Bushites poised for anti-Palestinian veto?
So now, according to this AP report from Nick Wadhams at the UN, the Bush administration might be readying itself yet again to veto a Security Council resolution that criticises a dramatic Israeli escalation of violence against its neighbors...We can just imagine how that is going to affect public views of the US in the 95% of countries whose people don't automatically kowtow to every whim from the Israeli government... Especially, of course, among people in the Muslim world with which the US is now so closely entangled. (And guess what? Muslims are people with feelings and sensibilities, including a sense of group solidarity-- and the right to have such feelings-- just as much as anyone else is. Is this such a hard concept to understand?)
Wadhams writes:
Acting on behalf of Arab nations, Qatar circulated a draft U.N. Security Council resolution Thursday demanding Israel end its offensive in the Gaza Strip and release the Palestinian officials it has arrested.
The draft faced immediate opposition from the United States and France, which called it unbalanced in its criticism of Israel. The document does not condemn the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier by Palestinian militants and makes no mention of Palestinian rocket attacks on southern Israel this week.
France's ambassador said he would offer changes, but U.S. Ambassador John Bolton suggested that Washington opposed the resolution entirely.
That raised the possibility that the United States, as a permanent member of the Security Council, would veto it. It has done so in the past when it believed resolutions condemning Israeli action did not include criticism of Palestinian actions.
Experts from the 15 Security Council nations were to meet later in the day to discuss the draft, but Bolton was not optimistic.
"I'm not sure there are amendments that we could propose that would make it into an acceptable resolution," he said.
Israel launched the offensive last week in response to the June 25 capture of an Israeli soldier, 19-year-old Cpl. Gilad Shalit.
The resolution calls on Israel to "scrupulously abide by its obligations and responsibilities under the Geneva Convention," and expresses its "grave concern about the dire humanitarian situation of the Palestinian people.
It demands that Israel "cease its aggression against the Palestinian civilian population" in Gaza, and also demands that Israel withdraw its forces immediately.
It expresses appreciation for efforts to find a diplomatic solution and release all prisoners, including Shalit.
Meanwhile, in Geneva, on Thursday the UN's new Human Rights Council voted 29-11, with five abstentions, for a resolution that "deplored Israel's military operations in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip as breaching international humanitarian law and voted to send a fact-finding mission to the region."That AP report, by Alexander Higgins, noted that,
For some reason, even non-member states get to send ambassadors to the Council. The Bush administration's Ambassador is Warren Tichenor. Higgins quotes Tichenor as making a most extraordinary statement:
Tichenor said both sides should work for
a lasting peace, adding: "This begins with the return of the Israeli
soldier."
Yes, of course I totally agree that both sides (repeat both sides) should work for
a lasting peace. But why on earth does Tichenor even imagine that
this has to start with the return of the Israeli solder? Why
could it not ":start" with the release of the 7,000-some Palestinian
detainees held by Israel without having had any opportunity for a trial?
Also, if the Bushites are so committed to helping bring about a
"lasting" Israeli-Palestinian peace, why has their diplomacy on this
issue been so passive and/or non-existent ever since Bush's first
inauguration in 2001? It is particularly non-existent right
now... And meanwhile, it continues to shovel money and political
support to an Israeli government that continues to behave in these
escalatory and just plain colonialist ways in the occupied
territories...
And then, in Israel, I see we have Noam Shalit, the father of the
captured Israeli soldier, calling
on the government to conisider releasing Palestinian prisoners in
exzchange for his son..
My intense sympathy goes out to Mr. Shalit-- and to all those in
Israel, Palestine, and Iraq who have close family members being
deprived of their liberty without due process of law. However, I
note that Gilad Shalit was a serving member of a military organization
and thus knowingly at risk of being taken as a POW in any situation of
hostilities. At present, he is the only Israeli citizen being
detained against his will. In Iraq and Palestine there are
thousands of individfuals, many of them civilians, who have been
detained, often for long periods of time. Each of them has family
members who care about him/her just as much as Noam Shalit cares about
his son, and each of whom is just as much a bearer of human rights as
Mr. Shalit.
Let us end all these conflicts asnd all these situations of rule by foreign military organization
as quickly as we can!
immediate opposition from the United States and France
Why France!!!!
Answer may be the captured Israeli soldier holding French citizenship beside Israeli one.
Apart from France, Switzerland - a country much praised here recently for its fairness and objectivity - doesn't believe that the proposed UN resolution is balanced and was one of 5 countries that abstained in the vote at the UN Human Rights Council.
According to swissinfo (link below):
"Switzerland's ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Blaise Godet, had on Wednesday criticised both Israel and the Palestinian militants before the council.
Godet argued that Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip to liberate an Israel soldier captured by Palestinians on June 25 were 'out of proportion'.
He noted that humanitarian rules had to be respected by all sides in a conflict and therefore condemned the launching by Palestinians of Qassam rockets into Israeli territory and last month's assassination of a young Israeli settler in the West Bank.
Switzerland, one of the five countries that abstained in the vote, had proposed amendments saying armed Palestinian groups should also be called to account in the resolution..."
it just looks like more one dimensional israel bashing from the UN. This type of thing doesn't hold any weight in the US. You know , Sudan is on the human rights commision, that sort of thing
One-dimensional Israel-bashing, wow! What is that one-dimensional Israel doing in Gaza? Attacking a hapless people with F-16 airplanes, Apache helicopters, 8 000 rockets pounded into Gaza during June alone? Untold numbers killed, including tens of women and children? And how many have been arrested? And yet Israel and its apologists play the victim? Exuse me, you make me puke.
One-dimensional Israel-bashing, wow! What is that one-dimensional Israel doing in Gaza? Attacking a hapless people with F-16 airplanes, Apache helicopters, 8 000 rockets pounded into Gaza during June alone? Untold numbers killed, including tens of women and children? And how many have been arrested? And yet Israel and its apologists play the victim? Exuse me, you make me puke.
Ooops.. I just lost a long comment due to this error :
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Said helpless people have been rocketing their neighbors incessantly - and murdering their compatriots who object to the rocketing attacks.
Getting to who started it will take us back to the 1800s. Dealing objectively with this situation requires us to step past kneejerk sympathies and realize that Gaza is going to be war-torn as long as it is a launchpad for attacks against Israel. Hamas, for all the wishful thinking lavished upon it by well-meaning westerners, is not going to stop attacks against Israel - it goes against every ideological fiber it has.
Either Abbas steps up, Israel keeps slamming Gaza, or someone else will have to step in and keep order there.
"right" on Helena. The US media has totally ignored this side of the situation. However much we may deplore the escalation seemingly brought about by the Hamas capture of a single Israeli soldier, few Americans have a clue that Israel holds so many Palestinian prisoners - and has done so routinely - over the past 30+ years. Gitmo style - without charge, without awareness of the presumed evidence against them, and on the assumption that they are "guilty" of not liking Israel - and thus "deserving" of being held indefintely.
And this raises an interesting question: just where did creatures of the night like David Addington come up with their "new" rules for fighting "terrorists" in the GWT? Where did they come up with the idea that it was "ok" for a democracy, a nation supposedly that champions the "rule of law," to capture, detain, and torture (sic) indefinitely, without charge, and in places where the media has little access....
Mearsheimer and Walt have done well to shine a bit of light on the critical role of the multi-headed Israel lobby in getting us into the war with Iraq. But I've yet to see a scholar dare to draw the parallels between the Israeli ways of war and the Bush/neocon ways of war.... eh? Or did I miss it?
Marwan Bishara spoke several years ago about what he termed the Israelization of US foreign policy.
Personally, I am so tired of hearing "Israel is our one democratic ally in the region." If Israel were democratic that would be one thing, but it's not. It's theocratic. It's a country that resembles the South before civil rights-- with water fountains labeled "Whites Only" except now it's a whole country labeled "Jews Only."
Now that Bush & Co have chosen to do as the Israelis do--detend without trial, torture, thumb their noses at the Geneva conventions--Israel is indeed our only like-minded ally in the region.
With allies like this, do we need enemies? We must. Otherwise, we wouldn't be making them wholesale in the world.