'Just World News' with Helena Cobban

The UN, Palestine-- and Beijing

The UN and Palestine--view from Beijing

I'm here in Beijing as an Expert Speaker at the "UN Meeting for Asia and the Pacific on the Question of Palestine". The UN's Division of Palestinian Affairs holds these conferences periodically in different places around the world-- I've been invited a few times before, but was only previously able to go to one of them-- in Malta, 1992.

I think this may be the first one in Beijing: significant both because China is a member of the Permanent Five members of the Security Council, and because of China's steadily rising role in world affairs. Remember, this time 30 years ago, the PRC was still not allowed even to be in the United Nations, since the US still insisted on giving China's seat in the UN to Taiwan. Last week, when Chinese Premier Wen was in Washington, he scored a notable political success by getting Dubya to publicly warn Taiwan that it should do nothing to antagonize Beijing on the question of the eventual unification of Taiwan and China-- such as, for example, holding a Taiwan-wide referendum on "independence."

As a democrat, I'm not sure feel totally comfortable with Beijing's gruff insistence on majoritarian PRC control over the political destinies of Chinese-peopled polities around its periphery like Hong Kong, Macao, or Taiwan. (Though Hong Kong's situation under its gradual re-unification process with Big China is not totally bad, either, far as I can see.)

As a U.S. citizen who is eager to see a right relationship between US power and that of the rest of the world, I am intrigued by the steady growth in Chinese influence. (And as a democrat, I have to note that China's population is some 4.5 times that of the US. So if we go with a one-peron-one-vote approach its influence should be much greater than Washington's.)

Anyway, here I am. There I was yesterday, in a slightly Stalinoid-decored conference hall-- logistic arrangements, including simultaneous interpretation among the three conference languages of Chinese, French, and English, all working almost perfectly. In the morning we had a welcome address from Deputy Foreign Minister Mr. Dai Bingguo. I noted that though he and the Chinese official who spoke in the afternoon, China's Special Envoy to the ME Peace Process Wang Shijie, both spoke in Chinese, they both also seemed quite able to communicate very well in English, as well. The inverse could hardly, of course, be said of their counterparts in Washington!

Dai noted the importance of the Palestinian issue in world affairs and stressed that "only peaceful means" of resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can work. He urged the greater promotion of the UN's role in peacemaking. He stressed that there should be justice in international mediation efforts-- and that there should not be "bias" in mediation. He said all the rights of the Palestinians including their right to create an independent Palestinian state should be assured. He said that suicide bombings should be "checked effectively." (An Israeli peacenik sitting next to me, MK Zahava Gal-On, got a little exercized over her understanding of that phrase. "They want to see the effectiveness of suicide bombings checked?" she asked me. I told her I understood that "checked" in the context of Dai's speeech most likely meant "stopped". Of such linguistic misunderstandings can major crises be born.)

Dai also urged a greater role for civil society, and lauded the recent non-governmental Geneva Accord.

When Chinese Special Envoy Wang spoke in the afternoon, he recalled having actually been at the Geneva Accord launching earlier this month. And he spoke quite movingly about the events there.

Very interesting for me to see Chinese government officials lauding the role of "civil society"-- even if only in a context fairly distant from their own domestic politics.

After Dai, a fairly high UN official who's a Korean national delivered a message from Kofi Annan. This was mainly a long criticism of the Apartheid Wall that the Sharon government has been building inside the West Bank. It also mentioned the need for a Palestinian state that is "independent, viable, and contiguous." He lauded both the Geneva Accord and the Nuseibeh-Ayalon statement.

Next up was PA Minister of Labor Ghassan al-Khatib. He spoke in particular about two major forms of Israeli contraventions of international law: its use of collective punishments against the Palestinians, including assassinations and stifling movement controls, and the expansion of Jewish settlements in the occupied territories.

At one point, Khatib said, "If a two-state solution is not possible, peace is not possible." As regular readers of JWN might know, that is not totally my position, since I think that if Israel's insistence on keeping huge numbers of settlers in East Jerusalem and the rest of the occupied West Bank means that it allows no territorial basis for an independent Palestinian state, then the best alternative would be a unitary binational state in the whole of Israel/Palestine. (Indeed, I spoke about that myself in the second session, in the afternoon.)

Khatib argued that all the violence in the occupied territories stems from the essential fact of continuing Israeli military occupation of the area, and promised a continuation of Palestinian "steadfastness" (sumoud.)

I should write a little here about the other participants in the conference. There are the members of the UN's Committee on the Exercize of the Inalienable [but actually, massively alienated--HC] Rights of the Palestinian People. There are the Expert Speakers. There are Chinese and Palestinian officials. There are representatives from many of the diplomatic missions accredited to Biejing. Later speakers during the morning included Ambassadors from a number of Arab and non-Arab embassies here--and representatives of a number of UN functional bodies active in Israel'Palestine like the UN Development Program, etc. Intellectually lively, that whole part of the conference was not.

What was interesting to me about the "diplomatic" aspect of the conference was two things: who was there and who was not there. Who was there (and playing quite a prominent role) included two representatives of the new Afghan government-- one of them their Ambassador here, and the other someone from their Embassy at the UN who is a member of the Committeee on the Inalienable Rights etc. The Ambassador here in Beijing made a statement in which he notably stressed that "All Muslims consider East Jerusalem is a Holy Place."

So much for the efforts of Zal Khalilzad and the other US neocons runninmg Afghanistan to re-make Afghanistan in a "moderate" (i.e. pro-US) image.

Who was not officially represented at the conference included not only Israel and the US, both of which generally treat the efforts of the Committee on the Inalienable Rights etc with massive disdain, but also the EU, which should imho have been present to try to boost the role of the UN in the activities of the Quartet.

But who was/is represented here does include people from numerous African and Arab countries, as well as Asians; and there's a sprinkling of people from some South American and European Embassies, as well.

I spoke in the afternoon. I'd written (and re-written) my remarks during the lengthy period of time it took me to get here from Charlottesville, Virginia. I was happy to try to air, before this international gathering, some of the ideas that are in the book-length report of the International Quaker Working Party on the Israel-Palestine Conflict, which should be hitting the newsstands just over a month from now!

So the three main things I focused on were: an analysis of some of the weaknesses of the Oslo Accords and how they had led to the present situation; the need to work directly towards crafting a final-status arrangement (which may, of course, hyave some phasing in the stages of its implementation) rather than getting lost yet again--as the current Road-Map would have us do--in the interminable labyrinths of endless "interim" phases and sub-phases; and the fact that if a viable Palestinian state alongside Israel should not prove attainable, then a unitary binational state in the whole of Palestine/Israel would then prove the best alternative.

(The previously written copy of the remarks has already been reproduced by the tech-support people here-- as document # CPR/AMQP/2003/2.)

... Well, doesn't time fly when you're having fun writing about things like lengthy, bureaucratic conferences! It's time I started getting ready for today's sessions. (Dressed, showered, breakfasted, etc.) It's 7:30 a.m. on Wednesday here now-- 6:30 p.m. Tuesday back in Charlottesville.

Later, if posting this piece thru the AOL connection here works well, I want to write at least a couple of other posts for the blog. One, with some of my more general impressions of being in Beijing. The other, with some further thoughts on the Options for a Saddam Hussein Trial. (I see Juan Cole's reporting that the Iranians are discussing a request to extradite him... )