Why does Israel have a veto over the peace process?
In an unguarded public moment in 1982, Prime Minister Begin said this: “In June 1967 we had a choice. The Egyptian army concentrations in the Sinai approaches did not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him.”
The single most catastrophic happening of 1967 was not however the war itself and the creation of a Greater Israel. At America’s insistence, and with the eventual complicity of the Soviet Union, it (the single most catastrophic happening) was the refusal of the Security Council of the United Nations to condemn Israel as the aggressor. If it had done so, the history of the region and the world might well have taken a very different course. (There might well have been a negotiated end to the Arab-Israeli conflict and a comprehensive peace within a year or two. To those who think that’s a far-fetched notion of what could have been, I say read my book, which includes a chapter headed Goodbye to the Security Council’s Integrity)
Question: Why, really, was it so important from Zionism’s point of view that Israel not be branded the aggressor when actually it was? The short answer of it comes down to this.
Aggressors are not allowed to keep the territory they take in war, they have to withdraw from it unconditionally. This is the requirement of international law and, also, a fundamental principle which the UN is committed to uphold, as it did, for example, when President Eisenhower read the riot act to Israel after it invaded Eygpt in collusion with Britain and France in 1956. That is on the one hand.
On the other is the generally accepted view that when a state is attacked, is the victim of aggression, and then goes to war in genuine self-defense and ends up occupying some (or even all) of the aggressor’s territory, the occupier has the right, in negotiations, to attach conditions to its withdrawal.
In summary it can be said that although Security Council Resolution 242 of 23 November 1967 did pay lip-service to “the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war”, it effectively put Zionism in the diplomatic driving seat. By giving Israel the scope to attach conditions to its withdrawal, Resolution 242 effectively gave Israel’s leaders and the Zionist lobby in America a veto over any peace process.
In 1957 President Eisenhower said that if a nation which attacked and occupied foreign territory was allowed to impose conditions on its withdrawal, “this would be tantamount to turning back the clock of international order.” That’s what happened in 1967. President Johnson, pre-occupied with the war in Vietnam, and mainly on the advice of those in his inner circle who were hardcore Zionists, turned back the clock of international order. And that effectively created two sets of rules for the behaviour of nations – one set for all the nations of the world excluding only Israel, which were expected to behave in accordance with international law and their obligations of members of the United Nations; and one set for Israel, which was not expected to behave, and would not be required to behave, as a normal nation.
At the Johnson administration’s Zionist-driven insistence, the refusal of the Security Council to brand Israel as the aggressor was the birth of the double-standard in the interpretation and enforcement of the rules for judging and if necessary punishing the behaviour of nations. This double-standard is the reason why from 1967 to the present a real peace process has not been possible.
In my view there is not a snowball’s chance in hell of a real peace process unless the double-standard is abandoned. Unless, in other words, the governments of the major powers, led by America, say something like the following to Israel: “Enough is enough. It is now in all of our interests that you end your defiance of international law. If you don’t we will be obliged to brand you as a rogue state and subject you to boycott, divestment and sanctions.”
Page 2 of 2 | Previous page
Why Does Israel Have A Veto Over The Peace Process? | PK ARTICLES HUB:
April 12th, 2011 at 6:04 pm
[...] Source: Alanhart.net [...]
Farah:
April 13th, 2011 at 5:03 pm
Here here! Well said Alan. The sad thing is the double standard has become the norm and the world sits by and accepts it! It really is shameful!
Howard Sporn:
April 16th, 2011 at 12:03 am
“More than four decades on, most people everywhere still believe that Israel went to war either because the Arabs attacked (that was Israel’s first claim), or because the Arabs were intending to attack (thus requiring Israel to launch a pre-emptive strike).”
The war was fought because Nasser decided to cut off Israeli shipping between the Israeli port of Eilat and the Red Sea. He announced that any Israeli ship trying to navigate that waterway would be fired upon. The situation is similar to one in which your next door neighbor announces that he will shoot to kill anyone driving a car out of your driveway into the public street, including your wife or any member of your family. If the police refuse to do anything, what would you do? (The “police” at the time, i.e. the U.N, did do nothing.)
“Israel went to war because its military and political hawks wanted war and insisted that the Arabs were about to attack.”
No, as I said, they went to war because Nasser cut off Israel’s access to the Red Sea. By the way, Nasser gave a brilliant reason for his action. You see, he had just sent troops into Sinai, and ordered the U.N. peacekeepers out. Nasser cut off the Straits to Israeli ships because “It would have hurt the feelings of my soldiers to see the flag of the enemy” freely traversing the Straits. A dictator is, of course, understandably afraid to appear weak, especially to his soldiers. But cutting off another country’s shipping is a very risky gamble. And Nasser lost.
“I do not believe that Nasser wanted war. The two divisions he sent into Sinai on 14 May would not have been enough to unleash an offensive against Israel. He knew it and we knew it.”
Nasser didn’t need a hot war. By cutting off Israeli shipping, he could slowly strangle Israel’s economy to death.
“the single most catastrophic happening was the refusal of the Security Council of the United Nations to condemn Israel as the aggressor.”
Remember that before the war, as soon as Nasser made the demand, the U.N. peacekeepers fled the Sinai. The U.N. was not so arrogant back then as to declare Israel the aggressor for opening the Straits again, which the U.N. deliberately had allowed to close in the first place.
“There might well have been a negotiated end to the Arab-Israeli conflict and a comprehensive peace within a year or two.”
I do not see how, given that the Arab attitude after the war consisted of the “three no’s”:
1. No recognition of Israel
2. No negotiations with Israel
3. No peace with Israel.
The U.N. declaring Israel the aggressor would have made the Arabs even less inclined to make peace. Why make peace with an aggressor?
“President Johnson, pre-occupied with the war in Vietnam, and mainly on the advice of those in his inner circle who were hardcore Zionists, turned back the clock of international order.”
Actually, Israel’s action helped save the rules of international order. Nasser’s actions were like those of a schoolyard bully: “I don’t like him, so I am going to use my whole gang to block all the exits so he can’t get onto the school bus and go home.” And if the victim actually fights back and wins, causing injury in the process, the bully goes to the principal the next day and complains that he was the VICTIM of bullying!
Nasser had blocked the Straits, violating another nation’s right to freedom of navigation. The U.N. did nothing to prevent this, nor did the Western democracies challenge Nasser’s action with force. But Israel did, showing the world that a small unpopular country still has rights.
“And that effectively created two sets of rules for the behaviour of nations – one set for all the nations of the world excluding only Israel, which were expected to behave in accordance with international law and their obligations of members of the United Nations; and one set for Israel, which was not expected to behave, and would not be required to behave, as a normal nation.”
And what was the situation before the war? Answer: One set for all the nations of the world excluding Egypt and its allies, that you may not legally interfere with another nation’s freedom of navigation UNLESS YOU ARE AT WAR; and one set for Egypt and its allies, that if you can get away with it you can do anything you like to an unpopular and small country like Israel.
“my book Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews”
In the 1930s, Zionism saved the lives of 200,000 Jews by providing a haven, at a time when nobody else wanted to take in any Jews. If I were one of those 200,000 I would not see how the people who saved my life (and the lives of my family) are my enemy.
mika:
April 18th, 2011 at 5:24 pm
“”The war was fought because Nasser decided to cut off Israeli shipping between the Israeli port of Eilat and the Red Sea””
++++ And that blockade was never implemented. Egypt navy checked few ships, rest went straight on to the Israeli harbour.
Source : US department of state archive.