[News] Resolution 1860: fig leaf to Arab failure

[Anti-Imperialist News]

Resolution 1860: fig leaf to Arab failure
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10185.shtml

Hasan Abu Nimah, The Electronic Intifada, 14 January 2009



Israel rejected outright the weak UN Security Council's "call" for 
"an immediate, durable and fully respected ceasefire." What the Arab 
foreign ministers hailed as a triumph for their mission to New York 
was no more than a fig leaf to cover their failure before their 
increasingly angry and restive peoples who are ever more boldly 
denouncing Arab leaders' inaction or complicity as Israel butchers 
Palestinians in Gaza.

Resolution 1860 was a shameless whitewash of the Israeli aggression 
and war crimes, which the Arab ministers had no choice but to take 
after having escaped in the direction of New York from the 
embarrassing alternative of an Arab summit.

The resolution has serious flaws that the Arab delegations should not 
have accepted under any circumstances. Calls for an Arab summit by 
the emir of Qatar and other Arab states to consider reaction to the 
Israeli onslaught on Gaza were strongly opposed by Egypt and several 
other states who now stand accused by their people of collaborating 
with the Israeli enemy, with evidence mounting daily in support of 
such accusations.

Arab League Secretary General Amr Musa brilliantly orchestrated the 
New York escapade. He, and the Arab foreign ministers who 
enthusiastically embarked on their United Nations mission (albeit 
after unjustified delay, which offered the aggressor precious time to 
spill more innocent Arab blood), realized the meaning of the 
possibility of failure. Thus their imperative shifted from ending the 
Gaza massacre to saving the ministers' face.

By the time the Arab delegation arrived in New York, the Security 
Council had already turned down two attempts to order a ceasefire, 
obviously succumbing to pressure from Washington which, as usual, had 
ruled that Israel was acting in "self-defense" against Hamas, based 
on the false claims that the "terrorist organization" had refused to 
renew the calm and resumed firing rockets at tranquil and peaceful 
Israeli towns and villages.

For Washington, and others who supported this view including Arab 
states, Israel was entitled to have the time it needed to teach Hamas 
the lesson it deserved. Despite Musa's rumblings, and those of other 
Arab officials, prominent members of the Arab delegation were close 
to this narrative. The Egyptian president, whose foreign minister's 
role was key in New York, was quoted as informing the European 
delegation in Cairo earlier that Hamas should not be allowed to win. 
It is no surprise therefore that the general trend among the Arab 
ministers (with exceptions of course) was, on the one hand, to 
pretend that they were striving to bring the aggression to an end, 
while on the other signaling that they did not want any such 
accomplishment to benefit Hamas.

The Security Council resolution reflected just that. Initially the 
Arab delegation's request for a ceasefire resolution was denied. They 
were offered instead a worthless presidential statement, which for 
them was too frivolous to provide any cover for their exposed 
undertaking. To avoid the embarrassment of returning home empty 
handed, the Arab ministers opted to scale down their proposed text 
and to dilute it to the point where it not only turned meaningless, 
but was counterproductive. Only then, and only when the ministers 
abandoned all their initial positions, did Washington permit the 
council to pass a resolution.

Until it was rejected by Israel, which continued its barbaric attack 
with renewed savagery, it could have been argued that the only 
positive element in Resolution 1860 is its call for a ceasefire. But 
even that clause was worded in such noncommittal language that in it, 
Israel read more encouragement.
The US abstention from voting in favor of the resolution, without 
blocking it by veto -- obviously because it was utterly harmless -- 
offered Israel further encouragement to dismiss the action as 
irrelevant. (It emerged later that the surprise abstention by the US 
was a result of an eleventh hour phone call from Israeli Prime 
Minister Ehud Olmert to the White House urging rejection of the 
resolution even though the American delegation had approved the text.

But the Arab ministers had to hail the resolution as a substantial 
victory despite the dangerous implications involved.

The resolution failed to condemn an aggression which involved serious 
war crimes, as well as flagrant violations of international law and 
international conventions; it equated the victim with the aggressor 
and ignored the entire sequence of events leading up to Israel's 
attack, which shows that Israel, not Hamas, violated the ceasefire. 
It also ignored Israel's illegal aggression in the form of a lethal 
embargo on food, medicine, fuel and travel that amounted to 
collective punishment of Gazans.

Leaving aside its callous disregard for Palestinians, the council did 
not even bother to condemn Israel's deadly attacks on UN staff, 
schools and other facilities.

Not content with ignoring Israel's efforts to induce famine, the 
council accepted Israel's claim that Palestinian efforts to bring 
basic supplies and weapons through tunnels constituted "smuggling" 
that should be stopped. Palestinians undoubtedly have a right to use 
any means necessary to circumvent the genocidal blockade being 
imposed by Israel and its allies. But they also certainly have a 
right to defend themselves, as do all people under such circumstances.

If the council were concerned with banning lethal arms, it should 
first and foremost ban its own members from delivering to Israel 
weapons that are being used openly to commit atrocities and massacres 
of civilians.

What the council adopted was the fake version of events peddled by 
Israel that Hamas had abrogated the calm with unprovoked rocket 
attacks on Israel.

The resolution further treated the Gaza tragedy in the same way it 
would a natural disaster, as if there were no aggressor accountable 
for his crimes; and it adopted the concept that the democratically 
elected government in Gaza is but a "terrorist organization" that 
should be punished and blamed for all that befell Palestinians in Gaza.

By entirely endorsing the Israeli position, despite the proven 
atrocities and the ongoing war crimes, Israel was justified in 
reading an exoneration and an encouragement in the Security Council's 
feeble resolution. Further encouragement must have been derived from 
the resolution's affirmation that the Arabs, despite the humiliation, 
are still groveling for "peace". And by reaffirming the Arab Peace 
Initiative, the Arabs are proving yet again that neither insult nor 
injury in any amount would awaken in them any dignity or self respect.

Hasan Abu Nimah is the former permanent representative of Jordan at 
the United Nations. This essay first appeared in The Jordan Times and 
is reprinted with the author's permission.



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