http://www.palestinecenter.org/news/20001221.html
U.S. Resistance to International Criticism of Israel
By Stephen Zunes
Overview:
The violence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip
underscores the need for the international community to take
assertive actions that can encourage a just and lasting peace in the
region. It is crucial to recognize that while the violence must end,
the underlying crisis has deeper roots.
The bottom line is this: The Palestinians are an occupied
population, not unlike the Kuwaitis under Iraq in 1990 and 1991, or
the East Timorese under Indonesia from 1975 to 1999. The
Palestinians have endured the longest military occupation of the
past century, save for Japan's occupation of Korea between 1910 and
1945. However one may wish to challenge the tactics or ideology of
the Palestinians resisting the occupation, the onus of
responsibility lies with the Israeli occupiers. The decision by some
Palestinians to take up arms also can be placed on the United
States' refusal to live up to its obligations to enforce United
Nations resolutions.
Palestinian Rights and International Law:
A final peace agreement at Camp David this past July between Israeli
Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian Authority (PA) President
Yasser Arafat was not nearly as close as many believed. Barak's
proposal was doomed to fail. It would have allowed for continued
Israeli control over a patchwork of illegal Jewish settlements,
military outposts, and a network of exclusive highways throughout
the West Bank and Gaza, making it virtually impossible for the
establishment of a viable Palestinian state. Maintaining those
settlements and their infrastructure is a violation of the Fourth
Geneva Convention and UN Security Council resolutions. An
unsustainable peace agreement based on this proposal would have been
worse than no peace agreement at all.
Therefore, when President Bill Clinton and other U.S. officials
blamed the Palestinians for the breakdown of the talks, there was a
strong sense of outrage among Palestinians. They thought that taking
a position to the negotiations consistent with international law
would lead to a recovery of their lands seized by Israel in 1967.
While a strong case can be made that Palestinian attacks against
Israeli forces set back the hope for peace, a people under foreign
military occupation do have the right, under international law, to
attack uniformed occupation forces. Attacks against civilian Jewish
settlers, by contrast, are not legal, yet neither is their presence
on occupied Palestinian land. Israelis within Israel itself have
been virtually unscathed by the recent violence. If Barak's
government is genuinely interested in its people's safety, there
would be an immediate withdrawal of troops and settlers to Israel.
U.S. Defense of Israel:
The majority of Israeli military encounters with Palestinians are
not against armed resistance, but against young people with rocks
and slingshots. Reports by Amnesty International, Human Rights
Watch, and independent Israeli and Palestinian human rights groups,
have shown that Israeli forces are the major perpetrators of the
violence. The casualty ratio between Israelis and Palestinians is 10
to 1, with most Palestinian victims unarmed. Yet the U.S. has
refused to support resolutions defending basic human rights in the
Occupied Territories.
- On October 7, UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1322 was
adopted condemning the "excessive use of force against
Palestinians." It called on Israel, as the occupying power, to
abide by the Fourth Geneva Convention. Every Security Council
member endorsed the resolution except for the United States,
which abstained.
- On October 19, the UN Human Rights Commission condemned the
"grave and massive violations of the human rights of the
Palestinian people by Israel," and requested that the High
Commissioner for Human Rights visit the Occupied Territories to
examine the situation, including the "disproportionate and
indiscriminate use of force" by Israel. The U.S. voted against
the resolution.
- On October 20, the UN General Assembly condemned Israel's
excessive use of force against Palestinians. It demanded that
Israel, as the occupying power, abide scrupulously to its legal
obligations under the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 on the
Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War. The resolution
reiterated that the Convention was applicable to all
territories occupied by Israel since 1967, and that settlements
in occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem,
were illegal and an obstacle to peace. It also called for the
prevention of Israeli settler violence. The United States was
one of only six states (the others being Israel and four tiny
Pacific island nations dependent on U.S. aid) which voted
against the resolution.
In contradiction to these UN statements and resolutions, the U.S.
Congress passed an October 25 resolution 365 to 30 which blamed the
Palestinians exclusively for the violence. Al Gore and George W.
Bush made similar statements during the waning days of their
presidential campaigns, as have the congressional leaders of both
parties.
Moreover, prominent political figures and pundits in the United
States have sought to blame Arafat and the PA for encouraging
rioting against Israeli troops. Those most responsible for violence
on the Palestinian side, however, are Islamists and young people,
the two segments of Palestinian society over which Arafat has the
least control. Furthermore, as it has been from South Africa to East
Timor, youth are often at the forefront of such spontaneous
rebellions without any need for prompting by their seniors in
positions of authority.
Finally, no Israeli government has ever been able to make successful
compromises for peace without U.S. pressure. If the U.S. had
pressured Barak to compromise this summer, Barak could have told the
Israeli public that further sacrifices were necessary to preserve
the close relationship with the United States. Instead, by claiming
that the Israelis had compromised more than the Palestinians, the
United States left the Barak government open to criticism from the
right that it had given away too much. As a result, the Labor
government has fallen and the right-wing Likud is favored to win the
upcoming election.
A Lesson Learned:
For nearly 22 years, the United States blocked enforcement of UNSCR
425 and nine subsequent resolutions demanding Israel's unconditional
withdrawal from Lebanon. Had the U.S. not opposed these resolutions,
Palestinians would have seen a precedent for Israeli withdrawal
through a nonviolent process based on international law, and would
have had more faith in U.S. leadership.
Instead, Palestinians saw the Israelis withdraw only when a
protracted guerrilla war resulted in losses of Israeli soldiers to a
degree deemed unacceptable by the Israeli public. Israel was forced
to make a hasty, chaotic retreat this past May. Unfortunately, as
with Lebanon, continued guerrilla warfare against Israel will likely
lead to thousands of Arab casualties, primarily civilians, and the
dislocation of tens of thousands more. Yet unlike Lebanon, such
violence will probably not convince Israel to withdraw. Israelis see
the West Bank-for strategic, religious, and nationalistic reasons-as
far more important.
Necessary Steps:
Achieving a lasting peace settlement will be difficult until the
fighting stops. The UN must be able to send in an international
peacekeeping force to separate the sides, and an impartial
international commission should be empowered to investigate the
causes of the violence.
The PA called for such actions, but Israel refused to accept them.
The Clinton administration also opposes such a deployment because it
is unacceptable to Israel. Yet Israel's permission is not required,
since the land in question is occupied territory. The inquiry led by
George Mitchell is unlikely to succeed due to the limitations on its
mandate and Mitchell's role as a staunch defender of the Israeli
occupation while he was a U.S. senator. The three-member team
appointed by the UN on December 19 is likely to be more objective,
yet Israel refuses to cooperate with it.
Regardless, the U.S. must step aside and allow the UN, the European
Union, or some other body which recognizes the rights and
obligations of both parties, to now take the lead in peace
negotiations.
Stephen Zunes is Associate Professor of Politics and Chair of the
Peace and Justice Studies Program at the University of San
Francisco. The above text may be used without permission but with
proper attribution to the author and to CPAP. This Information Brief
does not necessarily reflect the views of CPAP or The Jerusalem
Fund.
