October 17, 2003Talk of UN 'double standards' on Mideast misses the point
By: Steven Edwards, National Post
United Nations. Is there one set of rules for Iraq, and another for Israel at the United Nations?
A growing chorus says there are, and it is beginning to he heard. While the United States and Britain have been in unison in calling on the UN to enforce its resolutions against Baghdad, Tony Blair, the British Prime Minister, has added that resolutions must be implemented across the Middle East.
"It is important to emphasize our commitment to doing it to assuage the fear, or claims that there are, that we operate a double standard," Mr. Blair told a news conference in Blackpool, England, last Thursday where his governing Labour Party was holding its annual conference.
But a number of scholars of UN resolutions say there are important differences between the ones involving Israel and those against Iraq. Arab diplomats and their supporters point to more than 70 UN resolutions they say Israel has violated since it became a state in 1948.
But several experts say this masks whether the pronouncements have emerged from the General Assembly, whose 191 members spend most of their time engaged in political rhetoric, or the Security Council, which creates international law.
With Arab and Muslim nations forming a sizable voting bloc in the Assembly, its resolutions routinely condemn the Jewish state while ignoring anti-Israel violence. The resolutions are nothing more than the synthesized opinions of an often despotic majority, and are not legally binding.
Resolutions passed by the 15-member Security Council, where the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China have permanent seats with veto power, do have legal force. But their contents are often misinterpreted or selectively quoted.
"Most of the accusations of double standards are coming from Arab diplomats who know better," said Andrew Srulevitch, executive director of UN Watch, a Geneva-based monitoring group. "They are also coming from the knee-jerk left, who are generally against the liberal Western democracies and their stances at the United Nations. "In saying that Iraq is getting a raw deal compared to Israel, they are trying to convince people of something that, on the face, is an attractive argument. But you really only have to scratch the surface to find there is no basis for comparison."
When Shimon Peres, the Israeli Foreign Minister, said Israel would not comply with the UN Security Council's resolution calling on the Jewish state to end its siege of Yasser Arafat's headquarters recently, he also explained why. The Palestinians, he said, are not meeting the Security Council's additional demands to halt attacks on Israelis and arrest those responsible.
Oft-cited Security Council resolutions demanding that Israel withdraw from territories it occupied during the 1967 Six-Day War also contain obligations directed at both sides. They say, for example, that Israeli security must be assured if a Palestinian state is established in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. But security could be assured only through the negotiation of a comprehensive peace settlement with Arab states, which remains elusive.
Security Council resolutions demanding that Iraq, among other things, rid itself of weapons of mass destruction place obligations on no second party. Iraq agreed as part of the 1991 truce that ended the Gulf war to allow international verification of its pledge to end development of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.
The "double standards" critics further argue that talk of authorizing a war to enforce resolutions against Iraq should also be directed at Israel.
But sending a UN-authorized force to solve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is not foreseen in resolutions passed involving Israel. By contrast, it is an option in resolutions against Iraq. The distinction is legal, and depends on the authority the Security Council cites in the UN Charter when passing a resolution.
All Security Council resolutions passed concerning Israel cite Chapter VI, which calls for the "pacific settlement of disputes," according to UN Watch research. Intervention by an international military force is not an option.
But Security Council resolutions Mr. Bush wants enforced against Iraq were passed under the Charter's Chapter VII, which deals with "threats to peace" and "acts of aggression." Sanctions and military force can be considered to ensure compliance.
The distinctions are ignored by many Arab leaders. "Why should the world request Iraq to adhere to Security Council resolutions, while Israel is allowed to be above international law?" Farouk al-Shara, Syria's Foreign Minister, asked the UN General Assembly during its annual debate last month. "It is indeed odd that the United States considers Israel acting in self-defence in ... territories that are acknowledged to be occupied by Security Council resolutions."
Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary-General, has said that the world body has been "dogged" for years by charges that Israel is allowed to flout UN resolutions while other countries are forced to comply with them.
"This is an issue that, as an organization, and as a Council, is a tough one to deal with," he said. "I don't think I have given a single press conference in the Middle East or an interview with a Middle East journalist where the question of double standards has not come up."
Since the UN was formed 57 years ago, Security Council debates have focused more on the Middle East than on any other region. The United States has used its veto 75 times, mostly to block resolutions it considered against Israel's interests.
While the United States remains the lead broker in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, it has also joined with Russia, the European Union and the UN to form the "Quartet" of entities interested helping find a solution.
"I hope the work that the Quartet and the Council ... will do ... will be able to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian issue once and for all and put this issue [of double standards] behind us," Mr. Annan said.
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