US - Israeli UN Resolution Hypocrisy

by Stephen Lendman

Two nations stand out above all others as notorious
serial abusers of UN resolutions - the US and Israel.
Over the last half century, the US has used its
Security Council veto many dozens of times to prevent
any resolutions from passing condemning Israel for its
abusive or hostile actions or that were inimical to
Israeli interests.  It’s also voted against dozens of
others overwhelmingly supported by the rest of the
world in the UN General Assembly.  By its actions and
with 6% of the world’s population, the US has thus
arrogantly ignored the will of nearly all the other
94% to support its client state even when Israel had
committed war crimes or crimes against humanity the
rest of the world demanded it be held to account for.
In the words of one UK observer using a baseball
analogy: “Only the USA could have a World Series and
not invite the rest of the world.”

The Israeli record on UN resolutions over that same
period is far worse.  With full US support for its
actions, it’s flagrantly and with little or no
pretense routinely ignored over five dozen UN
Resolutions condemning or censuring it for its actions
against the Palestinians or other Arab people,
deploring it for committing them, or demanding,
calling on or urging the Jewish state to end them.
Israel never did or intends to up to the present,
including the mass slaughter and destruction it’s now
inflicting on the people of Lebanon and the
Palestinians in their Territories that Israel
illegally occupies and attacks whenever it wishes.  It
does so with impunity using any contrived pretext it
can get away with to deny the Palestinians any chance
ever for a viable sovereign independent state and to
avoid a political solution with them it won’t ever
tolerate.

UN Resolutions As Examples of US and Israeli Hypocrisy

Consider now three UN Resolutions as examples of gross
hypocrisy - one Israel and its US paymaster and
benefactor support and two others both countries do
not so they ignore them.  In September, 2004, the
Security Council passed UN Resolution 1559,
cosponsored by the US and France, that called on Syria
to withdraw its military forces from Lebanon and stop
intervening in the Lebanese political process.  It
also demanded all Lebanese and non-Lebanese militias
(aimed mainly at Hezbollah, of course) disarm and
disband (meaning surrender).  Following the
assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister, Rafik
Hariri, in February, 2005, Syria bowed to
international pressure and complied fully with the
resolution by April.  In so doing, it ended its 29
year occupation of the part of the country it
controlled which excluded the rest in the South under
Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) control that Israel
maintained after its invasion of Southern Lebanon in
1978 and again in 1982.  Hezbollah’s military
resistance wing did not comply.  Had it done so, it
would have left itself and the Shia third of the
Lebanese population dependent on it defenseless
against the Israelis.  The Lebanese government and its
small and weak security forces had no power to force
Hezbollah’s compliance and were unable to do it.

Hezbollah was born out of the Israeli invasion of
Lebanon in 1982 and the oppressive occupation that
followed.  It’s a popular resistance movement, much
like and in the same spirit as the French Resistance
freedom fighters the Nazis called terrorists, formed
to resist their illegal occupiers and expel them.
Ever since, it’s continued as an effective resistance
force against the Israelis that finally withdrew from
Lebanon in May, 2000 but maintained its occupation of
the 25 square kilometer area of South Lebanon known as
Shebaa Farms it never relinquished after seizing it in
the 1967 war.  Hezbollah, the Lebanese people and its
government demand Israel give it back as well as cease
its frequent hostile cross-border incursions,
unjustifiable abductions, repeated violations of the
country’s airspace as well as end its current brutal
assault and invasion of their country once again.  To
continue being an effective resistance force,
Hezbollah remained armed, has every right to do so in
its own self-defense whatever resolutions the UN
passes, and will continue resisting Israeli oppression
until it ends.  It’s now doing it against a vastly
superior IDF invasion force in South Lebanon far more
effectively than the Israeli government is willing to
admit.

Now consider UN Resolutions 465 and 476.  The Security
Council unanimously adopted UN Resolution 465 in
March, 1980 that addressed Israel’s illegal occupation
of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank, Gaza,
East Jerusalem and the Syrian Golan Heights.  Among
other provisions in it, it condemned Israel’s policy
of “setting parts of its population and new Immigrants
in those territories (and said doing so constituted) a
flagrant violation of the fourth Geneva Convention
relative to the protection of civilian persons in time
of war and also constitute a serious obstruction to
achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in
the Middle East.”  It called on the government of
Israel to “dismantle the existing settlements and in
particular to cease….the establishment, construction
and planning of (new) settlements in the Arab
territories since 1967, including Jerusalem.” 

In the last 26 years, Israel has flagrantly violated
this resolution and still continues to build new
settlements illegally in the Palestinian Occupied
Territories.  The US supports and funds the Israeli
government enabling it to do it, and the UN and world
community have taken no action to bring Israel into
compliance which it could do by imposing sanctions
severe enough to force Israel to stop new settlement
construction, dismantle the existing ones and make
restitution to the Palestinians and Syrians for the
harm caused them.

The Security Council also passed Resolution 476 in
June, 1980.  Like Resolution 465, it, too, reaffirms
the necessity to end the Israeli occupation of Arab
territories ongoing since the 1967 war.  It went on to
condemn Israel for its continued refusal to do it or
to comply with the relevant Security Council and
General Assembly resolutions demanding it does.  It
repeated provisions detailed in Resolution 465 and
reaffirmed its determination in the event of Israeli
non-compliance to examine practical ways to get it to
do so.  Israel never complied, and the UN never took
action to see that it did.  Also, by its reinvasion of
Lebanon now and its unending occupation of the Shebaa
Farms area it’s held since 1967, Israel is also in
violation of UN resolution 425 and nine additional
ones demanding the withdrawal of its forces from South
Lebanon.  The net effect of UN action - many relevant
and high-sounding words and speeches amounting to
nothing, at least when it concerns Israel.

The Hypocrisy of the US Congress

Now consider a further gross hypocrisy.  On July 20,
the US House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly
410 - 8 to unconditionally endorse Israel’s illegal
aggression against the Palestinians and people of
Lebanon.  Earlier in the week, the US Senate passed a
similar resolution by voice vote, but added a
worthless and outrageous clause that “urges all sides
to protect innocent civilian life and infrastructure.”
The House version showed no such disingenuous
delicacy, and in language Orwell would love, actually
praised Israel for “minimizing civilian loss” ignoring
the obvious evidence to the contrary. 

Along with its arrogance, the Congressional resolution
violated the UN Charter by unjustifiably claiming
Israel has the right of self-defense guaranteed it
under Article 51 and thus has just cause to destroy
Lebanon’s infrastructure and kill innocent civilians
to do it.  Once again, Orwell would approve. These
House and Senate resolutions are compelling evidence
of both parties’ unconditional support for Israel
whatever it does.  They also show the Bush
administration’s utter contempt for all international
laws and norms and its unconditional endorsement of
Israel when it violates them as it did so egregiously
in its outrageous attack on a civilian target in Qana
on July 30 killing 60 or more innocent men, women and
at least 37 children.

The Congressional resolution also unjustifiably
accused, and by implication condemned, Lebanon for
failing to observe UN Resolution 1559 by not
disbanding and disarming Hezbollah and allowing it
instead to amass thousands of rockets and other
weapons.  It also criticized the legitimate
integration of Hezbollah into the Lebanese government
where it’s represented by 11 democratically elected
lawmakers in the Parliament and two ministers in the
country’s cabinet.  The Congressional resolution
ignores the fact that UN Resolution 1559 calls only
for Hezbollah’s armed militia to be disarmed and
disbanded, regardless of how unreasonable that demand
is. 

For Lebanon’s failure to enforce UN Resolution 1559,
including provisions not even in it, the US Congress,
in effect, gave Israel its approval to destroy the
country and kill many hundreds of its people.  At the
same time, Israel never complied with UN Resolutions
465 and 476 demanding it withdraw from the Occupied
Territories and Golan Heights it holds illegally, UN
Resolution 425 and nine others making the same demand
it remove its forces from all Lebanese territory, and
all the dozens of other UN resolutions Israel
routinely violates or disregards. 

The US Congress, UN, world leaders and most Arab
states remain committed to Israel overtly or tacitly.
They’ve done it despite Israel’s many violations
including the crime of aggression in its ongoing
brutal assaults on Lebanon and the Occupied
Territories that it falsely and disingenuously claims
to be a justifiable response to the capture (not
kidnapping) of three of its soldiers, a minor
provocation at most.  At the same time, the Congress
and world leaders remain silent refusing to condemn
Israel for its failure to comply with UN Resolutions
465, 476, 425, nine similar ones. and all the other UN
resolutions against it for the past half century. 

The message is clear.  When it comes to the UN, the US
runs the show, and no substantive or significant
action can be taken with teeth unless it approves -
especially when it applies to Israel, in part, because
of the power of the Israeli lobby in the US.  Also,
all actions of a valued US client state are quite
acceptable, even when they violate the UN Charter and
international law, so long as they serve Washington’s
interests.  Israel’s illegal aggression in Lebanon and
the Occupied Territories clearly do.  In spite of it,
the US, as de facto ruler of the world, has given the
Israelis carte blanche to run amuck and commit the
supreme war crime with impunity.  In the kind of world
Orwell understood, Israel’s mass killing and
destruction is in the US’s imperial interest,
especially in the strategically important Middle East
where oil is central to all else, so its
scorched-earth policy is quite acceptable and may go
on unabated and end only when the two allies decide to
stop it.  It doesn’t matter what the law is or that
the innocent are paying the supreme price for its
violation.

Peacekeeping Hypocrisy

A brief word about still more hypocrisy.  The US, UK
and Israel have called for a robust international
military force (Israel appears to want a NATO run one)
to serve as “peacekeepers” in South Lebanon once
Israel ceases its aggression and allows it to come in.
No one is considering the wishes of Hezbollah, the
people of South Lebanon it serves or the Lebanese
government.  Only Israel and its US and UK allies are
to be allowed to decide or whatever other countries
Israel is willing to allow in the decision-making
loop.  It’s also undiscussed publicly what Israel
really has in mind, how oppressive the Christian South
Lebanon Army (SLA) was when it acted as Israel’s
occupying enforcer after 1978 or how ineffective the
current UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) has been
since it was first put in place in 1978 and never
succeeded in establishing peace or security.

So what’s really going on?  After just days on the
ground inside Lebanon, the IDF is finding the going
very rough.  It’s already admitted to taking
significant losses with dozens of its soldiers killed
and hundreds more injured in intense fighting with a
determined and resilient Hezbollah force as committed
now to expelling an invading Israeli force as it was
in the 1980s and 1990s when it succeeded in doing it.
Clearly the IDF is struggling and taking more losses
than it’s willing to continue sustaining.  So it wants
instead to have a proxy army it can control come into
South Lebanon, again act as its enforcers, engage
Hezbollah in confrontation if necessary and have it do
its killing and dying for it.  Will Hezbollah and the
people of South Lebanon now allow it in when they were
unwilling to accept their SLA and UNIFIL occupiers in
the past?  Not a chance, Israel and the US know it,
and yet both countries are going through the charade
of trying to convince the world, the Lebanese people
throughout the country, and its government that they
will.  Once the fighting ends, the IDF likely will
withdraw and an occupying force acceptable to Israel
will move in to serve in its place.  It will be as
unwelcome as the others that preceded it and
eventually it will be driven out.  But before it is,
many more will die and suffer, and the long struggle
of the Lebanese people and Palestinians as well in the
Occupied Territories will go on unresolved.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at
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site at sjlendman.blogspot.com