Given Abu Ghraib, Rafah Images, U.S. Abstains From Resolution Criticizing Israel

By Ian Williams


John Dugard (l), special rapporteur of the U.N.’s Commission on Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, is shown with a fellow U.N. official on a Feb. 13, 2001 tour of Gaza’s Khan Younis refugee camp as the commission began its investigation into alleged Israeli human rights violations in the occupied territories. The South African jurist recently called for an international arms embargo on Israel similar to the one imposed on his country’s apartheid regime in 1977 (AFP photo/Fayez Nureldine).

WE NOW know roughly what it takes for the U.S. to allow a resolution criticizing Israel through the Security Council—on the morning of the resolution, to add to the pictures of the fate of Iraqi prisoners at the hands of American warders, were graphic pictures from Rafah of crowd control, Sharon style. Firing tank shells at civilians is frowned upon in the civilized world.

While a lot of dead Palestinian civilians was one factor in Washington’s calculations, it would not have been sufficient. The real difference was the rising tide of anger at the revelations about the American torture and killing of Iraqi prisoners. This, therefore, was not a good time for the U.S. to appear indifferent to Arab suffering. Thus, on Wednesday, May 19, it did not veto Security Council Resolution 1544, but only abstained—meaning the resolution condemning Sharon’s latest outrages in Gaza passed by 14 votes to zero.

One would like to think that the images from Rafah shocked the U.S. into letting the resolution go through. A more cynically accurate assessment, however, may well be that the repercussions of an American veto would have levied a heavier toll on American credibility—and, indeed, lives—across the region.

Indeed, until the very morning of the Security Council meeting, a U.S. veto seemed certain, despite major concessions by the Arab group and intensive bridge-building by the Europeans. The purpose of American diplomacy, as is so often the case, was to extract as many concessions as possible—and then to veto on whatever grounds Washington could find.

The Bush administration had been warned of where Israel’s feeling of impunity was leading. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, UNRWA and the European Union all had unequivocally condemned the Israeli house demolitions and the civilian casualties of what was becoming in Rafah a Sabra and Shatila by attrition. The U.S., of course, which provided the tanks, the bulldozers and the helicopters for this barbarism, could have called it to a halt anytime.

Instead, almost as a riposte to the resolution, in the early morning hours of May 20, Israel Defense Force (IDF) troops smashed their way into the UNRWA office in Jenin and occupied it, shooting in the direction of Paul Wolstenholme, the agency’s senior project manager, when he arrived at the office. In a gratuitous display of disregard for the U.N. and international law, the Israeli soldiers detained Wolstenholme, and handcuffed and blindfolded him as well.In one sense he was lucky. They had shot dead his predecessor, Iain Hook, back in 2002.

Apartheid Lives—But Without the World’s Indignation

Showing how the rest of the world regards Israeli actions, South African jurist John Dugard, the special rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, appealed for an arms embargo on Israel, citing the example of international action against Pretoria in the bad old days.

Noting that 2,200 Gazans have lost their homes following Israel’s demolition of 191 homes since the beginning of May, with over30 Palestinians killed and hundreds injured, Dugard described Israel’s actions as “a violation of international humanitarian law [which] constitute war crimes under Article 147 of the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, of 12 August 1949 (Fourth Geneva Convention).They also amount to collective punishment, which violates both humanitarian law and international human rights law. It is impossible to accept the Israeli argument that these actions are justified by military necessity,” he said. “On the contrary, in the language of Article 147 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, they are carried out unlawfully and wantonly.”

Dugard also called for the Security Council “to take appropriate action to stop the violence, if necessary by the imposition of mandatory arms embargo on Israel of the kind that was imposed on South Africa in 1977.” He was aware, he added, “of the tendency of some Member States to use the veto in all action affecting Israel. In this respect, they repeat the behavior of Permanent Members in respect of South Africa before 1977. The Special Rapporteur urgently calls on all Member States of the Security Council to behave responsibly, in accordance with their international obligations, and not to allow domestic political considerations to undermine their international obligations.”

He was referring, of course, to the British, American and, to a lesser extent, French vetoes that shielded the apartheid regime in its last decades—and to the current American vetoes that do the same for Israel.

Revising Resolutions on Iraq

Following a weekend in which the local powerbrokers of the Iraqi Governing Council seemed to have turned round and bitten their American patrons in the rear, the U.S. and U.K. turned up at the United Nations on June 1 with a revised resolution conceding many of the points the other members of the Security Council wanted.

The combination of the impending U.S. elections, the torture pictures from Abu Ghraib, the climb-downs with ex-Ba’athists in Najaf, the Shi’i militia in Fallujah and the mounting U.S. casualty toll, has put the U.S. in a very weak negotiating position with both the U.N., and now with the uppity IGC, as well. So, although the new draft represents big concessions, there may well be more to come.

As of early June, the new resolution now explicitly states that the multinational force (MNF)—as the coalition intends to camouflage itself—is in Iraq at the invitation of the interim Iraqi government, and that its U.N. mandate has a sunset clause, expiring after 12 months unless explicitly renewed. However, it can also be terminated earlier at the request of the Iraqi transitional government which takes over at the beginning of next year. The overt declaration that the forces will leave if asked ends months of prevarication from Washington.

In fact, Iraq’s new interim government already has said that it will ask the force to stay, but the details of its status and command-and-control need to be worked out between the coalition and the new government—which is showing every sign of wanting more in the way of independence than anyone anticipated. It will probably get backing for this from the other Security Council members, who want assurances of public support for the new administration, and want to hear from them before rushing to agree with the draft resolution.

According to the new text, Iraqi forces, military, police and border guards will operate under their own command, and the Iraqi people will “decide their own political future and control their own natural resources”—which means that they own their oil, of course. The revenues, however, will continue to be paid into an internationally controlled fund until a new elected government takes over.

While the U.S. seems to be moving toward accepting overall political direction for the MNF from the new government in Baghdad, there is no way U.S. forces would accept any kind of “dual key” about responding if they come under attack. Unless the U.S. military gets access to supplies of sensitivity that hitherto have gone missing in action, this could pose the new government some problems down the line.

It may also lead to some diplomatic roadblocks, because the U.S. is resisting incorporating explicitly into the resolution the terms of any such agreement on direction of the forces, due to Pentagon phobias about admitting any command or control over its forces whatsoever, whether by the U.N. or by the Iraqis.

The other members of the Security Council also want to hear from special envoy Lakhdar Brahimi and the new Iraqi administration before signing off on a resolution on the say-so of the occupiers.

Since the script was rewritten at the end of May, it remains to be seen what will happen in the transition period leading up to January 2005 elections. The whole purpose of involving the U.N. and Lakhdar Brahimi was to draw a line under the American occupation and its appointed administration. Their job was to baptize a new administration, guaranteed free of occupational sin.

The first sign that things were not going as planned was Washington’s premature announcement that Hussein Shahristani was to be Iraq’s new prime minister. Having Washington announce the appointment before Brahimi did could send a clear signal to increasingly anti-American Iraqis that nothing had changed.

It was hardly surprising, therefore, that Shahristani decided not to accept the nomination—but it became surprising when it was revealed that it was the other IGC factions who forced him to back down, thus catching both Bremer and Brahimi on the hop.

When the IGC announced its own choice for prime minister, Ayad Allawi, no one was sure what right it had to do any such thing, since it was about to be dissolved as a token of the end of the American occupation. Then, over Memorial Day weekend, the IGC pretty much nominated all the other positions as well.

Taken by surprise by the “nomination,” Brahimi circumspectly announced that he “respected” the IGC’s decision to nominate Allawi, initially carefully avoiding either welcoming or recognizing him. Then, within days, the U.N. envoy took his list of the new government to the “respected” Allawi for blessing. This was forthcoming because it was the IGC which had made all the major choices, such as Ghazi Yawar as interim president. A tribal chieftain from the north of the country, Yawar has spent time in other tribal jurisdictions—like Washington and Saudi Arabia—and he beat the choice of Bremer and the Americans, Adnan Pachachi.

Since it was, after all, the U.S. occupation authorities that had nominated the IGC, its nomination of the new interim government could easily imply a direct lineal connection to Quislinghood. To be fair, however, the IGC was never simply a set of American stooges. Even at the beginning, its membership was assembled with the help of the late U.N. Special Representative Sergio Vieira de Mello—who persuaded people to accept positions on it who may well have refused a simple American invitation—and it has shown signs of increasing restiveness in the face of the occupiers’ ineptitude and arrogance.

Because of the IGC link, the new Allawi administration will have to be even pushier in its demands on the U.S. to show Iraqis that they are not American stoolpigeons. Even a convincing display of independence, however, may not stop various groups in and out of the government from jockeying for power and influence in a fairly murderous way—while using the presence of the Americans to lend a religious or patriotic color to their endeavors.

In the meantime, George W. Bush and Karl Rove have some nailbiting of their own to do for the next four months, as they pray that either the casualty rate goes down, or that they can persuade the American electorate that it is all the United Nations’ fault that American men and women are dying in Iraq.

Ian Williams is a free-lance journalist based at the United Nations.