Israel and the United Nations

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Israel and the United Nations have had mixed relations since Israel'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). Other issues arise from time to time.

1 History
- 1.1 Soviet influence
2 Allegations of Anti-Israel bias
3 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict
4 Current situation
5 See also
6 References
7 Notes
8 External links

[edit] History

Map showing the 1947 UN partition plan for Palestine.

Both the League of Nations's 1922 Mandate for Palestine and the 1947 UN Partition Plan supported an aim of Zionism: the establishment of a Jewish national homeland in Palestine.

The UN General Assembly Resolution 181 (November 29, 1947), which served as the foundation for the Israeli Declaration of Independence, with Jerusalem to be an internationalised city (Corpus separatum), was passed by the General Assembly with 33 votes in favor, 13 against, and 10 abstentions. 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 (not taking to account the massive wave of Jewish immigrants and refugees soon to come), 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 Israeli prime minister David Ben Gurion, among some Jewish leaders agreed to the plan, but the Zionist right, a minority, did not. The Palestinians rejected the partition plan and war followed. [http://mondediplo.com/2000/11/04mideastjerusa}

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 ^[1]. The Arab leaders rejected the 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 ... "It's too late to talk of peaceful solutions." ^[2].

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

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." ^[3] 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." ^[4]

On May 25, 1948, Haim Weizmann the President of the World Zionist Organization, the first President of Israel and the American president Harry Truman agreed to give the Negev desert to Israel ^[5]

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 ^[6] of Jews who immigrated 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.

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

[edit] Soviet influence

Main articles: Soviet Union and the Arab-Israeli conflict and History of the Jews in Russia and the Soviet Union

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 ... ^[7]

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. ^[8] 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".

[edit] Allegations of Anti-Israel bias

The neutrality of this section is disputed.
Please see the discussion on the talk page.

Critics who accuse the UN of anti-Israel prejudice cite what they see as a disproportionately long list of resolutions concerning Israel,^[9] especially the 1975 Resolution 3379, which qualified Zionism as a form of racism (later revoked with Resolution 4686), and the 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.

Starting in the mid-1970s, an Arab-Soviet-Third World bloc joined to form a pro-PLO lobby at the United Nations. This was particularly true in the General Assembly where these countries frequently voted together to pass resolutions attacking Israel and supporting the PLO.^[10] An early example came in 1975, when soon after the award of permanent representative status to the PLO, at the instigation of the Arab states and the Soviet Bloc, the Assembly approved Resolution 3379 equating Zionism and racism.^[10]

U.S. Ambassador Daniel Moynihan called the resolution “a reckless and obscene act.”^[11] Israeli Ambassador Chaim Herzog told his fellow delegates the resolution was “based on hatred, falsehood and arrogance.” Hitler, he declared, would have felt at home listening to the UN debate on the measure.^[12]

In her June 21, 2004 speech ^[13] at a Conference on Confronting anti-Semitism: Education for Tolerance and Understanding sponsored by the United Nations Department of Information (and in related articles ^[14]) Anne Bayefsky, a human rights scholar and activist attending as representative of the International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists, advocated the need for deep reforms within the UN and criticized some of the UN policies and practices:

There is only one entire UN Division devoted to a single group of people: the United Nations Division for Palestinian Rights ^[15] (created in 1977).
The only UN day dedicated to a specific people is November 29, the annual UN Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.
There is only one refugee agency dedicated to a single refugee situation: UNRWA (in operation since 1950).
"The General Assembly operates through six committees of the whole. One of them, the Fourth Committee, routinely devotes 30 percent of its time to the condemnation of Israel."^[16]
"The General Assembly emergency sessions... began in 1956, and since then six of the ten emergency sessions ever held, have been about Israel. The 10th such session began in 1997 and has been reconvened 13 times. ... a million dead in Rwanda or two million dead in Sudan might have warranted one General Assembly emergency session."^[16]
"...the UN's primary human-rights body is the UN Human Rights Commission. 30% of the resolutions condemning specific states ever adopted over 40 years are directed at Israel." ^[16]

Anne Bayefsky acknowledges that "Israel’s policies are, of course, fair game for legitimate criticism. But the UN’s outrage is grossly selective, especially when one considers the record of any number of other member nations."^[17]

In April 2004 the UN special envoy to Iraq, Lakhdar Brahimi, told French radio listeners that "the great poison in the region" is Israeli "domination" and told American television viewers that the Israelis "are not interested in peace, no matter what you seem to believe in America".^[18]^[19]

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 resolutions contribute to the Middle East peace process. The 76-page report ^[20] makes the following principal findings:

The texts of UN General Assembly and Security Council resolutions are "often unbalanced in terms of the length of criticism and condemnation of Israeli actions in the Occupied Territories as against Palestinian actions such as suicide bombings."
The United Nations is "palpably more critical of Israeli policies and practices than it is of either Palestinian actions or the wider Arab world. However criticism is not necessarily the product of bias."
In resolutions of the UN General Assembly, "violence perpetrated against Israeli civilians, including the use of suicide bombers, is mentioned only a few times and then in only vague terms."

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."

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 an 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 [[3]].

[edit] 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict

Main article: Attacks on United Nations personnel during the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict

See also: 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict

On July 26th 2006 Israeli aircraft in South Lebanon dropped bombs onto UN observers, killing four of them from Austria, Canada, China and Finland. The observers in the building made multiple calls to Israeli forces over a six hour period and informed them of the presence of UN observers at the location. However, at 7:20pm, the building which had served as a known UN outpost in that region for 50 years was struck by a missile and destroyed. ^[21] The UN Secretary General Kofi Annan stating that "I am shocked and deeply distressed by the apparently deliberate targeting by Israeli Defence Forces of a UN Observer post in southern Lebanon." As at the time Annan had no evidence for the bombing being deliberate, many pundits noted that Hezbollah members had been firing on Israeli positions from the immediate vicinity of the post, and described Annan's statement as indicative of the UN's anti-Israel bias.^[22]^[23]^[24]^[25]^[26]^[27]^[28] Israel’s prime minister, Ehud Olmert, has expressed “deep sorrow” over the deaths, and has ordered an investigation into the incident. Such a report has not - at October 2006 - been published.^[29]^[30]^[31] Tzipi Livni, Israel's Foreign Minister was quoted as saying: “During a war these kind of accidents can happen.”^[32] Annan has begun to backtrack from his statement, although his assistant, Marie Okabe, claims he still stands by it.^[33]
In 2006 the organization accused Israel of violating humanitarian law in connection with the 2006 Israel-Lebanon War.^[34]

The conflict was suspended with a cease-fire implemented under UN Security Council Resolution 1701. Among the terms of UNSCR 1701 are cessation of hostilities; Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon; disarmament of Hezbollah; full control of Lebanon by the Lebanese government; and removal of all paramilitary forces (i.e. Hezbollah) south of the Litani River with their replacement by UNIFIL. As of December 2006 hostilities have largely ceased, Israel has withdrawn from Lebanon, and UNIFIL forces are in place. The remaining provisions have not been carried out. In the time since the enactment of UNSCR 1701 both the Lebanese government and UNIFIL have disavowed any intent to disarm Hezbollah.[4] [5] [6]

[edit] Current situation

Dan Gillerman, current Israeli Ambassador to the UN

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.^[9]^[35]. Nevertheless, Israel's role within WEOG has allowed it to successfully nominate candidacies for membership on committees and organizations withing the UN system.

A few countries have consistently supported Israel's actions in the UN, such as the United States of America and the states of Micronesia and the Marshall Islands, both of which are associated states of the U.S. Recently Australia, under the leadership of John Howard, and Canada, under the leadership of Stephen Harper, have 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, abstaining from the ongoing condemnations of Israel and 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 — almost all U.S. vetos cast since 1986 have concerned UN resolutions against Israel.

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 Israeli to hold that position was Israeli envoy to the UN, Abba Eban, in 1952. Israel's candidacy was put forward by the Western Europe and Others Group (WEOG).