THIS SEPTEMBER, 130 OF THE 192[i] member states of the United Nations are expected to vote to support the establishment of a Palestinian state; although any such tactic will be vetoed by the UN Security Council, it will be interesting to see which countries vote for and against the creation of a state of Palestine.
Israel has said that such a vote, even if it were not vetoed by the Security Council, would be ignored. For such an arrangement would not bring the desired peace to the region, and would not stop Israel from defending her boarders as they are currently established; which of course would also included West Bank settlements, which would fall under the direct control of the Palestinian Authority.
Any kind of arrangement that excludes the state of Israel is just pissing into the wind, and speaks volumes about the infirmity and negligibleness of the United Nations. It is just gesture politics born from frustration without any practical outcome for peace in the Middle East. All it will do if such a vote were successful, is make the Israeli government and her people even more determined to resist Hamas and the Palestinian Authority.
Who knows, such an issue could even divide the UN itself if a Palestinian state was given the nod. Indeed, something I believe should have happened decades ago might just happen under such a circumstance. The events that would unfold from such a decision might even cause the UN to generate its own Avignon Popes.
But of course, come next September, the United States, if no other member of the Security Council obliges, will use her veto.
This would be a pity because, as an international body, the UN (like all international bodies) is corrupt and mortifying. Its ideals have long been imprisoned by such divisions as (capitalism and communism), or, today, by secular democracy and Islam.
The United Nations was a Western creation, a liberal wet-dream that originally went under the name of the League of Nations. Its purpose was to bring together nations in peace and settle disputes before they moved irretrievably into armed conflict.
IT MAY HAVE BEGUN WELL as a much respected institution which, after the Second World War and its millions of dead, was essential in order to prevent the same horrors reoccurring in the future. But today it is a shadow of its former self. Countries that adjourn or even reject democracy and prefer authoritarianism have found places for themselves on, for instance, the United Nation’s Human Rights Committee; i.e. Libya.
Israel, so far the only functioning democracy in the Middle East is having its behaviour judged by such a body as this. Is it little wonder that the state of Israel chooses to stand firm against such a body?
The former US ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton (August 2005-December 2006), knows all too well how this international diplomatic parliament works. But being a President Bush appointee, his acuminous oratory on the floor of the UN, caused many a liberal in the West to flourish a scented handkerchief and cover their noses whenever he attended to his rhetoric at the UN. Known for his bluntness, he made many enemies at the UN, including many representing the West.
But John Bolton hit home on many occasions while representing his country at the UN. One suspects that he did indeed despise this body, not so much as a much needed institution, in theory; but despised it in its approach to those members that fell within the scope of dictatorship, yet enjoyed equal status to the democratic nations operating within its ambit. After all, did not the United Nations tolerate Mubarak’s Egypt and Gadaffi’s Libya as well as Tunisia and Syria.
WHY SHOULD A DEMOCRATIC ISRAEL fall foul of this wretched institution? The Palestinians should have a homeland, but one that has been negotiated, and not one that has been given authority by such a body that no longer commands the respect its originators that joyfully received it at its inception.
Israel stands surrounded with little sympathy from the United Nations. Her enemies lie in wait until she either shows, or becomes reduced to a level of weakness that will allow her enemies to do what they have always wanted to do - despite the United Nations.
The Unite Nations, like for instance, FIFA and the Olympic Committee, as well as the European Union, are all international bodies whose members have, on more than one occasion been tempted into some form of corruption. All such types of imperium; whether within a political or any other international body will always manage to forfeit the integrity which was the basis of their creation.
Israel should ignore the UN, even if the United States turned against her. The state of Israel exists. If it were faced with the inevitability that it could no longer exist; then, if the Jewish state were left to confront the circumstance that no Israeli citizen can envisage, then the Palestinian state will also never exist.
This is the prospect confronting the UN next September. Israel can only feel safe within boundaries she gained in 1967. If the UN decrees that Israel should forfeit these boundaries, then they must go against the UN for the safety of their own people.
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