NEW YORK — When David Ben-Gurion, one of
Israel’s founding fathers, was warned in 1955 that his plan to seize the Gaza
Strip from Egypt would provoke a backlash in the UN, he famously derided the
UN, playing off its Hebrew acronym as “Um-Shmum.”
اضافة اعلان
The phrase came to symbolize Israel’s
willingness to defy international organizations when it believes its core
interests are at stake.
Nearly 70 years later, Israel faces another
wave of condemnation from the UN, the
International Court of Justice (ICJ), and
dozens of countries over its military operation in Gaza, which has killed an
estimated 29,000 Palestinians, many of them women and children, and left much
of the territory in ruins.
The huge swell in global pressure has left
the Israeli government and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu deeply isolated,
if not yet bowed, mainly because it still has the support of its staunchest
ally, the US.
This time, though, Israel faces a rare
break with Washington. The Biden administration is circulating a draft
resolution in the
UN Security Council that would warn the Israeli military not
to carry out a ground offensive in Rafah, near Egypt, where more than one
million Palestinian refugees are sheltering. It would also call for a temporary
ceasefire as soon as practical.
“It is a big problem for the Israeli
government because it has previously been able to hide behind the protection of
the US,” said Martin Indyk, a former US ambassador to Israel. “But now Biden is
signaling that
Netanyahu can no longer take that protection for granted.”
“There is a broader context of condemnation
by international public opinion, which is unprecedented in breadth and depth,
and which has spread to the US,” Indyk said. “The Democratic Party’s
progressive, youth, and Arab-American constituencies have all become angry and
harshly critical of Biden for his support of Israel.”
Until now, President Joe Biden has not
allowed international or domestic pressure to sway him. On Tuesday, the US
defaulted to a familiar role, invoking its veto in the Security Council to
block a resolution sponsored by Algeria, calling for an immediate ceasefire in
Gaza. It was the third time during the Israel war on Gaza that the US vetoed a
resolution putting pressure on Israel.
Since the UN was established in 1945, three
years before the state of Israel, the US has used its veto more than 40 times
to shield Israel from the Security Council. In the UN General Assembly, where
the Americans are just another vote, resolutions against Israel are
commonplace. Last December, the assembly voted 153-10, with 23 abstentions, for
an immediate ceasefire.
“As far as Israelis are concerned, these
organizations are stacked against us,” said Michael Oren, a former Israeli
ambassador to the US, spoke of the UN, the ICJ, and other bodies. “What they do
does not impact us strategically, tactically or operationally.”
But Oren acknowledged that any break with
the US, its largest supplier of weapons, powerful political ally, and principal
international defender, would be a “a whole different kettle of fish.”
While Israel has been under heavy pressure
since the opening days of its offensive in Gaza, the chorus of voices from
foreign capitals has grown thunderous in recent days. In London, the opposition
Labour Party called for an immediate ceasefire Tuesday, shifting its position
from that of the governing Conservative Party under pressure from its members
and other opposition parties.
Even Prince William, the 41-year-old heir
to the British throne, called “for an end to the fighting as soon as possible,”
a rare intervention into geopolitics by a member of a royal family that usually
steers clear of such issues. “Too many have been killed,” William said in a
statement Tuesday.
Perhaps the most striking display of
Israel’s isolation is at the ICJ in The Hague, where representatives of 52
countries are lining up to this week offer arguments in a case examining the
legality of Israel’s “occupation, settlement and annexation” of Palestinian
territories, including the
West Bank and east Jerusalem. Most have been
scathingly critical of Israel.
South Africa likened Israel’s treatment of
the Palestinians to an “extreme form of apartheid.” The South African
government has brought a separate case at the court accusing Israel of genocide
in Gaza.
On Wednesday, the US once again came to
Israel’s defense, imploring the court not to issue a ruling that Israel must
withdraw unconditionally from these territories. A State Department lawyer,
Richard C. Visek, argued that this would make a peace settlement between Israel
and the Palestinians even more elusive because it would not take Israel’s
security into account.
But America’s was a lonely voice, with only
Britain offering a similar argument.
“The truth is the very opposite,” said
Philippe Sands, a human rights lawyer who spoke on behalf of the Palestinians.
Noting that the court had already confirmed the Palestinian right to
self-determination, he said, “The function of this court, of these judges, of
you, is to state the law: to spell out the legal rights and obligations that
will allow a just solution in the future.”
The ICJ's rulings are advisory only, and
Israel has boycotted these proceedings. But Israel’s defiance of international
bodies does not mean it completely ignores them.
The Israeli government initially dismissed
South Africa’s genocide claim as “despicable and contemptuous.” There were
reports that Netanyahu wanted to send Alan Dershowitz, the lawyer who defended
former President Donald Trump and financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein,
to present Israel’s case, a choice that some said would have turned the hearing
into a circus. Ultimately, it sent a high-powered legal team led by a respected
Australian-Israeli lawyer, Tal Becker, who argued that South Africa had presented
“a sweeping counterfactual description” of the conflict.
In an interim ruling in early February, the
court ordered Israel to prevent and punish public statements that constitute
incitement to genocide and to ensure humanitarian aid gets into Gaza. But it
did not grant a critical South African request: that Israel suspend its
military campaign.
Even with the UN itself, the Israeli
impulse to say “Um-Shmum” only goes far. Israel frequently maneuvers to torpedo
or water down Security Council resolutions because it recognizes that it could
open the door to sanctions.
In December 2016, Israeli officials lobbied
Trump, who had just been elected president, to pressure the departing
president, Barack Obama, to veto a Security Council resolution condemning
Israel for Jewish settlements in the West Bank. The US abstained, and the
resolution passed.
“They understand that you have to keep
global opposition at the level of rhetoric,” said Daniel Levy, a former Israeli
peace negotiator who now runs the US/Middle East Project, a research group
based in London and New York. “You cannot allow it ever to enter the realm of
costs and consequences.”
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