The Corruption of the United Nations
It was a war of Israeli aggression. It can be said, and I do say in my book, that Eygpt’s President Nasser, to save his face, was daft enough to give Israel’s hawks the pretextthey had long wanted. But that does not change the fact that it wasa war of Israeli aggression. Israel’s assertion that it faced the danger of annihilation, the “driving in the sea” of its Jews, was a propaganda lie, designed to enable the Zionist state to get away where it mattered most, Western Europe and America, with presentingits aggressionas self-defenseand itself as the victimwhen actually it was, and is, the oppressor.
That being so, and it really was so(you have only to read the postwar statements of some of Israel’s leaders to know that), there is no question about how the Security Council oughtto have responded – if it was going to act in accordance with its awesome responsibilities and obligations as defined by its own Charter and international law.
- It ought to have condemned Israel as the aggressor.
- It ought to have demanded Israel’sunconditionalwithdrawal from occupied territory.
- And it ought to have said that the international community would not tolerate the building of illegal settlements on occupied territory.
The truth is that under pressure from President Lyndon Johnson’s administration, which itself was under pressure from Zionism, the Security Council came up with a resolution, 242by number, which was a disaster for all who were seriously committed to working for a just and lasting peace. It paid lip-service to the notion of an Israeli withdrawalfrom occupied land in exhange for peace, but because it allowed Israel to determine the extent of its withdrawals, Resolution 242 effectively gave Israel’s leaders a permanent veto over any peace process… And that proved to be a real problem because Zionism was not, and is not, interested in peace on any terms the vast majority of Palestinians, other Arabs and Muslims everywhere could accept.
The only American President who had the will and the courage to confront Zionism was General Dwight D. Eisenhower. In 1956 he required the Israelis to withdrawunconditionallyfrom Eygptian territory after they had colluded with Britain and France in a mad attempt to topple Nasser. After reading the riot act to Israel, Eisenhower made a most important statement. He 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.”
With Resolution 242 of the 22ndof November 1967, the Security Council turned back that clock. And guaranteed that the Palestineproblem would become the cancer at the heart of international affairs.
A last point for now. Why, really, did the text of Resolution 242 not contain a statement to the effect that Israel should not seek to settle or colonise occupied territory, and that if it did, the Security Council would enforce international law
and take whatever steps were necessary to stop illegal developments?My answer is the following and it takes us, or so I believe, to the heart of the matter for discussion this evening.
At least some of those responsible for framing Resolution 242 were aware that Israel’s political and military hawks were going to proceed with their colonial venture come what may – in determined defiance of international law, and no matter what the organised international community said or wanted.And some if not all of those responsible for framing 242 were resignedto the fact that, because of the history of the Jews and the obscenity of the Nazi holocaust,Israel was not, and never would be or could be, a NORMAL state.As a consequence, there was no point inseeking to oblige it to behave like a normal state– i.e. in accordance with international law and its obligations as a member of the UN. Like it or not, and whatever it might mean for the fate of humankind, the world was going to have to live with the fact that there were two sets of rules for the behaviour of nations – one for Israel and one for all other nations.Because of the way Israel was created – without legitimacy in international law, The System now had a double standard built into it, and because the political will to confront Zionism did not exist, there was nothing anybody could do to change that reality.
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