Even Micronesia and Marshall Islands Desert U.S.-Israeli Anti-Palestine Campaign at United Nations

By Ian Williams

Even anomalous friends like Micronesia deserted Israel and the U.S. when the reconvened U.N. Special General Assembly voted on Feb. 9 to convene a conference of signatories of the Fourth Geneva Convention to consider Israeli practices in the occupied territories.

Using the procedure devised by the Americans to circumvent the old Soviet veto in the Security Council, in 1997 the Palestinians had persuaded the membership to hold the Tenth Emergency Special Session of the General Assembly, where the U.S. does not have a veto, in order to get action on Israeli settlements. The original cause was the U.S. veto of a Security Council resolution condemning Israeli plans to build at Jebal Abu Ghneim, but Netanyahu’s subsequent behavior has broadened the issue.

“Every single Palestinian in the Palestinian territory is subject to Israeli occupation.”

As always, the Europeans were concerned that with the Israeli elections in the offing this was the wrong time to debate the issue. But with the chronically unstable nature of Israeli politics being one reason for the impasse, they did not say so. In fact Germany, for the EU, “deplored” Israel’s failure to suspend settlement activities, which its ambassador declared “were in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention.”

Originally, it had been reported that the Israelis would boycott the session, but their vociferously undiplomatic Ambassador Dore Gold could not stay away. He boasted that Israel had withdrawn from 491.4 square kilometers of territory and that 97 percent of the Palestinians were under the administration of the Palestinian Authority, and decried what he called the “PLO” delegation’s letterhead whose insignia included the whole of Palestine.

Palestinian Ambassador Nasser Al-Kidwa riposted with eloquence—and accuracy. He pointed out that “every single Palestinian in the Palestinian territory is subject to Israeli occupation. Whether the Israeli tanks are inside the city of Ramallah, for example, or only around the city, the fact remains that it is not possible to get a can of baby milk in or out without the approval of the occupying authorities.”

Perhaps in part because of Dore Gold’s obduracy, in the end only the U.S. and Israel voted against the reconvening of the Geneva Convention signatories, which will take place in Geneva July 15, with, of course, Palestine represented, whether by then as a state or not.

Since the Palestinians resurrected it, the U.S. has tried to devalue and delegitimize the “Uniting For Peace” procedure that it had itself originally pioneered. Ironically, if it had not been trying to discredit the procedure, the U.S. could have used it to override the Chinese veto of the U.N. peacekeeping force in Macedonia, and even to thwart a Russian veto of action against Serbia. However, it is not the first time that slavish devotion to Israel has upset important aspects of American foreign policy in other parts of the world.

U.S. and Britain Alone on Iraq

The U.S. certainly would not be able to use the procedure to get support for its actions against Iraq, because they have even less support in the General Assembly than in the Security Council. Malaysia, elected to the Council in January, and self-appointed squeaky wheel, raised the question of the legality of the no-fly zones, and hence of the bombing of air raid defenses in Iraq.

Since then, the Chinese, Indonesians and others have raised the issue as well. In addition to everybody else’s firm conviction that there is no legal mandate for the zones, the intense bombing campaign against air-defense establishments in Iraq looks to many members like a war of attrition against Iraq, which is not only not supported by U.N. resolutions but is probably in defiance of the U.N. Charter.

Taken with the December bombing campaign, it has meant that Iraq’s weapons efforts have been unmonitored for some four months, with little or no chance of agreement on getting the inspectors back in.

There was some degree of optimism that the British and Americans, having dug themselves into a hole, would be forced to compromise in return for their Security Council colleagues giving them a hand to get out. At the end of January, the Council agreed to set up three panels about Iraq—one on disarmament, one on sanctions, and one on the missing Kuwaiti nationals and property—to report back to the Security Council by mid-April. The panels were chosen and are chaired by the Brazilian ambassador, Celso Amorim. Described as a “procedural bridge” by the Canadians, the panels could in fact square a lot of diplomatic circles.

This “bridge” allows the disarmament panel to draw upon the expertise of UNSCOM specialists, for example, at a time when the Russians had refused to recognize its chairman, Richard Butler. While Butler was not on the panel, it does include many UNSCOM experts while also including “neutrals” that could be more acceptable to Baghdad. It would look at information on the current state of disarmament, while drawing up plans for how to complete and certify the work.

The panels could be regarded as the comprehensive review the Iraqis and their friends have been asking for, while offering some form of inspection of the kind that Washington wants. Indeed, it should be said that not even Iraq’s best friends are ecstatic at Saddam Hussain being armed with chemical or biological weapons, let alone nuclear devices!

The panel on the missing people could, theoretically, allow an objective assessment of the problem, and give Baghdad the chance to confess what happened, and to avoid a long, drawn-out “MIA” scenario, postponing the end of sanctions.

The panel on sanctions would allow a graceful climbdown by the Americans, thus disarming the objections of much of the world that Iraqi civilians are being penalized by the world for suffering under a dictator.

Richard Butler who, like the Iraqi civilians, seems to have been caught between two unscrupulous and deceitful regimes, now seems set to finish as the demonized chairman of UNSCOM. He had announced that he had told Kofi Annan that he was not asking to have his contract extended when it expires in June.

Since it would appear that UNSCOM is not going anywhere in Iraq in the interim, this fit well into the general pattern of diplomatic serendipity. Butler will not be fired, which makes his American and British supporters happy, but he will go, to the happiness of the Russians and Iraqis. The search is already on for someone desperate enough to be his successor.

To make sure that Butler’s departure did not go unmarked, The Washington Post published further allegations that the U.S. had abused UNSCOM by rigging its equipment and offices to intercept Iraqi military communications—which were “of considerable value to U.S. military planners but generally unrelated to UNSCOM’s special weapons mandate.”

U.S. technicians, who had installed the network of repeater stations that allowed real-time remote monitoring of Iraqi weapons sites, attached equipment that intercepted the Iraqi military communications network. They were intelligence operatives, and, more to the point, UNSCOM was not told about them, nor about their “product.”

Disturbingly, The Washington Post’s sources said that while neither Richard Butler nor his predecessor, Rolf Ekeus, was told about these activities, Charles Duelfer, their American deputy, was not only informed, but given the task of ensuring that the operatives could work unhindered.

Duelfer is, in fact, on the disarmament panel, which is hardly likely to endear it to the Iraqis. Baghdad has such a talent for shooting itself in the foot, however, that it may not make any difference.

On the other hand, even Security Council ambassadors who oppose UNSCOM made relatively little fuss about the revelations, which only confirmed what many of them already considered well-established American abuse of the U.N. operation. Choosing his words with care, Butler himself admitted that if the spying allegations were true, then it would be very bad for all future arms control and monitoring programs on which many of today’s multilateral disarmament conventions depend.

Meanwhile, back in Tripoli, one British diplomat lugubriously suggested that Colonel Muammar Qaddafi was sitting in front of a large pile of coins, tossing a different one every day to decide whether or not to accept the offer of trial in The Hague for the suspects in the Lockerbie PanAm bombing.

The British put a lot of effort into persuading Washington to call Qaddafi’s bluff over the trial’s location. Since then, he has been assured that if convicted the prisoners will have access to the U.N. and to Libyan diplomats and will not be interrogated by American or British officials. Qaddafi also has had U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, South African President Nelson Mandela, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud bin Feisal and other international celebrities traipsing through the desert to meet him and reassure him that sanctions will be lifted the moment the suspects land in The Hague.

Maintaining his reputation for eccentricity, he still has not taken up the offer, while forfeiting the good will of the Arab and African states that helped win the compromise for him.

Ian Williams is a free-lance journalist based at the United Nations and author of The U.N. for Beginners, available through the AET Book Club.