of civilians” in the area,
* requested that Kofi Annan establish a fact-finding mission to investigate Wednesday’s attack on Palestinian civilians in Gaza and report back within 30 days, and
* called for the resumption of international efforts to achieve peace by the so-called Quartet.
Bolton reportedly told the council that the resolution “does not display an even-handed characterization of the recent events in Gaza, nor does it advance the cause of Israeli-Palestinian peace.”
??
The first draft of the resolution was submitted by council member Qatar, in the wake of the ghastly incident Wednesday night in which a sustained Israeli artillery attack against a residential complex in Beit Hanoun killed 18 of the Palestinian civilians who lived there, many of them children and women. Over the two days that followed, the wording was subjected to intense negotiation and renegotiation, and the draft that was finally submitted for a vote this afternoon won a yes vote from ten of the council’s 15 members.
Only the US voted against. But of course, given the SC’s bizarre system of vetoes, that vote was sufficient to quash the entire initiative.
Four council members abstained: Britain, Denmark, Japan, and Slovakia.
France, which has voted with the US on a numnber of recent issues, voted for the resolution as finally submitted. That NYT report linked to above noted that,
- Jean-Marc de la Sablière, the ambassador of France, said he felt the final negotiated text was “a balanced one” and would have sent the right message to both Israel and the Palestinians. He added, “I hope that the fact this text has not been adopted will not renew tensions on the ground.”
It is hard to see, on the basis of what that NYT account tells us about the text, why the Bush administration would object so strongly to it that it cast a veto. It is especially hard to see why they would do this at a time when US soldiers and their supply-lines are strung precariously throughout a Middle East that has long been extremely resentful of the one-sided help that the US has continued to provide to Israel, at every level, despite Israel’s many transgressions against international law and its assaults on the lives, interests, dignity, and hopes of its Arab neighbors.
Is this administration really ready to put US service members and US citizens’ interests at additional risk because of its slavish support for “Israel, right or wrong”? I thought this was what a majority of us here in the US voted against, just on Tuesday.
with all due respect, I don’t think support for Israel was what Tuesday was all about…if it were, then Joe Lieberman would not have trounced his Democrat rival in the very liberal state of Connecticut…rather the voters were sending a message that the Administration has gone astray in Iraq…if someone has a link regarding exit polls demonstrating that Israel was on the voters’ minds, then I stand corrected.
Lieberman was the exception to the rule of a rejection of Bush’s policies. At any rate, I think if most American’s were polled they would not agree with Bolton’s veto; this is true in general; polls show that on most issues voters are actually against the positions taken by the U.S. government.
The resolution was rightfully vetoed by the US. The language of the resolution improperly and unjustly placed almost all blame on Israel. The creation of an “international mechanism” is troubling as well. “International mechanisms” in this conflict usually result in some group that does absolutely nothing to dismantle the terrorist infrastructure of the Palestinians and just gets in the way of Israel doing the necessary work.
This is a typical pattern at the UN. The Palestinians have been engaged in rocket fire for months, especially since Israel evacuated Gaza and dismantled all settlements. The UN did nothing. When Israel errantly caused civilian casualties, all of a sudden the UN Israel condemning mechanism comes into gear.
So it’s not just a question of the resolution’s substance. It’s the whole broken procedure at the UN where the Palestinians think they can do whatever they want without being condemned, and when Israel strikes back they run to get various resolutions, hearings, committee meetings, and the like.
Most countries will go along with it because they know that the US will veto such idiocy. It is probably more accurate to ask why the UN has such “slavish support” for “Palestine, right or wrong” than the other way around. There should also be an investigation and academic paper on the “Palestine lobby” that has crippled the UN’s ability to play a meaningful role.
The fact that 4 other countries decided to abstain is pretty significant. Usually they just go along with the demands of the Palestine lobby and let the U.S. do the heavy lifting.
Finally, as truesdell notes, it is a wild stretch to claim that Tuesday’s vote was a criticism of U.S. support of Isreal. Israel enjoys solid, bipartisan support in this country. Indeed, in Helena’s prior entry, she acknowledged that the Democratic victories on Tuesday would not effect that bipartisan support. So you have to wonder why she is now disengenuously suggesting that the vote was some mandate for change, when it clearly was not.
Oh please. Why is that we’re always strung precariously and at the whim of Arabs who’re terribly concerned about Palestinians. I served in Iraq for a year, and they don’t care, especially the Shiites. Their main concern is the next car bomb or fake checkpoint and atrocities committed against their own people.
As for the troops in Iraq (where I’ll be again very shortly), we have very restrictive rules of engagement. I know it doesn’t seem that way when you read the press reports, but we do. Each patrol goes out with a hell of a lot of firepower, which we can’t use unless we identify targets. Can’t use mortars or artillery in cities unless in pin-point strikes and the like. If the supply lines were seriously threatened, those would be lifted and so would the threat to the supply lines. I’m not saying the threat is not there, it is, but we’re not strung precariously anywhere.
Before the elections the Democrats were hysterical cheerleaders of Israeli governments, even worse, if possible, than the Republicans. Would they sing a different tune now? I have my doubts.
Here is an excerpt from Nancy Pelosi’s speech to the AIPAC last year:
“There are those who contend that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is all about Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. This is absolute nonsense. In truth, the history of the conflict is not over occupation, and never has been: it is over the fundamental right of Israel to exist.
“The greatest threat to Israel’s right to exist, with the prospect of devastating violence, now comes from Iran. For too long, leaders of both political parties in the United States have not done nearly enough to confront the Russians and the Chinese, who have supplied Iran as it has plowed ahead with its nuclear and missile technology.
“Proliferation represents a clear threat to Israel and to America. It must be confronted by an international coalition against proliferation, with a commitment and a coalition every bit as strong as our commitment to the war against terror.
(…) “In the words of Isaiah, we will make ourselves to Israel ‘as hiding places from the winds and shelters from the tempests; as rivers of water in dry places; as shadows of a great rock in a weary land.’
“The United States will stand with Israel now and forever. Now and forever.”
source: http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=47885
Very nice speech by Nancy Pelosi, a true progressive leader!
The goings on at the UN are less about Israel and Palestine and more about states that want to try to position themselves diplomatically against the U.S. It’s a cheap way for countries like France to brush aside their own failures (and their remarkably racist attitude toward Arabs) and portray themselves as “moderate” countries.
The end result is neither good for the Israelis or Palestinians.
Truesdell and Joshua are certainly right that Tuesday’s election results had nothing to do wth Israel. Menno is also correct that the Dems are, if anything, more fanatically pro-Israel than the Reps, but for different reasons. As our strategic position in the ME continues to deteriorate due to the unfolding disasters in Iraq and Afghanistan, I think you will see the US gov’t moving even farther toward one-sided pro-Israel extremism. I’m sure that pleases a number of the regular contributors here, but I think they are short-sighted. Israel is surfing on a very big wave. That can give you a great feeling of power and exhilaration one minute, and smash you to bits the next. The wave doesn’t care.
It seems, “Anonymous”, that you and your fellow soldiers weren’t particularly hemmed-in by these “very restrictive rules of engagement” at, say, Fallujah or Abu Ghraib or Mahmoudiya.
John C. is right. Israel has much to lose by this U. S. veto. Israel will continue in a state of denial of its savage oppression of Palestine and the Palestinians. bridges +
“Americans will speak of the battles like Fallujah with the same awe and reverence that we now give to Guadalcanal and Iwo Jima.” — President Bush, 11/10/06
Slaughtering thousands of residents of Fallujah in the middle of an imperial neo-colonial aggressive war and occupation, sounds like something US to celebrate…
Why blaming Israel, What’s the deference? Israel or US same coin different face…
This resolution is clear-cut. Regardless of which side you’re on, if you fail to see the deaths of 20 civilians, many of whom were killed in their sleep, as anything less than an atrocity, then you have no human feeling. We’re tired of these constant “mistakes” by Israel, and it seems much more likely that these huge numbers of civilian deaths reflect not mistakes but an intentional policy by Israel of terrorizing the Palestinians. After all, is this so unlikely in view of the extreme right-wing character of the Israeli government, for example the new Lieberman guy who advocates sending away all the Palestinians?
Fortunately, while Israel may be able to continue to get away with these “mistakes” (and expect many more) due to the US’s interference at the UN, Israel is doing a great job of alienating much of Europe and further incensing Arab and Muslim governments. You see, Israel is making a very bad tactical decision. Right now, the US is losing influence and power in the ME. The US enjoys a huge military presence in the ME despite the fact that huge segments of the Arab/Muslim population are against the US’s policies. NOW would be the time to accept Syria’s offer for peace; NOW would be the time for meaningful negotiations with the Palestinians. Otherwise, Israel will play a weakened hand in the future, because the US is losing sway.
Oh, and it’s funny how the apologists here excuse this atrocity. The rockets have killed very few people, mainly Arab Israelis. The shelling by the Israelis has killed many many more people, and actually represent an existential threat to the Palestinians. I’m not saying that Israel isn’t justified in responding to the rocket fire, but that collective punishment of an entire community and murder of sleeping innocent civilians is most certainly NOT the way to go about it.
This issue is at its root one of human rights. The Palestinians do not have them, and are struggling to get them. Occupation is what is in their way.
Helena
The fallout has started.
Haretz reports that the arab league have lifted the Financial Blockade of Hamas.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/786867.html
Tomorrows talks in the White House could be interesting.
“And they bend their tongues like their bow for lies: but they are not valiant for the truth upon the earth; for they proceed from evil to evil, and they know not me, saith the Lord. … shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?” (Jeremiah 9:3, 5:29)
The Real Axis of Evil A State without Mercy
by William A. Cook
“Israel” has the same “right” to “exist” on someone else’s ancestral lands as a thief has to the depositors’ cash he has just looted from the bank.
True, the thief would like to “live in peace” with those he has robbed, if only his victims would recognize that “facts on the ground” have “changed” now that he has the money and they don’t. “Forget about what you once possessed,” the thief “sincerely” rationalizes. “Let us instead shift our discussions to how much of the interest on my huge new bank account I might possibly share with you, its former owners, if we could only, possibly, maybe, consider future discussions on the subject with no preconditions except that I get to keep killing off your negotiators so that I can keep claiming that I have no one to negotiate with.”
What a swell deal — for the thief. What the Zionist thief’s occupied imperial (i.e., American) patron gets out of all this except universal fear and loathing remains for the imperial patron to painfully discover as it inexorably runs out of blood, money, honor, and reputation defending indefensible theft — with the Ugly American par excellence, John Bolton, as trasient spokeman for the untenable status quo, no less.
As for the reported “hopes” of the Palestinian people for a just settlement of their many grievances against Zionist Israel, the now-comatose Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon once gleefully predicted that he would “destroy” even those intangible things that allow the downtrodden Palestinians to go on living. In fact, the express policy of Zionist Israel has only one implacable aim: to make the lives of Palestinian Arabs so miserable and hopeless that they will simply give up and move away, leaving the thief, Zionist Israel, in “peaceful” possession of all that it has stolen.
As the always excellent Eric Margolis of the Toronto Sun has characterized them, the American Congress and administration (of whatever party configuration) predictably behave like a pack of “trained, barking seals” whenever Israel’s money-and-threat-dispensing AIPAC lobby swings into action — as it did during Israel’s blitzkrieg bashing of Lebanon recently. Cluster bombs on demand courtesy of your American tax dollars at work.
As for the ramifications for the Palestinians revealed in recent mid-term elections in America, I agree with those who see no possible short-term change to the hapless dog’s policy towards the tail that so unmercifully wags it. Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi and Senator You-Know-Her from New York, along with almost the entire Democratic Party Caucus reliably stampeded to Israel’s whip-cracking only a few months ago and will do so again at the earliest opportunity. Few Americans voted against the Republicans because they considered them any less subservient to Israel than the Democrats.
Aparthied Israel has the same “right to exist” as Aparthied South Africa. Self-styled “master races” never endure in oppressive control over indigenous “native” populations determined to win freedom and self-determination. “Liebenstraum” didn’t suffice as a winning slogan for Nazi German territorial aggrandizement and it will not suffice for Zionist Isaraeli territorial aggrandizement, either.
Finally, these “brand new” Maginot Line walls going up through the West Bank, around the Baghdad Green Zone Castle, and along America’s Mexican border have about as much future as those crumbling Crusader ruins one can still see dotting the hilltops of the Levant today. Israel at the present has — thanks to its rapidly weakening imperial American patron — the “might” to “exist.” That doesn’t justify whatever Israel wants the word “existence” to mean, nor does it make any such self-interested word magic — i.e., chutzpah — “right.”
So long as there are people like Michael Murry trying to connect these resolutions with Israel’s right to exist, the pro-Israel extremists like Joshua will always have strawmen to fall on to back up their claims of hostility to Israel. Honestly, after slogging though Michael Murry’s nihilistic post I was thinking that Josh’s rhetoric was right all along, and a minute later I got a hold of myself. The hardliners on both sides feed off each other, preventing the ability for justifiable condemnation of human tragedies like Beit Hanoun or Qana. Again, if only Michael Murry weren’t around to provide fig leaves for Bolton and Joshua.
Inkan,
I really think it’s inaccurate to label me a “pro-Israel extremist.” I definitely am sympathetic to Israel in this conflict, but I have always advocated a negotiated two state solution. And I really would like to see the Palestinian’s prosper. Just not by destroying the Israelis.
As for the Michael Murry’s of the world. I do not think that they are the real root of the problem, although I don’t think that they are meaningless fig leaves either. Putting aside westerners that take pot shots at Israel, I think the real problem are those extremists in the Arab and Muslim world who not only post on blogs, but have taken entrenched political stances and in some cases, advocated violence and terror. Again, I do not think this represents all Arab and Muslim thinking, but it is significant enough that I think it is the major impedement to peace.
Well, Joshua, you’re in the habit of insulting Helena whenever you disagree with her, even though you’re coming in to her own blog. And I think I said somewhere else that I don’t recall you ever condemning any single Israel act. Not Qana, not Beit Hanoun, not anything. So, if only in my opinion, you come off as extreme. Jonathan Edelstein (sp?) used to post here all the time. He was pro-Israeli himself, but he was always civil and there were instances when he criticized Israeli actions. I sensed that most people here respected him even if they disagreed with him.
I think this resolution should’ve passed. Mike made the clear points that these massive losses of civilians have happened too often to be excused as bad luck. I think there’s something inherently wrong in the way Israel conducts warfare. I want the world to confront Israel with this through actions such as resolutions, without Israel’s right to exist spurting out as an unwanted tangent. Whenever someone does attack Israel’s right to exist in reaction to these vetos, John Bolton all of the sudden looks like a hero as these attackers look just like the enemies he says he’s fighting. 😛
The rockets have killed very few people, mainly Arab Israelis.
huh? Israel should take comfort that to date the rockets from Gaza which have landed as far north as Ashkelon have luckily resulted in “few” fatalities and those have been mainly Israeli citizens who turned out to be Arabs???
“I think the real problem is those extremists in the Arab and Muslim world “
As much as you balm the Arab extremists there is also Israeli extremists right now in Israel who oppose the peace with Arab.
So there is no pure or black white answer of extremisms in both sides.
Blaming one side by denying the existence in other side that not can help to go for peace either.
The main problem its lay in the hands of Israelis to accepting dialogue with their Arab neighbours without pre-conditions with accepting international community sponsorship to involve for solving the differences between both side, not conditioning the peace process should be directed by US and UK alone as they both not trusted partners in the eyes of Arabs and they are biased.
The best today to accepted and start dialogue about Saudi King Abdullah peace offer which offer complete peace with All Arabs states and agreed by Arab League also if the Israeli believe in peace in the region.