Its those people again! the US and the UN!

Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, January/February 2017, pp. 32-33

United Nations Report

Just Like the President-Elect, Trump Cabinet Appointments Send Mixed Messages

By Ian Williams

Ambassador Peter Thomson of Fiji, president of the 71st session of the United Nations General Assembly, addresses a special meeting of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, held in observance of the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, Nov. 29, 2016. (U.N. PHOTO/MANUEL ELIAS)

CRYSTAL BALLS DO NOT work well in the United Nations at the best of times. If you want a recipe for chaotic outcomes, then take 193 direct players, 5 of whom have an ace up their sleeve in the form of a veto, dictating to an organization with dozens of relatively autonomous agencies whose heads often apportion their allegiances to the nations who proposed them and those who finance them. And into this, Donald Trump has thrown the Tea Party-backed governor of South Carolina, Nikki Haley, born Sikh, converted to Methodism, one of whose few foreign policy stands mandates state opposition to BDS efforts.

On the bright side, the new U.N. representative did have the courage to oppose Trump earlier, and to oppose deportation of Muslims, and we can assume that her subcontinental origins will to some extent inoculate her against xenophobia, and perhaps even American exceptionalism. However, quite how this works for future American foreign policy in general, let alone toward the United Nations, is even more of a mystery than before.

The previous pattern was that Democratic presidents included the U.N. ambassador in their cabinet, while Republicans do not. But Donald Trump has promoted Haley to the cabinet. Was this because he was not aware of previous practice, or because he wanted a minority woman in his cabinet? Or was it a bribe to get her to give up her independent position in South Carolina?

Previous U.N. ambassadors have always had to cope with the ghost of Andrew Young, the U.N. envoy fired for meeting informally with the Palestinian representative at the U.N., so even those who privately disagreed with the Lobby’s manipulation of U.S. Middle East policy have gone along with the flow and dutifully—and shamefully—leveled the veto on the mildest criticism of Israel.

It would be difficult to piece together a coherent foreign policy from Trump’s erratic statements on the campaign trail and afterward. From one point of view, his phone conversation with Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen was a welcome sign of refusal to be bullied by Beijing—but if it was not part of a considered policy, it was an indication that we have a president-elect who could puckishly start World War III with an ill-considered gesture. And to add to the confusion, it is not clear against whom he would start it!

So, on the one hand, he opined that the Israelis should pay for their U.S. weapons supplies—but on the other, he made the standard pledge of moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem. But had anyone explained the intricacies of international law to him? Or, since almost every other candidate made the same pledge, did he, too, have his fingers crossed behind his back when he said it?

Trump’s nominee as defense secretary, Gen. James “Mad Dog” Mattis, has wisely suggested that Israeli policies in the occupied territories are a clear and present danger to U.S. forces in the region—but then wants to step up pressure on Iran, just as Netanyahu and the Lobby ordered.

We are not even sure what Trump’s views on the United Nations are. From some quarters, hostility to the organization is engendered by the member states’ insistence that Israel does not have an automatic pass for breaches of U.N. decisions. Certainly the Democratic Party has been torn for years between supporting the great creation of Roosevelt and Truman and deploring its support for Palestinian rights. Since the Republican/Likud Axis has become so prominent, the GOP has merged its pro-Israel stance with its nativist dislike of foreigners—a blend manifest in Rudy Giuliani, the curmudgeonly ex-mayor of New York who in 1995 ordered PLO leader Yasser Arafat out of a U.N. anniversary banquet.

To some extent Trump has prejudices rather than policies—but he is enough of a businessman to realize that it is often profitable to overlook reflexive aversions. Trump the realtor obviously appreciates the U.N.’s effect on property values in New York City, building one of his most outstandingly tasteless edifices just across the road from U.N. headquarters. Whatever prejudices he and his father had against African-American tenants is clearly not carried over to the many African and Arab diplomats who rent and buy his properties.

So will the policy be neglect, or will he see what other administrations, not least Bill Clinton’s, have: that the U.N. saves a lot of effort compared with being the world’s self-appointed cop? It is really difficult to say, but then that is true of previous regimes. Clinton posed as a liberal internationalist and then issued his Policy Directive 25 that vetoed any expenditure on peacekeeping that did not directly serve self-defined U.S. interests. The victims of Rwanda and Srebrenica were not, we discovered, essential U.S. interests.

In contrast, President Barack Obama amended that directive last year, in a reasoned assessment that asserted, “Multilateral peace operations, particularly United Nations (U.N.) peace operations, will, therefore, continue to be among the primary international tools that we use to address conflict-related crises.”

The crucial question is whether a Trump administration will have anything like a coherent foreign policy—and to what extent it sees the United Nations as helping in fulfilling that.

Using the old Confucian cliché of crisis as opportunity, new U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres has a better chance of independence than most—even if the major powers will nominate most of his senior officials. As previously noted (see Nov./Dec. 2016 Washington Report, p. 30), elected unanimously as a former prime minister of an important, if small, power; as head of one of the U.N.’s most called-upon agencies; and even as former president of the Socialist International, he has far more experience and better international connections than Trump—or any of his cabinet members.

Interestingly, Guterres had the support of China for his candidacy, and China has upped its dues payments, so that it is now the next biggest financier, after the U.S., for U.N. operations—and provides more peacekeepers than any other great power. The U.S. might still be the “indispensable power” Madeleine Albright claimed it to be, but it has never been more dispensable than now, as its primacy is increasingly challenged.

ANNEXING U.N. TERRITORY?

Meanwhile, back at the U.N., Israel’s Ambassador Danny Danon has shown his heritage in the settlement movement since he became chairman of the U.N. General Assembly’s Sixth Committee, which deals with legal affairs. He is clearly enjoying himself and has expanded the toehold to annex more and more organizational territory. His latest escapade was to convene a meeting of self-appointed legal experts that included Alan Dershowitz and Morton Klein of the Zionist Organization of America to consider legal action against advocates of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions. It appears to be a tendentious extension of the claimed privileges of the chair, but has no legal effect.

However, politically, it surely is time for the Palestinian Mission to convene a U.N. conference on how to give international legal effect to the decisions of the International Criminal Court on the applicability of the Geneva Conventions on Occupied Territories to the Israeli-occupied territories.

On Nov. 29 the U.N. commemorated its Annual Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. Ban Ki-moon has been an articulate defender of international legality, not to mention humanitarian solidarity, in the region, but his statements have rarely been reported, not even in indignation by pro-Israeli press—almost as if they realized that condemning such a mild-mannered and manifestly principled person would only validate his statements. So it is only fitting that as he leaves office we reproduce his remarks:

“Recent years have witnessed two unsuccessful attempts at negotiating a peaceful settlement, three armed conflicts, thousands of dead—the vast majority of them Palestinian civilians—rampant incitement, terror attacks, thousands of rockets and bombs fired at Israel from Gaza, and an expanding, illegal Israeli settlement enterprise that risks undermining Israel’s democratic values and the character of its society.  This year, the number of demolitions of Palestinian houses and other structures by Israeli forces has doubled, compared to 2015. Gaza remains a humanitarian emergency, with two million Palestinians struggling with crumbling infrastructure and a paralyzed economy, and tens of thousands still displaced, awaiting reconstruction of homes destroyed by conflict.”

While it contains the obligatory “balance” so often demanded by U.S. and Israeli representatives, the inescapable truth of who is most to blame emerges clearly from its enumeration of the details. In the General Assembly debate on the resolutions, U.S. representative Richard Erdman came out with the usual worries about “the disproportionate number of one-sided resolutions that had been designed to condemn Israel.” Interestingly, he added, “While the United States consistently opposed every effort to delegitimize Israel at the United Nations, his delegation would also continue to view Israeli settlement activity as illegitimate, corrosive and a threat to a two-state solution.”

Erdman failed, however, to identify how much of Israel Palestine occupied and how many settlements it had built there. Nor did he identify what steps Washington had taken to persuade Israel to give up its corrosive ways, short of stuffing its arsenal with offensive weapons and its treasury with cash.

In fact, he missed a golden opportunity to suggest ways to take the wind out of the sails of the international BDS movement. If the U.S. and U.N. took the action they had against South Africa, then consumers’ boycotting bath salts from the occupied Dead Sea would be totally unnecessary. ◙

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U.N. correspondent Ian Williams’ book UNtold: the Real Story of the United Nations will be published by Just World Books in Spring 2017.

Best Person for the Job. UN SG Guterres.

http://www.tribunemagazine.org/2016/10/letter-from-america/

Letter from America

Written By: Ian Williams

Tribune  Published: October 25, 2016 L

It was not good week for the bean counters. António Guterres is neither East European, nor female, but the newly designated ninth UN Secretary General is indisputably the best person for the job. In the end, it is almost reassuring to note that the permanent five and the other members of the Council care enough about the organization to choose the best candidate!

Guterres walked to an easy finish as soon as the first “real” straw ballot – in which the veto-holding permanent members showed their true colours by voting with red ballot papers. If those who wanted a woman had united behind one suitably qualified candidate, they might have won the day, but seven women running against each other made it easier for the best candidate to win. In fact, from the permanent five only Britain said it would prefer a female candidate, but presumably drew the line at an Argentinean foreign minister who wants the Malvinas back, or a Bulgarian apparatchik with Putin’s hearty support. The key issue was whether veto-wielding Moscow could take a West European democratic socialist. It was helped when Bulgaria supported a second Bulgarian candidate weakening the expedient Russian stand for an East European and a woman, by which they meant Irina Bukova the head of UNESCO.

The newly “transparent” procedure, under which candidates addressed the General Assembly with its 193 members, did expose the selection to the light of day. Even if the Security Council made the final decision, it did so knowing it had to choose from candidates who had been under the scrutiny of the Assembly and the public. One wonders whether Kurt Waldheim or Perez de Cuellar would have passed such scrutiny.

Guterres’ candidacy was also helped by support from African countries who maintain good relations with Portugal, whose socialist Rose revolution ended the colonial power’s wars of repression, and also by his record as head of the UN refugee agency, the most overworked, active and least hidebound section of the UN apparatus.

Not least, as a former Prime Minister of an important, but non-threatening power, with his relationships with world leaders going back years, not to mention contacts across the whole spider’s web of UN organizations, Guterres is not going to be a mere secretary, taking dictation from the great powers. He has an independent stature and presence that will help him tell the not-so-good great powers when they are failing in their responsibilities. Sadly, as we see in Syria, and indeed Yemen, that is all too often.

Intriguingly but understandably, the elephant in the room is that none of the candidates mentioned the Israel-Palestine issue, even though it occupies so much time and effort at the UN. This was an issue that Ban Ki-Moon had taken some time to acquaint himself with, and after visiting Gaza he quickly learnt that Washington’s views were not shared by the rest of the world. Within a short time, Ban was condemning settlements and assaults on Gaza with a brio that would have risked his suspension from the Labour Party as an anti-Semite.

In contrast, Guterres hits the ground running. As Portuguese Prime Minister, as President of the Socialist International, and above all as UN High Commissioner for Refugees, he has been deeply involved in the Middle East in all its manifestations, not least in its tragic role as one of the globe’s leading producers of refugees.

He lamented in 2014, that the world’s various refugee crises “pale in comparison to the desperate situation of the Palestinians, the largest protracted refugee situation in the world”. He pointed out that Palestinians in Syria were “being forced to flee for the second time,” but it was “shocking” that Gazans “could not even flee to seek safety” from the latest Israeli onslaught. “No one wants to be a refugee. But for the people of Gaza, not even that was an option.”

The rational conclusion is that Israel once again faces a UN Secretary General who is quite prepared to talk to its leaders, some of whom he knew from the Socialist International, but who will firmly remind them that they are not exempt from the UN Charter and International Law.

A Secretary General has many other problems to face. Climate Change, world poverty, the teetering international financial situation and great power conflicts more threatening than anything since the fall of the Berlin Wall. On all of these, he can do little or nothing without the backing of the world’s major powers, but the evidence of his career is that he is in position to do better than any other candidate would have been. His election is good news for the UN and the world.

While in internationalist mode, Guterres is a former President of the Socialist International, from which the Labour Party withdrew with no debate or membership consultation a few years ago. It is now only an observer party,  though it actually refounded it in 1951, Neil Kinnock is still listed as an honorary President and its headquarters is still in London. The new Labour leadership may have other things to think about,but it would be good to rejoin the SI and align with the New Secretary General.

Herod to head UNICEF?

Israel Wins Chairmanship of U.N. Legal Committee, Will Seek Security Council Seat

By Ian Williams

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon visits an UNRWA school in Gaza, June 28, 2016. (U.N. PHOTO/ESKINDER DEBEBE)

EVEN THOUGH, ON one level, Israeli contempt for the U.N. and international law knows no bounds, we have written before about their desperate deep psychological need for the organization’s approval and to abuse the body’s prestige.

At the end of May, the Israeli Mission chose the U.N. General Assembly Hall as the venue for a daylong “Building Bridges Not Boycotts conference,” which was essentially a rally of pro-Israel organizations on how to stop the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. It is somewhat odd that the U.N. would host a rally against efforts to enforce its decisions on the illegality of occupation and settlements, but one has to appreciate the inexorable pressure on officials from the U.S. and other allies.

For example, several years ago, when Israel secured temporary admission to the “West European and Other Group” (WEOG), many of the Europeans were very upset, and only acquiesced because of American pressure. Partly it was principle—not wanting to be associated with Israeli crimes—but it was also professional jealousy, so they insisted that Israel would not actually get nominated for important positions. Hard work and the adoption of pro-Israel positions by conservatives all over Europe bore fruit this year, when Israel secured WEOG’s nomination for chair of the U.N.’s Sixth Committee, the Legal Committee. It then went on to win the position in a secret ballot.

It was well managed. WEOG usually has contested positions, and so it put up stalking horse candidates to make it look like a contest. Clearly the fix was in, however, and so Israeli Ambassador Danny Danon became chairman of the U.N.’s Legal Committee. His opposition to the U.N.’s mandated two-state solution and his support for Israel’s continued occupation of most of the West Bank, not to mention illegal settlements, might make that anomalous anywhere else, but in this political atmosphere King Herod could become director general of UNICEF with the right backing.

To pile it on, forthcoming will be Israel’s bid for a seat in the Security Council. The election will take place in 2018, and contending already for two WEOG seats are Germany and Belgium. Needless to say, Tel Aviv’s message to Germany has been, “Thanks for all the submarines and the cash. But how dare you stand against Israel with your record!” The Germans are not, so far, going quietly into that good night. After all, they (and many other countries) think they deserve a permanent seat there, and residual guilt will not hold up against realpolitik in the country that invented it. In fact, WEOG often breaks out of the cozy rotation system for U.N. offices and has contested elections, and Israel’s behavior is not such as to inspire European sentimentality on the issue! 

But once again, the odd scofflaw complementarity works. Security Council members often have included countries like Indonesia, occupying East Timor, and Morocco, occupying Western Sahara. In one sense, it is only fair to let Israel share in the breathtaking hypocrisy. 

Perhaps that ability was rarely so well shown as with the Middle East Quartet. While the Quartet has been much improved since former British Prime Minister Tony Blair was squeezed out from the special representative sinecure that his grateful chums in Washington had secured for him, on the other hand it still has all the marks of its origins—which were an attempt to defang Russia, the EU and the U.N. on the Palestinian question by binding them into a consensus with the U.S., which is of course bound in that strange masochistic relationship with Israel.

However, considering how toothless Russia, the U.N. and the EU had become on the question, one did wonder why all the effort and showmanship was necessary. A critical part of the equation is the Israeli and American need to buffer and neutralize the clear statements of international and binding resolutions of the United Nations that are explicitly accepted and supported by all but one and a half nations in the world. And even the U.S. and Israel nominally accept them—they just do not accept their enforcement.

The U.S., as a founder of the United Nations, knows that the resolutions are binding but finds it politically inexpedient, for domestic reasons, to try to enforce them on the U.S. So the effort is to browbeat the Palestinians into voluntarily abandoning their rights in bilateral negotiations with Israel in an unbalanced settlement that would then be ratified by the U.N.

So far, there is enough of a residual sense of legality and anti-colonial solidarity in the U.N. to ensure that it would not ratify a settlement without the assent of the Palestinians. In a sense, the Palestinians are lucky they don’t have a fully recognized and functioning state, because if they did someone would have arranged a coup and a complaisant regime to put its seal on the surrender. 

Nevertheless, the basic pattern remains. The Quartet allegedly monitors progress on the famous Road Map that got lost in the glove compartment almost immediately, while the Israelis do their own thing and continually complain about the Palestinians’ inability to respond positively, indeed rhapsodically, to land grabs, demolitions, killings and imprisonment. 

History has many examples of heavily armed bullies vilifying those they persecute, but Israel and its supporters are surely unique in complaining about the ingratitude of the Palestinians for their treatment. Long overdue, a certain tone of exasperation is appearing in the statements of the various Quartet components.

EXASPERATED QUARTET MEMBERS

Ban Ki-moon’s exasperation was evident in his statement on the Quartet’s report in July, but he at least upheld the U.N.’s legitimacy and cited the Quartet’s pledge “to actively support an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on the basis of United Nations Security Council resolutions 242 (1967) and 338 (1973).” He also reiterated that “a negotiated two-state outcome that meets Israeli security needs and creates a sovereign Palestinian state, ends the occupation that began in 1967, and resolves all permanent status issues is the only way to achieve an enduring peace.”

And we can see how chastened Israel was after the Quartet had wagged three and half fingers at it. Ban immediately had to criticize Israel’s announcement of 560 housing units in the West Bank settlement of Ma’ale Adumim, as well as moves to build 240 housing units in settlements in occupied East Jerusalem. “This raises legitimate questions about Israel’s long-term intentions, which are compounded by continuing statements of some Israeli ministers calling for the annexation of the West Bank,” which of course have included demands by the current Israeli U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon.

A frustrated Ban in his statement reiterated “that settlements are illegal under international law and urges the Government of Israel to halt and reverse such decisions in the interest of peace and a just final status agreement.” He was “deeply disappointed that this announcement comes only four days after the Middle East Quartet called on Israel to cease its policy of settlement construction and expansion.”

But at least Ban is not out on a limb: even Russia was upset by Israel’s indecorous finger to the Quartet, saying, "Moscow is seriously worried over new settlement projects in occupied Palestinian territories." The Foreign Ministry added that "Such settlements are illegal under the international law and are not recognized by the international community." 

The plans "run counter to the report of the Middle East Quartet of international mediators that was made public on July 1," the Russian statement complained, "Along with inadmissibility of violence and incitement to violence, the report strongly recommends to stop construction and expansion of settlements on the West Bank and in East Jerusalem.”

So what will be done about it? As we go to press, the current U.S. president is haggling about how big the next arms aid deal for Israel will be, and the two contenders for his position will be seeing by how much they can inflate it. Rule of Law, anyone?  ◙

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Letter From America – Ian Williams

Written By: Ian Williams

Published: July 11, 2016 Last modified: July 11, 2016

In a press briefing at the UN many years ago Douglas Hurd pointed out that British foreign policy was “the same as it has been since the days of Pitt the Younger,” to ensure that “no combination of powers in Europe would be in a position to threaten us.” This was in the now forgotten context of Margaret Thatcher fighting the Germans. That was of course before successive British governments chose to adopt German-style anally retentive austerity policies.

It puts the “Special Relationship” in a different light, since American commentary has concentrated on how Brexit threatens Britain’s role as Washington’s standing fifth column in the EU. It is a role we should happily forfeit. Poodles are cosseted creatures, but as Tony Blair discovered over Iraq, it’s not always wise to jump yapping after everystick the master throws.

Ironically, Israeli commentators also lament the potential loss of a post-Brexit Britain’s role in shielding settlements from EU sanctions, which shows how things have changed. In the robust days before Blair sacked Robin Cook as Foreign Secretary, British policy did indeed have an ethical dimension that included condemning Israeli breaches of international law even when it upset the Americans.

So, if what’s left of the UK after Brexit is freed from its obligations to carry out the garbage for the US and Israel, how does it affect Britain’s role at the UN? Interestingly, when Boris Yeltsin did to the Soviet Union what Boris Johnson now seems to have done to the EU, there was no formal decision that Russia would take over USSR’s permanent seat. Sir David Hannay, Britain’s permanent representative quipped that the Russian Ambassador slipped into the Council Chamber at midnight and changed the name plate while everyone else was celebrating the New Year.

It was clear that Russia, which inherited the Soviet nukes, was the successor state and its stature ensured its permanent membership status so there were supercilious sniggers, but no challenges. But could a dis-United Kingdom take that for granted? Until now, not only has the UK benefitted from occasional US gratitude and indulgence on the Council, it has, like France, also usually been able to speak for the European Union, which gives its word considerably more clout than Britain alone, let alone Britain as ventriloquist dummy for Washington.

In fact, that is unfair, since the British Foreign Office has often been far more articulate and astute than the US delegation, whose State Department professionals are often over-ridden by politicians owing their knowledge of foreign affairs to whatever was written on the back of the lobbyists’ cheques. Many of the crucial Iraq resolutions were only made possible with British diplomatic expertise and draftsmanship until, of course, Tony Blair wanted a war whether his foreign office did or not, with or without a UN resolution.

In those earlier days, British representatives paid heed to international law and the effect of its decisions but their standards seem to be slipping. British silence as Ban Ki Moon was recently undermined by French support for Morocco flouting of UN decisions on Western Sahara or Saudi attempts to edit human rights reports, suggests that London is now prepared to see the UN fail rather than express inexpedient principle.

On balance, there is unlikely to be a direct challenge to Britain’s permanent council seat. It has been suggested that Britain and France’s permanent seats be replaced by an EU seat – but that is even more questionable now than before. In any case an EU seat would be useless. Consensus of all its members is almost impossible and instead of a veto, an EU seat on the Council would have a perpetual abstention.

So probably even a truncated UK could stay on the Council. However, it is gradually shrinking towards Taiwan’s position where its nominal veto power is not supported by the real world. Indeed, if Brexit happens, the rump UK influence will be overshadowed by a France that represents the EU and does not have the shadow of an American puppet master looming over it.

So what role could the UK have? Briefly under Robin Cook, as I remember, Britain’s UN mission remembered that Commonwealth thing, and invited their representatives to a Commonwealth reception. But in fact it was the New Zealanders, Canadians and Australians, before they went Blairite and Thatcherite, who seemed to take the relationship more seriously. In fact, if it were not for the complacency that a permanent seat engenders, it would make good sense to cultivate the Commonwealth missions, many of whom are small, understaffed and underappreciated and British advice could be well received if tendered in the proper spirits. And then Robin Cook had that thing about an ethical dimension for foreign policy. It’s time to redouble our support for international law, untrammeled by inconvenient alliances.

Arabs and UNSC

Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, June/July 2016, pp. 44-45

United Nations Report

There’s More Than One Way to Skin the Security Council Cat

By Ian Williams

Two months after Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, Arab League Ambassador Clovis Maksoud (r) confers with Security Council president Ambassador Noel Dorr of Ireland (l) and Soviet Ambassador Richard S. Ovinnikov, Aug. 6, 1982. The U.S. vetoed a Soviet draft resolution calling for a ban on the supply of arms to Israel until it fully withdrew its troops from Lebanon. (U.N. PHOTO/YUTAKA NAGATA)

THE GOLDEN DAYS HAVE never glistened quite as brightly as we think, but if there were a Golden Age of Arab Unity it was perhaps half a century ago, when an American-born Lebanese Christian, Clovis Maksoud, was an ambassador for the Arab League, first in India, then later in the U.S. and at the U.N. In those days, Arab Unity meant more than a vow ofomerta between governments to cover each thuggish dictator’s rear—certainly to Maksoud, who was a true, but pragmatic believer.

He died in May, in Washington, where he had long headed American University’s Center for the Global South, and where he could call upon his long experience, powerful intellect, and deep reservoirs of respect across the world.

His pragmatism showed in several ways at the U.N. One was when he deployed the rhetorical skills he had honed in the Oxford Union and “Maksoudized,” as it was known—fondly, one might add. Superb and soaring, polysyllabic and poetical, his speeches mesmerized audiences—but left them scratching their heads as they wondered what he had actually said. When I asked him about it while he was at the U.N., he smiled and explained, “I represent the Arab League—it is almost impossible to say anything concrete that will not upset at least one of the members.”

As Arab League ambassador to the U.N., Clovis Maksoud has also left a lasting legacy that is equally mixed in its effects. He crafted the deal that synchronized the Asian and African groups’ cycles to ensure that there would always be an Arab representative on the Security Council.

It is not in the Charter, but by longstanding agreement, temporary seats are apportioned on the basis of geographical regions: Asia, Eastern Europe, Africa, and the West European and Other Group. Eastern Europe was essentially the Warsaw Pact countries, which have now almost all joined the European Union and NATO, or are trying to, but they maintain the fiction—claiming, for example, that it is their group’s “turn” to have a secretary-general. West European and Other was sufficiently elastic to include Australia, Canada and New Zealand, and thus allowed itself to be bullied into accepting Israel as a member.

In the U.N.’s version of geography, the Arab world is split between Asia and Africa, each of which has five temporary seats rotated on a two-year cycle. More often than not—as with so many U.N. positions—the fix is in. The diplomats at the U.N. courteously sort out a rota to avoid unseemly contests and surprises. One can tell decades ahead which member state will be “elected.” It is the same system that eviscerates the Human Rights Council by putting some of the most egregious offenders on it. At least the Human Rights Council made a pretense for a while of fielding more candidates than seats—even if they all knew which were the real candidates and which were for show.

The deal Ambassador Maksoud made was that every two years, Asia would reserve a seat for an Arab League member and in the alternate biennium one of the North African Arab states would rotate around. This was the cozy arrangement that returned dubiously Arab countries like Djibouti to the Council and regularly seats Security Council members who are in flagrant violation of the Council’s own resolutions. That is not an exclusively Arab problem, of course, but it lends neither prestige nor potency to the U.N. as an institution and the Security Council as its highest embodiment of the international community in matters of war and peace. 

When Ambassador Maksoud crafted the deal, his concern was that there be an Arab voice on issues like Palestine that united them, and that there was at least vestigial respect for the notion of Arab Unity. But, of course, that fell apart after the original Egypt-Israel deal and never recovered. It has now become a diplomatic career opportunity for salespeople of unelected oligarchs.

THE SECURITY COUNCIL ­ADVANTAGE

The point of being on the Security Council was more than adequately demonstrated earlier this year, when Western Sahara appeared yet again on the agenda. The imbroglio has dire potential beyond the Polisario (the Popular Front for the Liberation of Saguia el-Hamra and Río de Oro) and Morocco.

Quietly but effectively, the issue has eroded the always parlous authority of both the secretary-general and the Security Council that have, with all their failings, done a lot to keep the peace since 1945. In March Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon visited the camps in Tindouf and, clearly upset by what he saw, called for the referendum on self-determination and referred to the Moroccan presence across much of Western Sahara as an “occupation.”

He had a similar epiphany when he visited Gaza early in his mandate and saw for himself the reality behind the clinically cleansed language of U.N. resolutions. When Ban made his statements Morocco went into unprecedented paroxysms of undiplomatic denunciation, claiming—totally falsely—that the U.N. and the international community accepted its annexation.

In a breathtaking abuse of language, Morocco accused the U.N. secretary-general of “semantic slippage” for using the term “occupation” and, along with even more incoherent indignation, noted with “utter dismay the verbal slippages, faits accomplis and unjustified complacency” of the secretary-general. It ordered the U.N. staff out of the territory it controlled. The kingdom staged mass “spontaneous” demonstrations against the secretary-general in the Moroccan capital, Rabat.

There were clear U.N. resolutions and decisions, not just about the territory’s status but about the U.N. staff. It was an unprecedented challenge to the Security Council’s authority. Remember, Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic was put on trial for such temerity.

The International Court of Justice had ruled that the Sahrawis are entitled to exercise their right to self-determination, and dismissed Moroccan claims to the land and the fealty of its people. The General Assembly had called for the “occupation” to be ended, and the Security Council had from the beginning asked the Moroccans to withdraw. Security Council Resolution 690, passed in 1991, established MINURSO, the U.N. Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara, to implement settlement proposals that Morocco had accepted in 1988.

Rabat had paid lip service to the referendum while it tried to pack the electoral rolls with its settlers, but when it became clear that the eligible voters wanted Morocco out, the kingdom insisted that the referendum must exclude any question of independence. Almost as revealingly, Morocco and France have fought successfully to ensure that MINURSO remains the only peacekeeping operation without a human rights monitoring component.

When Morocco ordered U.N. staff to leave, Ban sought the support of the Security Council—but did not get it, due to opposition from France, Egypt and Japan. After days of backroom wrangling, the most the Council could deliver was an anodyne appeal for the mission to continue.

Persuaded by his staff that the U.N. term was a “non-self-governing” territory rather than an “occupied” one, Ban, even though upset by the Moroccan tirades, explained that his use of the term was his personal emotional reaction to the plight of the refugees. He did not back down from the clear decisions of the U.N. over the years, but modified his entirely accurate statement for the exigencies of diplomacy.

He and his advisers were appalled by the lack of active support from major Security Council members which, in effect, handed Morocco a proxy veto via France and its African allies. If only to uphold the authority of the institution, the Council should have had much stronger resolution about Morocco’s behavior.

A COMPROMISED SYSTEM

Morocco and its friends have thoroughly compromised the U.N. system on the Saharan issue. U.N. officials have been bribed and browbeaten not to challenge the Moroccan version with anything as upsetting as the truth. Interestingly. the MINURSO website begins its list of U.N. resolutions in 1991, when it was set up, not in 1975, when the Security Council asked Morocco to get out!

Rabat has consistently refused to hold the referendum that the Mission was sent to prepare for. The king, like his father before, knows he would lose it. And, once again shamelessly backed by France, Morocco’s successful opposition to permit a human rights component in MINURSO is a telling indication of how he intends to keep it.

In May, the Security Council sent a delegation to talk to Arab League countries in Cairo, where many of them grandstanded, demanding (rightly) that the Council should enforce its resolutions on Middle East peace and settlements. They seem to be missing the point that France’s attempts to jump start the peace process at the eastern end of the Maghreb are compromised by its own behavior on the western end. Perhaps summing it up, it was reported that, at a recent gathering, a former French ambassador to the U.N. reprimanded his British former colleague for being a puppet of the U.S.—for which he got the deserved riposte, “Better than being the King of Morocco’s puppet!” ◙