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dir="ltr"> <font size="-2"><a id="reader-domain" class="domain"
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/why-un-resolution-settlements-would-be-bad-palestinians">https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/why-un-resolution-settlements-would-be-bad-palestinians</a></font>
<h1 id="reader-title">Why UN resolution on settlements would be
bad for Palestinians</h1>
<div id="reader-credits" class="credits">
<p class="node__submitted">
<span class="field field-author"><a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/people/ali-abunimah"
typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label
skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Ali Abunimah</a></span> <span
class="field field-blog">-</span>
<span class="field field-publication-date"><span
class="date-display-single" property="dc:date"
datatype="xsd:dateTime"
content="2016-12-22T14:34:38+00:00">22 December 2016</span></span>
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<h2>Update</h2>
<p>The vote on the UN Security Council resolution
condemning Israeli settlements, scheduled for Thursday
afternoon, has reportedly been <a
href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-palestinians-un-postponed-idUSKBN14B1UR">postponed</a>.
This came after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu <a
href="http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.760719">put
pressure on Egypt</a>, the resolution’s sponsor.</p>
<p>The Obama administration had <a
href="https://twitter.com/AymanM/status/811963018267521024">reportedly</a>
planned to abstain, meaning the resolution would likely
have passed if it had come to a vote.</p>
<p>It is unclear when, or if, it will be voted on.</p>
<h2>Original article</h2>
<p>The UN Security Council is set to vote Thursday
afternoon on a resolution condemning Israeli settlements
in the occupied West Bank, including Jerusalem.</p>
<p>I hope the resolution fails, but let me explain why.</p>
<p>The resolution, <a
href="http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.758139">promoted</a>
by the Palestinian Authority, <a
href="http://news.trust.org/item/20161222010512-nankw/">introduced
by Egypt</a> and <a
href="http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.760657">supported
by France</a>, contains parts that are fine, even
laudable.</p>
<p>It ostensibly reaffirms previous Security Council
decisions, such as <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/un-security-council-resolution-465">resolution
465</a> which <a
href="https://unispal.un.org/DPA/DPR/unispal.nsf/0/5AA254A1C8F8B1CB852560E50075D7D5">invalidates</a>
Israel’s claims to have annexed Jerusalem. It also
confirms “the inadmissibility of the acquisition of
territory by force.”</p>
<p>It recalls “the obligation of Israel, the occupying
power,” to abide by the Fourth Geneva Convention on the
protection of civilians under occupation, and the 2004
International Court of Justice decision against Israel’s
wall in the West Bank.</p>
<p>The draft clearly condemns “all measures aimed at
altering the demographic composition, character and
status of the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967,
including East Jerusalem.”</p>
<p>It demands a halt to “the construction and expansion of
settlements, transfer of Israeli settlers, confiscation
of land, demolition of homes and displacement of
Palestinian civilians, in violation of international
humanitarian law and relevant resolutions.”</p>
<p>These elements are positive but not new.</p>
<p>Since there are already plenty of resolutions on the
books which use almost identical – and often stronger –
language why is a new resolution needed?</p>
<p>All that is needed is for action to enforce existing
resolutions – such as sanctions on Israel.</p>
<p>But this resolution, like its predecessors, takes no
action. In a masterful example of empty diplomatic
phrasing, the draft only commits the Security Council
“to examine practical ways and means to secure the full
implementation of its relevant resolutions.”</p>
<p>This leisurely “examination” has been going on for half
a century now while Israel continues to violently steal
and colonize Palestinian land.</p>
<h2>Undermining Palestinian rights</h2>
<p>What is even more worrying is the rest of the
resolution – read in whole it is a clear attempt to
legislate into international law the so-called <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/two-state-solution">two-state
solution</a>.</p>
<p>In September, I <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/will-obamas-final-act-be-liquidation-palestinian-rights">warned</a>
that a resolution of this kind would undermine, not
support, Palestinian rights.</p>
<p>This draft does not contain a single reference to
Palestinian rights, especially the right of return for
refugees. It makes no mention of Gaza, which has been
under a devastating and <a
href="http://www.bbc.com/news/10306193">illegal</a>
Israeli siege for over a decade – a blockade enforced
jointly with Egypt, the resolution’s sponsor.</p>
<p>Rather, it expresses “grave concern that continuing
Israeli settlement activities are dangerously
imperilling the viability of the two-state solution
based on the 1967 lines,” as if two states, not
restoring Palestinian rights, is an end in itself.</p>
<p>I have <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/france-launches-new-un-effort-undermine-palestinian-rights">explained
previously</a> how the tricky phrase “based on the
1967 lines” is designed to allow Israel to annex its
vast settlement blocs.</p>
<p>Take the older resolution I mentioned, 465 from 1980.
It demands that Israel “dismantle the existing
settlements” – all settlements built since the West Bank
was occupied in 1967.</p>
<p>The draft now under consideration only calls on Israel
to dismantle “all settlement outposts erected since
March 2001” – the implication is that most of the
existing settlements, particularly the large blocs, will
remain forever.</p>
<p>So while being marketed as a move against settlements,
this resolution lays the ground to legitimize them,
albeit under the framework of a “<a
href="http://www.aljazeera.com/palestinepapers/2011/01/2011122112512844113.html">negotiated</a>”
peace agreement.</p>
<h2>No right to resist</h2>
<p>There are many other negative elements to this draft,
including its affirmation that Palestinians have a duty
effectively to police themselves on behalf of their
occupiers by confiscating so-called “illegal weapons”
and “dismantling terrorist capabilities” – Israeli-style
language that demonizes an occupied people.</p>
<p>It supports “existing security coordination” – the <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/security-coordination">collaboration</a>
between Israeli occupation forces and the Palestinian
Authority that is broadly opposed by Palestinians.</p>
<p>All this is a clear attack on the <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/why-un-telling-palestinians-protect-their-occupiers">internationally
recognized right</a> of all occupied peoples,
including Palestinians, to engage in legitimate
resistance.</p>
<p>Which other occupied people has been required to ensure
that its occupiers can colonize and subjugate them in
tranquility?</p>
<h2>Two pro-Israel positions</h2>
<p>Notably, the draft warns against “a one-state reality”
– language designed to stigmatize and forestall
discussion of alternatives to the failed “two-state”
vision of ethno-racial territorial partition – namely a
single, democratic, non-racial, non-sectarian state with
equality for all citizens.</p>
<p>Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has <a
href="https://twitter.com/netanyahu/status/811745158261837825">demanded</a>
that the US veto the resolution, claiming it is
anti-Israel.
</p>
<div id="file-43426" class="file file-document
file-text-oembed oembed-rich oembed-default
oembed-twitter">
<div class="oembed-content">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550">
<p dir="ltr" lang="en">The US should veto the
anti-Israel resolution at the UN Security Council
on Thursday.</p>
— Benjamin Netanyahu (@netanyahu) <a
href="https://twitter.com/netanyahu/status/811745158261837825">December
22, 2016</a></blockquote>
</div>
</div>
<p>The French ambassador in Tel Aviv reassured Israel that
its concerns are misplaced. “The tendency in Israel to
say ‘the whole world is against us’ is wrong,” Helene Le
Gal <a
href="http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.760657">told
media</a>. “We say all those things against the
settlements because we are with Israel, not against it.”</p>
<p>The clash between Netanyahu and the French over this
draft is a confrontation between two pro-Israel
positions.</p>
<p>Netanyahu represents an unabashedly racist Israel which
is no longer interested in claiming that it wants peace
nor that it is willing to give the Palestinians their
rights under any conditions.</p>
<p>France represents a pro-Israel bloc of Western
countries which are equally committed to Israel’s right
to continue to be racist, but which believe this can
only be guaranteed if some <a
href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/homelands">bantustan</a>
option remains open to the Palestinians.</p>
<p>This resolution is about rescuing Israel as a racist
state that ensures its Jewish demographic majority <a
href="http://mondoweiss.net/2014/03/abunimahs-justice-palestine/">through
a battery of racist laws</a>. Meanwhile Palestinians,
shorn of their fundamental rights, will be consigned at
best to a bantustan given the title and trappings of a
state.</p>
<p>President-elect Donald Trump has weighed in on
Netanyahu’s side, <a
href="http://thehill.com/policy/international/311466-trump-calls-for-veto-on-un-resolution-halting-israeli-settlements">urging
a US veto</a>.</p>
<p>All attention now is on whether the outgoing US
administration of President Barack Obama will veto this
resolution, as it <a
href="http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=37572">did</a>
a similar one in 2011, or abstain, allowing it to pass.</p>
<p>If Obama allows it to pass it will be the <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/will-obamas-final-act-be-liquidation-palestinian-rights">final
act</a> in <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/how-barack-obama-learned-love-israel/6786">his
long record</a> of undermining Palestinian rights.</p>
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