The United Nations - Model Organization?
The UN is far from a
model organization. Most member states are undemocratic.
Giving dictatorships democratic votes in a world body is one of the absurd
ideas that has been seen by humankind. The negative impact is immeasurable,
which is why the process continues until today. The idea behind the
United Nations is a good one, but it doesn't work when member states don't
uphold the democratic process that is used in the system!
The
United Nations - An Enemy of Israel
The Arab world blames Israel for the violence. The United Nations
agrees and has passed literally hundreds of resolutions condemning the
Jewish state since 1948. The U.N. has passed more resolutions condemning
Israel than it has all other nations combined, including Iraq.
Twenty-six percent of all Security Council meetings between 1948 and
the 1991 Madrid Conference dealt with the Arab-Israeli conflict. The U.N.
Security Council passed a total of 175 resolutions. Seventy-four were
neutral. Four were against the perceived interests of an Arab body.
Ninety-seven were against Israel. In the U.N. General Assembly, the
cumulative votes cast during this same period with or for Israel totaled
7,938. Those against Israel totaled 55,642 [Source: WorldNetDaily.com]
UN resolutions 194 and 242
Many Palestinians and
Palestinian supporters continuously quote the above two UN resolutions, and claim
that these resolutions give Palestinians the right to return to the land where they
"came from" (Israel
proper). These claims are untrue! Please read on to understand how
this is so.
To begin, we must look at the
UN process in a little detail. The UN has two main components, one is a
subsection of the other. The General Assembly is the body that has
representation from every country in the world. The subset of that, is the
Security Council which has five permanent spots (US, Russia, China, Britain and
France) and ten rotating spots. General Assembly resolutions are
non-binding while Security Council resolutions are binding. Now let's
look at the big resolutions about Israel and the Palestinians:
Resolution 194
- This resolution deals with the right to return. It is a General Assembly
resolution. Therefore, it is not binding, like every
other General Assembly resolution!
Resolution
242 - This Security Council
resolution (a binding resolution) has two main components:
1. Affirms that the fulfillment
of Charter principles requires the establishment of a just and lasting peace in
the Middle East which should include the application of both the following
principles:
a. Withdrawal of Israeli armed
forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict;
b. Termination of all claims or
states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgement of the sovereignty,
territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and
their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from
threats or acts of force;
2. Affirms further the necessity:
a. For guaranteeing freedom of
navigation through international waterways in the area;
b. For achieving a just settlement of the refugee problem;
c. For guaranteeing the territorial inviolability and political independence of
every State in the area, through measures including the establishment of
demilitarized zones.
Resolution
338 - A security council resolution, following the Yom Kippur war of
1973, calling on both sides to begin implementation of Resolution 242.
Commentary
Resolutions 242 and 338 were unanimously
approved by the Security Council and are fully
binding and can be enforced by sanctions or military action (this
is so because resolution
338, unlike resolution 242, was passed under Chapter 7 of
the Charter, which legally bound the parties to the conflict to implement
Resolution 242 in all of its parts - resolution 242 was passed under chapter 6
of the UN Charter).
Statements 1b and 2c of resolution 242 are clearly the responsibility of the
Arab states that don't acknowledge Israel's existence to a large extent.
These resolutions were not unilateral - Israel was to pull out on the condition
that the Arab responsibilities were fulfilled.
Further, resolution 194
is the document that Palestinians claim gives them the "right to
return". However, in the UN, resolutions can be superseded by newer
resolutions and it is obvious that claims of "right to return"
in resolution 192 (1948) are superseded by section 2b of resolution 242
(1967), where the refugee problem is to be solved with a "just settlement"
which is likely to include compensation, but unlikely the "right of
return".
Further, if you are a
logical person, you can imagine that a military pullout from
"Palestinian territories" would take a matter of hours (as
evidenced by the Israeli withdrawal in 2000 from Lebanon). The hate,
belligerency and incitement created by the Palestinian Authority and other
Arab entities against Israel and Jews would take generations to erase.
"The Occupied
Territories"
In 1993, the Oslo
Accords were signed, giving the PA authority over some lands: Gaza and
Jericho. However, Israel was still responsible for "overall security
of Israelis for the purpose of safeguarding their internal security and public
order."
Now, when Israel made peace
with Jordan in 1994, the control those countries had over the West Bank
was relinquished to the Israelis. Israel therefore is not occupying
the West Bank!
The press commonly refers to
the West Bank as "occupied territories". This simply is
not true, because most of the land was never given to the authority of the PA
and is therefore not occupied.
For more about
this, read The Truth of 242.
United Nations Charter,
Article 51
Nothing in the present
Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or
collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the
United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to
maintain international peace and security. Measures taken by Members in
the exercise of this right of self-defense shall be immediately reported
to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and
responsibility of the Security Council under the present Charter to take
at any time such action as it deems necessary in order to maintain or
restore international peace and security.
