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Israel and the United Nations

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Israel and the United Nations have had very mixed relations, since the state's founding on May 14, 1948. Much of the controversy has to do with the various permutations of the Arab-Israeli conflict (including the Israeli-Palestinian conflict), although other issues arise from time to time.

Contents

History

Both the League of Nations's and the 1947 UN Partition Plan supported the aim of Zionism: the establishment of the Jewish national homeland in the Land of Israel. The UN General Assembly Resolution 181 (November 29, 1947), which served as the foundation for the Israeli Declaration of Independence, was passed by the General Assembly with 33 votes in favor, 13 against, and 10 absentions. It was the first and only time the United Nations has recommended creating two states by way of a General Assembly vote.

By 1947, Jews constituted 60% of the population in the areas designated to the Jewish state by the partition; while the total territory assigned to the Jewish state exceeded proportionally the land allotted to the Arabs, a substantial part of the former was the Negev desert. Substantial Jewish immigration, whose quantity was determined by the British government, had increased the proportion of Jewish inhabitants of Palestine from 11% in 1922 to 33%.

The Arab states and other supporters of the Palestinians argued that the General Assembly's decision to endorse the partition of the British Mandate of Palestine was unjust to the Palestinian Arab population. The Arab leaders repeatedly rejected every plan involving partition and refused to officially negotiate with the Jewish leadership. Arab League Secretary Abdul Rahman Hassan Azzam told the Jewish Agency in September 1947: "You won't get anything by peaceful means or compromise ... [I]t's too late to talk of peaceful solutions." Horowitz, 1953, p.233

Count Folke Bernadotte, the official UN mediator during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War who was assassinated by the Lehi in Jerusalem in 1948.
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Count Folke Bernadotte, the official UN mediator during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War who was assassinated by the Lehi in Jerusalem in 1948.

As the Mandate expired on May 14, 1948 and the State of Israel was announced according to the UN Partition Plan, joint Jordanian, Egyptian, Syrian, Lebanese and Iraqi troops invaded and fought to destroy the nascent Jewish state.

On May 15, 1948, the Arab League Secretary General Abdul Razek Azzam announced the intention to wage "a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades." Benny Morris, Righteous Victims, p.219 On the same day, the Arab League circulated a statement in the UN which insisted on "a unitary Palestinian State, in accordance with democratic principles, whereby its inhabitants will enjoy complete equality before the law, (and whereby) minorities will be assured of all the guarantees recognized in democratic constitutional countries and (whereby) the holy places will be preserved and the rights of access thereto guaranteed". It also "drew attention to the injustice implied in this solution (affecting) the right of the people of Palestine to immediate independence, as well as democratic principles and the provisions of the Covenant of the League of Nations and (the Charter) of the United Nations." [Statement by the Arab League States Following the Establishment of the State of Israel (May 15, 1948)]

In the aftermath of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East was established to alleviate the condition of Palestinian refugees; in the following two decades a comparable number [JIMENA - Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa] of Jews who fled or were expelled from the Arab and Muslim countries of the Middle East and North Africa were absorbed by Israel and other countries without assistance from the UN.

Soviet influence

Political Zionism was officially stamped out for the entire history of the Soviet Union as a form of bourgeois nationalism. Without changing its official anti-Zionist stance, the USSR briefly supported the establishment of Israel in 1947. Before voting for the 1947 partition, Andrei Gromyko stated:

As we know, the aspirations of a considerable part of the Jewish people are linked with the problem of Palestine and of its future administration. This fact scarcely requires proof... The United Nations cannot and must not regard this situation with indifference, since this would be incompatible with the high principles proclaimed in its Charter ... [UN Debate Regarding the Special Committee on Palestine: Gromyko Statement. 14 May 1947 77th Plenary Meeting] Document A/2/PV.77

From late 1944 until 1948, Stalin had adopted a de facto pro-Zionist foreign policy, apparently believing that the new country would be socialist and would speed the decline of British influence in the Middle East. Johnson, 1987, p.527 Three days after Israel declared independence, the Soviet Union legally recognized it. However, by the end of 1948 and throughout the course of the Cold War, the Soviet Union unequivocally supported various Arab regimes against Israel. The official position of the Soviet Union and its satellite states and agencies was that Zionism was a tool used by the Jews and Americans for "racist imperialism".

Admission to UN membership

The General Assembly voted to admit Israel to UN membership in Resolution 273 (III) of May 11, 1949.

Current situation

The UN Charter gives every state the right to membership of the UN Security Council, and says that membership will be decided according to equitable geographic distribution. The latter requirement has meant in practice that non-permanent Security Council members are selected from the five geographical groupings of member states. Without membership in a regional group, a member state cannot sit on the Security Council or other key UN bodies.

Geographically, the State of Israel would belong to the Asian Group, but that group has repeatedly denied Israel's admission. Israel has been the only UN member excluded from a regional group. On May 30, 2000, Israel accepted an invitation to become a temporary member of the Western European and Others (WEOG) regional group. Israel's membership in the group is restricted: it has to reapply for the membership every four years, for the first two years, Israeli representatives were not allowed to run for positions on the UN Council, Israel was not allowed to present candidacies for open seats in any UN body and it is not able to compete for major UN bodies, such as the Economic and Social Council, for a longer period. In addition to these restrictions, Israel is allowed to participate in WEOG activities only in the UN New York office, being excluded from the UN offices in Geneva, Nairobi, Rome and Vienna. Among other issues handled in these offices are human rights and racism. [Israel and the UN - An Uneasy Relationship] (Permanent Mission of Israel to the United Nations). Accessed June 19, 2006 [Myths & Facts Online. The United Nations] by Mitchell G. Bard (Jewish Virtual Library). Accessed June 19, 2006

Israel has particularly few supporters in the United Nations, in part because of the large Muslim contingent (57 countries) and their influence. See Arab League and the Arab-Israeli conflict.

A few countries have consistently supported Israel's actions in the UN, such as the United States of America and also the tiny states of Micronesia and the Marshall Islands, which are both associated states of the U.S. In recent times, Australia, under the leadership of John Howard, has also supported Israel at the UN.

The Western nations frequently condemn Israeli actions including, on occasion, some which Israel claims as being necessary to protect itself from Palestinian terrorism and Arab hostility. The European states typically have abstained from anti-Israel votes. Many European countries have adopted a neutral stance, refraining from the ongoing condemnations of Israel but also supporting the foundation of a Palestinian state. Such countries include France, Russia, and Germany.

The United States has frequently used its veto to protect Israel from condemnatory Security Council votes — in fact, almost all U.S. vetos cast since 1986 have concerned UN resolutions against Israel.

Many Israelis perceive the UN to be deeply prejudiced against Israel. As evidence, they cite what they say is the disproportionately long list of resolutions concerning Israel, especially the 1975 Resolution 3379, which qualified Zionism as a form of racism (revoked by Resolution 4686) and the alleged complicity of UNIFIL in the October 2000 Lebanon abduction of three Israeli Engineering Corps soldiers, by Hezbollah. In September 2004, the bereaved families announced that they intended to sue the UN for its part in the abductions. No legal challenge has to date succeeded in substantiating these claims against the UN.

The perception amongst Israelis that the UN is biased against their country helps explain the refusal of successive Israeli governments to pay attention to the numerous motions passed against Israel by the General Assembly.

In her June 21, 2004 speech [One Small Step. Is the U.N. finally ready to get serious about anti-Semitism?] by Anne Bayefsky, (Opinion Journal) June 21, 2004. Accessed June 19, 2006 at a Conference on Confronting anti-Semitism: Education for Tolerance and Understanding sponsored by the United Nations Department of Information and in her articles [Anne Bayefsky] (Winds of Change). Accessed June 19, 2006, a human rights scholar and activist Anne Bayefsky, attending as representative of the International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists, advocated the necessity of deep reforms within the UN and criticized some of the UN policies and practices:

In August 2004, the United Nations Association of the United Kingdom (UNA-UK) published a report analyzing thirteen years of United Nations resolutions on the Arab-Israeli conflict. In light of the study’s conclusions, Malcolm Harper, speaking on behalf of the UNA-UK (of which he was director until recently), called for an examination into how, if at all, the lopsided resolutions contribute to the Middle East peace process. The 76-page report [Comparison of United Nations Member States' Language in Relation to Israel and Palestine as Evidenced by Resolutions in the UN Security Council and UN General Assembly] August 2004 report (PDF). Accessed June 19, 2006 makes the following principal findings:

The report also stated "However, criticism is not necessarily a product of bias, and it is not the intention here to suggest that UNGA and UNSC reproaches of Israel stem from prejudice. From the perspective of the UN, Israel has repeatedly flouted fundamental UN tenets and ignored important decisions."

Israel's Permanent Representative to the United Nations Dan Gillerman was elected to the position of Vice-President of the 60th UN General Assembly. The last one to do so was Israeli envoy to the U.N. Abba Eban in 1952. Israel's candidacy was put forward by the Western Europe and Others Group (WEOG).

The event celebrating an annual "International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People" on November 29, 2005 was attended by Kofi Annan and other high-ranking diplomats. In his January 3, 2006 letter to Mr. Annan, the US ambassador John Bolton criticized the UN for promoting anti-Israel agenda and noted that the map prominently displayed at the event "erases the state of Israel" only days after Iran's leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's speech calling to wipe Israel off the map. The organizer of the "solidarity" event is the Division for Palestinian Rights (2004-2005 UN budget: $5,449,600). Other bodies include the Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People and Other Arabs of the Occupied Territories ($254,500), the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People ($60,800), and the Information Activities on the Question of Palestine ($566,000). Similar funding has been approved for the next biannual budget.

See also

References

Notes

External links

 

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