Quatsch Watch

Should the U.N. Sanction Israel?

QUATSCH: "Never, since Israel's creation in 1948, has the U.N. Security Council imposed any kind of sanctions against it. This outrageous demand comes at a time when Israel's government is sparing no effort to advance the peace process. These include accepting the principle of a withdrawal from the Golan Heights; a settlements freeze; and a far-reaching autonomy plan for residents of the West Bank and Gaza." Near East Report, Jan. 18, 1993

WATCH: The weekly newsletter quoted above, which is affiliated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), Israel's principal lobby in Washington, DC, has managed to pack four misleading statements into the two sentences quoted above.

Sanctions: The U.N. General Assembly has, repeatedly, condemned Israel in resolutions which require only a simple majority to pass. General Assembly resolutions, however, are not binding upon U.N. members.

Resolutions by the 11-member U.N. Security Council are binding upon U.N. members, but they can be vetoed by any of the 5 permanent Security Council members (U.S., U.K., France, Russia, China). The normal procedure leading to sanctions, such as those imposed on Libya or Iraq, is for the Security Council to pass a resolution condemning a nation's action, and calling for that nation to rectify the action. Only if the condemned nation refuses to rectify the action (turn over accused aircraft saboteurs for trial in the U.S. or U.K. in the case of Libya, withdraw from Kuwait and pay reparations in the case of Iraq, allow Palestinians expelled from the occupied territories to return immediately to their homes in the case of Israel) does a sanctions resolution follow.

There is no record of how many resolutions condemning Israel, or imposing sanctions upon it, have been thwarted by American "quiet diplomacy" or diplomatic blackmail. The record shows, however, that the U.N. Security Council has passed 66 Security Council resolutions condemning Israel, the first step leading to sanctions. In addition to those condemnations, the U.S. has vetoed another 29 U.N. Security Council resolutions condemning Israel or imposing sanctions on it. (See report by Donald Neff on pp.40-42 of this issue.) To say that the U.N. has never in its history imposed sanctions on Israel is to ignore the fact that it is only repeated U.S. vetoes that have prevented the world body from taking such action.

Golan Heights: It is misleading to state that Israel has agreed to "the principle of withdrawal from the Golan Heights. " Israel has suggested it might withdraw from part of the Golan Heights seized in the 1967 war in return for a peace settlement with Syria, and demanded to know what kind of peace treaty Syria is prepared to sign in return. Syrian President Hafez Al-Assad responded that Syria is prepared to offer "total peace" in exchange for "total withdrawal," but specified that the offer applies only if Israel agrees also to withdrawal from West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza areas occupied in 1967 at the same time the Golan was occupied. Israel has not responded to the Syrian offer.

Settlement Freeze: As a condition for receiving the first $2 billion installment of $10 billion in U.S. Loan guarantees over a five-year period, President George Bush called upon Israel to "freeze" Jewish settlement activities in the occupied territories. Bush's linking of the loan guarantees to a settlement freeze brought down Israel's Likud government. In July 1992, newly elected Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin responded to Bush with a plan to freeze work on housing not yet begun in "political settlements," a distinction not recognized by the U. S., but to finish work on housing already underway.

President Bush gave Congress the green light to authorize the first $2 billion in loan guarantees and the legislation was signed on Jan.6,1993. On examination, however, the Rabin "freeze" permitted the completion of work on 8,781 West Bank housing units said to be under construction, cancellation of 6,681 units not started, and continued work on another 1,686 units in East Jerusalem or within the city limits of Jerusalem, which the Israeli government has extended into West Bank areas far beyond the original Jerusalem city limits.

Thus Rabin's "acceptance" of a settlement freeze really is non-acceptance of any present or future limits on Israeli settlements in "greater Jerusalem, " and continuation of construction on 1O,447 housing units in areas seized in 1967. This will produce more housing units in the occupied territories than Israelis can occupy for years to come, and in no way justifies the Near East Report claim that Israel has accepted "a settlement freeze.''

Autonomy Plan for Palestinians: Palestinians in the occupied territories are ruled under an accretion of laws including those enacted during 400 years of Ottoman rule, some 30 years of British mandatory rule (including "emergency laws" imposed to deal with successive Arab and Jewish revolts), and Israeli military occupation measures. Israeli authorities apply them selectively to take any action they wish to, including "administrative detention" without an indictment or court hearing, and "expulsion" without charges of any kind, as occurred on Dec. 17 with 400 Palestinian Muslims.

When, in the 1992 peace talks, Palestinian negotiators asked their Israeli counterparts which of those laws would be rescinded under the autonomy plan, they were told, "none of them. " The autonomy plan, in the words of the Palestinian negotiators, would give Palestinians the right "to collect garbage and sweep the streets," and virtually nothing else.

During the proposed five years of "autonomy," Israeli authorities would be free to continue the discriminatory allocation of water which encourages Israeli "settlers" to build swimming pools and to plant and irrigate fields while the trees in Palestinian orchards die for lack of water. Israeli authorities also would be free to continue the confiscation of lands that already has transferred about 50 percent of the West Bank and Gaza from Palestinian to Jewish ownership. Israeli authorities would be free to jail or expel without charges any Palestinians who complained. At the end of the five years there could be virtually no land left in Palestinian possession, and possibly very few Palestinians left there as well. Nor will Israeli negotiators discuss what status would follow the five-year "autonomy" period.

Therefore, as proposed in the bilateral negotiations to date, the Israeli "autonomy plan" is nothing more than a grace period for Israel to consolidate the gains that would turn its present military occupation into de facto annexation of whatever additional lands it chooses to retain after a final peace settlement.—RHC