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From: kwazinkrumah@aol.com
Date: Mon, Feb 28, 2011 at 6:58 PM
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Veto of Israeli Settlement Resolution Puts U.S. on Wrong Side of History
By Josh Ruebner, AlterNet February 24, 2011
When U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice thrust a solitary
American arm into the air last Friday to cast the Obama Administration¹s
first-ever Security Council veto in defense of Israel¹s illegal settlements,
the United States regrettably placed itself squarely on the wrong side of
history as movements for freedom and democracy revolutionize the Middle
East. This veto -- the fortieth cast by the United States since 1967 in
defense of Israel¹s illegal military occupation of Arab lands and the
illegal policies it pursues to maintain it -- represents much more than the
United States yet again acting to shield Israel from accountability for its
blatant violations of international law.
The 14-1 veto of the mildly-worded draft resolution reaffirming that
Israel¹s settlements in the occupied Palestinian West Bank and East
Jerusalem "are illegal and constitute a major obstacle to the achievement of
a just, lasting and comprehensive peace" laid bare the contradictions in the
Obama Administration¹s approach to Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking. It
revealed the growing isolation and irrelevancy of the United States in
resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on the basis of international
law. The vote also demonstrated the failure of U.S. diplomacy to adapt to a
new Middle East in which grassroots movements increasingly demand that
governments are held accountable to human rights standards.
The U.S. veto exposed an Obama Administration deeply confused about how to
pursue Israeli-Palestinian peace. Having spent its first two years in office
decrying Israeli settlement activity -- President Obama stated in his June
2009 address to the Muslim world in Cairo that "The United States does not
accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements" -- and pushing for
its cessation to set the right tone for a resumption of Israeli-Palestinian
negotiations, the United States found itself hard-pressed to explain its
veto. Paradoxically, Rice reserved the Obama Administration¹s harshest
condemnation of Israeli settlements to explain the U.S. veto, affirming that
"we reject in the strongest terms the legitimacy of continued Israeli
settlement activity," which she termed "folly."
If Israeli settlements are "folly" and the Obama Administration continues to
accept the validity of a 1978 State Department legal memorandum concluding
that Israeli settlements are "inconsistent with international law," then the
only rational explanation for deploying the U.S. veto is to attempt to keep
Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking under the sole purview of the United States.
While the patron is allowed to criticize its client, like an over-indulgent
parent brooding over its spoiled child, it will countenance no outside
criticism. In all likelihood, Palestinians pushed ahead with the draft
Security Council resolution -- despite last-minute bargaining efforts by the
United States for a compromise Security Council presidential statement and
reported U.S. threats to cut aid to the Palestinian Authority -- to test its
new-found hypothesis that a U.S.-led ³peace process² cannot succeed due to
the inherent biases of U.S. policy.
The Palestine Papers -- 1,600 documents, maps, and minutes from
Israeli-Palestinian negotiations leaked to Al Jazeera from within the
Palestinian negotiating team -- demonstrate conclusively that regardless of
the occupant in the White House, the United States is far from being the
³honest broker² it claims to be. The papers reveal the United States bending
over backwards to understand and accommodate Israeli considerations and
limitations, while dismissing Palestinian concerns and twisting their arms
to accept Israel¹s demands. The embarrassment caused by the Palestine Papers
resulted in the resignation of long-time lead Palestinian negotiator Saeb
Erekat. But the fallout is such that reportedly no Palestinian can now be
found to accept the position of negotiator as supplicant. Furthermore,
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has disbanded the Negotiations
Support Unit, which provided research and position papers to the Palestinian
negotiating team.
The Palestinian decision to dismantle its negotiating infrastructure and to
take its case directly to the international community is the logical outcome
of its frustration with two decades of a U.S.-sponsored ³peace process² that
yielded neither an end to Israel¹s colonization of Palestinian land nor the
attainment of Palestinian rights. Amid the ferment of freedom and democracy
movements sweeping the Middle East from Morocco to Bahrain, the United
States finds itself a spectator -- unwilling to take sides between
protesters and governments -- to the teetering and downfall of U.S.-backed
autocratic regimes. No wonder then that Palestinians have concluded that
they no longer have to tether their hopes for freedom from Israeli
occupation to U.S. leadership. The U.S. veto of the Security Council
resolution condemning Israeli settlements reinforces how anachronistic and
out-of-step U.S. policy is with both the aspirations of people in the Middle
East and with the international community¹s unanimous approach toward
resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The United States must place
itself on the right of history by ending its diplomatic support for Israel¹s
colonization and occupation of Palestinian land.
Josh Ruebner is the National Advocacy Director of the US Campaign to End the
Israeli Occupation. He is a former Analyst in Middle East Affairs at
Congressional Research Service.
© 2011 Independent Media Institute.
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