Be Careful What You Wish For--Particularly From The UN

The Palestinian Authority has been making noises about going to the UN General Assembly and demanding that body create an independent Palestine with the borders extant before the Six Day War of 1967.  This move may seem appropriate given that it is widely believed the UN General Assembly created an independent Israel with Resolution 181on 29 November 1947,  What the UN did once, it is argued, the UN can do again.

There is only one problem with this contention.  It is wrong.  The General Assembly did not create Israel with Resolution 181.

The resolution accepted the recommendations of the UN Special Committee On Palestine (UNSCOP) including a partition of the old British Mandate of Palestine into two states: one Arab, the other Jewish.  Overlooking the actual population differential in the Mandate which favored the Arabs by better than two to one or the land ownership pattern which showed Arabs owned over three quarters of the land with Jews holding less than ten percent, the UNSCOP report assigned fifty-five percent of the total area to the proposed Jewish state.  The Resolution kicked the details of creating the two states to the Security Council.

The UNSCOP report and the General Assembly action did violate the long standing and often invoked principle of self-determination which had been a hallmark of US policy put forth by Woodrow Wilson as part of the armistice and peace treaty ending World War I.  This troubled a number of observers both overseas and in the US but was overshadowed by the horrors of Nazi policy which had become a staple of the news during the preceding year.

The debate over the UNSCOP report and Resolution 181 did not focus on self-determination so much as it did the legality under the UN Charter of the Security Council or General Assembly creating countries by fiat.  The Soviet Union protested that action such as that proposed for Palestine violated the Charter.  This posture was adopted by Syria as well.  Other countries saw matters the same way.  Many of the ten abstentions and thirteen negative votes were predicated upon the concern that the resolution as well as any consequent Security Council actions would violate the charter, would confer upon the UN the undesirable status of "world government."

The US position as stated rather forcibly by Ambassador Warren Austin was that the Charter did not empower the Security Council to use force to implement a political settlement--even one instituted by the Security Council.  In point of fact the American position was an accurate reading of the Charter.  The coincidence that the US interpretation paralleled the view of the Arab Higher Council (as the several Arab states called their coordinating body) was unintended.  The US had no political ax to grind in the Palestinian question.  That would come later.

The Security Council was apprised repeatedly that any attempt to impose a partition on Palestine would result in a "breech of the peace."  There is a large dose of irony in this: The Security Council had as its primary task the prevention of breeches of the international peace, but in any attempt to partition Palestine, it would be causing the breech.  Delegations from Latin America, Europe, and the Arab Higher Council all warned that violence would be inevitable.

Given the warnings it would have been prudential to say the least if the Security Council moved first to create an international peace keeping force before even considering a change in the status of Palestine.  An alternative which was urged by several states was a referral of the matter to the International Court.  Neither of these courses of action were followed.  Instead the Security Council kicked the can down the road on 5 March 1948.

By this time Resolution 181 had been rendered nugatory by the realities on the ground.  War had broken out. The UN shifted its emphasis from create-a-state to find-a-truce.  The US supported armistice efforts provided they were "without prejudice" to the claims of either Jews or Arabs.  This was the most realistic position even though it almost guaranteed the war would continue until at least one if not both sides reached exhaustion.  Then, and only then, could the process of creating states be undertaken.

And, that is how it played out.  The ill-advised, emotionally driven acts of UNSCOP, and the General Assembly joined with the week-kneed position of the Security Council and the sheer ineptitude of the Arabs to hand over the Palestine Question to the gods of war.  When the shooting finally stopped at the end of the second round of fighting, the new state of Israel had even more land than provided by the generous UNSCOP plan, and the Arabs had nothing.

Ever since then the Arab states as well as the Palestinians have tried to reverse the verdict rendered on the battlefield.  Finally, after years of self-defeating war, terrorism, and diplomacy now worthy of the name, the PA has hit on a new paradigm.  The new approach relies upon delegitimizing Israel in the eyes, not of the world, not even of the majority of the world's people, but of the elites of Western Europe and the US.  In this context, the PA hoped that the new American president would carry the heavy freight of pressuring Israel into accepting a settlement far less than the best.

The American gambit has not paid off yet.  As a result the PA has brought the new arrow from the quiver.  The new arrow has a multi-bladed point, but each blade depends upon an international organization for its lethal sharpness.

One blade consists of the International Criminal Court where the PA is seeking de jure recognition as a state, ostensibly so that it might prefer war crimes charges against Israeli officials and military personnel but substantially so that it might claim to be a sovereign state already in existence.  This would power up its demands for UN recognition of statehood.

Another, even sharper blade, is the UN General Assembly itself.  The PA may well seek an new version of Resolution 181 which creates Palestine qua Palestine.  The UN Charter has not changed since 1947 but the passage of Resolution 181 provides that commodity most highly treasured by lawyers--precedent.  The PA can (and no doubt will) argue that the act in 1947 both justifies and demands correction with the issuance of an updated version.  The PA will have the support of the Arab/Muslim majority states, most of the so-called non-aligned movement and some others.  In aggregate more than enough to secure passage.

The PA will do whatever it can to assure any create-a-Palestine motion stays away from the Security Council.  Not only will the US (probably but not certainly given the Obama predilections) oppose any such measure but so also will Russia and (perhaps) China.  Neither of these states could feel comfortable with the idea that the UN can go around creating states in the interest of preserving international peace given the unrest and separatist movements which exist within their borders.

In the real world, any UN action will not be accepted by Israel.  As was the case back in 1947 when the Arabs were the party of "no," a deal needs two parties at a minimum.  In 1947 or 2011 there cannot be an agreement unless both Jew and Arab say, "yes."  One can safely bet one's booty on the proposition that Israel will not accept a UN diktat.

A PA gambit involving the UN General Assembly is not difficult for Israel to counter.  All that is needed is the political will to move the IDF into the "settlements" and coterminous areas and, with hands on hips say to the PA and its Arab/Muslim supporters  in an imitation of George W. Bush, "Bring it on!"

Far harder to counter effectively is the international demonization of Israel, the campaign of deligitimazation which has worked so splendidly in recent years.  Israeli defiance of the "will of the international community" will boost the efforts of the demonizers by orders of magnitude.  It would enhance the appeal of the peddlers of violent political Islam greatly.  More bombs will detonate.  More people in and outside Israel will die as a consequence.

It doesn't take a Nostradamus to predict that any increase in the lethal operations of groups practicing violent political Islam will bring a push back from the civilized states.  The political and opinion leaders of these states will have no genuine choice when the bombs go off killing their own citizens.  Not even the boasting Iranians can or will deter the inevitable response of the West to an increase in terrorist operations.  That, Jack, is a fact.

The UN muffed the play back in 1947.  It exceeded its brief.  Its reach far exceeded its grasp either as provided in the Charter or as existed in the political will of its membership.  Nothing has changed subsequently.  The UN has an excessive view of its mission and its capacity to undertake its sole genuine mission--preserving international peace.

The irony of 1947 would be repeated--on steroids--should the UN seek to impose a solution upon the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  As was the case in 1947, the body created to preserve and protect peace would, once again, be the cause of war.  This time around the war would bode well to be far more extensive and far more bloody than those of sixty-two years ago.

The takeaway for the PA and its supporters is simple: Be careful what you wish for--you just might get it.