The United Nations Headquarters is a distinctive complex in New York City that has served as the official headquarters of the United Nations since its completion in 1950. (Source: Wikipedia)
David Bensoussan
In the wake of the recent, ritual anti-Israel resolutions at the United Nations, Canada’s supporting vote there has called into question the continuity of its policy. This has consisted in generally not participating in the unilateral anti-Israel resolutions of this body. Indeed, since 2004, the Canadian government (then under Paul Martin) withdrew from resolutions singling out Israel, with the aim of reforming the U.N.
The questions that arise now are: how much credit should be given to the United Nations when it comes to Israel? What kind of resolutions in fact contribute to the advancement of Middle East peace? What, indeed, would be the best way to achieve peace?
The Fantasy-World of Anti-Israel Resolutions at the U.N.
The U.N. has passed more than 300 anti-Israel resolutions, and not one that criticizes neighboring countries. These all-or-nothing resolutions even include a ban on Israel digging a canal from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea, that would supply electricity to the entire Middle East! Passed with blocks of pre-decided votes, these resolutions suggest the following analogy: imagine that all the Montreal police stationed at each crossroad follow your every step, measuring the idle time at a stop or the speed of your vehicle, while completely ignoring systematic violations of the Highway Code by other drivers and the serious accidents they cause. This is exactly what the U.N. is doing by completely ignoring the massacres and human rights abuses of the countries bordering Israel.
What credibility should be given to this body, the U.N., in which the states that are the worst violators of human rights are elected to the Council for Women’s Rights or Human Rights? It is true that important resolutions are taken in the Security Council. However, the veto power of one of the five powers of the Security Council can also paralyze this body when the problem tackled does not suit everyone.
Canada’s Votes at the UN
As in the past, it has been and is argued that Canada’s vote at the United Nations precludes it from obtaining a non-permanent seat on the Security Council. As of October 19, 2010, the author of this article, in a piece entitled: “Canada and the UN: Diplomatic Setback?”, in the newspaper La Presse, that noted “It is a great honor for Canada to speak out against the hypocrisy that reigns on a planetary scale. The UN is paralyzed by the automatic and blind votes of the General Assembly. It is high time that all Canadian parties support Canada’s position by calling on friendly countries, including Arab and Muslim countries, to show more discernment and impartiality and to make the United Nations a place of conflict resolution, rather than one of vicious ostracism. What is more, in the present case, the representatives of the United Arab Emirates have openly campaigned against Canada because of Canada’s refusal to further open its airspace to their carriers. “
It has been argued that Canada, in voting for the General Assembly’s ani-Israel resolution, is now taking a more “balanced” position. What value should we give to this argument, when we know that the scale of U.N. justice is disproportionately unbalanced when it comes to Israel? A truly balanced position would in fact consist precisely in denouncing this state of things. This would, no doubt, bring more serenity and credibility to the United Nations, whose agenda has been taken hostage by these anti-Israeli resolutions, at the expense of finding solutions to the many conflicts and miseries of a planet in distress.
The Arab-Israeli Conflict
Before the 1967 Six Day War, calls for the extermination of Israel saturated the airwaves in the Middle East. President Nasser had decided to send UN forces back to the Israeli-Egyptian border, to bring heavy weapons into Sinai, and to close the Strait of Tiran. Contrary to all expectations, Israel emerged victorious. Resolution 242 was adopted by the Security Council, calling on Israel to withdraw from (not all) conquered territories to secure borders. In other words, the status of these territories could not then, and cannot today, be finalized simply at the expense of the security of Israel.
This is why the recent Canadian vote for a U.N. General Assembly resolution co-sponsored by North Korea and defining in advance the final status of the West Bank territories is wrong. Biased U.N. resolutions orchestrated by countries that seek only to delegitimize Israel do nothing to advance the two-state solution that many want. Since the Six Day War, peace agreements have been signed with Egypt and Jordan, and territorial compromises have been negotiated. Jordan has renounced control over the West Bank, which it occupied since 1948. (Syria, however, continues to advocate radical opposition to any peace agreement.) At a time when the old argument that all the Arab countries’ misfortunes are attributable to Israel become no longer valid, the tragically-failed Arab Spring was the expression of popular revolts against corruption and endogenous governmental deficiencies…
What about the Palestinians?
The Oslo Accords followed by the Taba Accord proposals (1993, 1995) had offered the Palestinians more than they hoped for, including on the question of Jerusalem. Yet the Palestinian response was to launch a series of suicide murders which made the Israeli public despair and caused the loss of elections by the left, which had advocated a formula for territorial accommodation in exchange for peace. This in turn strengthened those who chose to settle in the territories in order to better defend the country.
How to explain the Palestinian refusal? The Palestinian problem has long been fostered by dictatorships in the region, in order to divert and subjugate their own populations. What is more, the Palestinians receive significant international aid and, encouraged in their refusal to negotiate by the anti-Israel votes at the U.N., continue to miss opportunities to advance the interests of peace.
In addition, although tens of millions of refugees worldwide lose their status as soon as they find work, Palestinian refugees retain theirs from generation to generation. Uniquely, a special agency (UNRWA) deals exclusively with the Palestinians, while another (UNHCR) takes care of all the tens of millions of refugees in 110 other countries. This while no UN agency dealt, or deals, with the over-800,000 Jewish post-1948, -1956, and -l967 refugees from Arab countries. While one UNRWA worker serves, on average, 160 refugees, a UNHCR worker serves 2,800. It has been repeatedly pointed out that schools funded by UNRWA fuel hate education, and that this organization is riddled with corruption. (It goes without saying that if peace did arise, the Palestinians’ special refugee status would be lost).
What about the Israelis?
Faced with the refusal of multiple peace proposals from the Palestinians, many Israelis have despaired of achieving peace. How can peace with the Palestinian Authority be envisaged when it rewards the perpetrators of suicide murders with annual allocations of hundreds of millions of dollars, which undermine its budget?
Some analysts still advocate a two-state solution. But how viable would such a solution be under conditions of ongoing and officially-supported anti-Israel hatred? Imagine that the West Bank becomes independent—tomorrow. Iran would send, as “agricultural aid” tractors, hundreds of tanks, while the distance between the 1967 border of Israel and the sea would be 14 kilometers. It should be clearly understood that such a solution has to be ruled out as long as the teaching of hatred prevails.
How Contribute to Peace?
It would be a good idea for Canada’s current aid payments to UNRWA to go through UNHCR, which would potentially end an unregulated and addictive system which perpetuates dependency. It would also be useful for Canada to back initiatives that encourage moderation and collaboration between Palestinians and Israelis, in order to engender more confidence between them.
In this regard, many European countries want to restore good relations with the Iranian mullahs’ dictatorship by ignoring the repeated genocidal calls emanating from their government and their militias. There is no doubt that such a reality, like that of unbalanced, unilateral U.N. votes, only reinforces the Israelis’ feeling of being besieged, which in turn reinforces those in Israel who believe less and less in true peace.
Indeed, true peace comes not from unbalanced U.N. decrees, but through a genuine change of heart. Opposing the current darkness at the United Nations would create a glimmer of hope and common sense, and would revive the clarity that we all hope to see on the eve of Hanukkah, the coming Festival of Lights.
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