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Topic: U.S. Abstains in U.N. Vote Criticizing Israel
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Kindgo
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Israel surprised and dissapointed with US for failing to veto UN resolution
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The Jerusalem Post Internet Staff Sep. 24, 2002
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Israel reacted with surprise and disappointment Tuesday to the United States decision to abstain in the Security Council vote and allow the resolution calling for Israel to withdraw for Ramallah and other Palestinian cities. However, while stating that Israel would not comply with the decision, senior officials were careful not to publicly criticize the US.
The United States stood alone early
Tuesday by abstaining as the Security Council approved a compromise resolution demanding that Israel cease actions around Yasser Arafat's West Bank compound while condemning terrorist attacks. The resolution, which passed 14-0 with the one abstention, was negotiated by the European Union and drew from language in competing American and Arab proposals.
Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said Monday that there are certain aspects of the UN Security council resolution that Israel finds hard to accept, specifically the demand to end the siege on Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat's Ramallah compound and the request to withdraw IDF troops from the Palestinian cities.
However, Peres also said there were positive aspects to the resolution like the call to bring the terrorists to justice.
Army Radio quoted senior official s in Jerusalem as saying that despite the resolution, Israel has no intention of lifting the siege in Ramallah.
US officials said the decision to abstain from the vote and not use a veto was intended to convey an additional message to Israel that the US administration was unhappy with Israel's activities in Ramallah.
Communications Minister Reuven Rivlin also refrained from criticizing the US, saying that Israel's anger over the resolution should be directed at the Europeans and not at the US.
Speaking on Army Radio Rivlin said " Most of our criticism should be directed towards the Europeans who continue with their moral double standards."
A senior Foreign Ministry official said that while Israel respects the UN, its security concerns come before complying with any UN resolution.
Opposition leader Yossi Sarid, however, praised the resolution, calling it responsible and balanced.
Israel has traditionally depended on the US, one of five nations with the power of veto in the Security Council to prevent what it sees as anti-Israel resolutions.
Israel's U.N. ambassador, Yehuda Lancry, said the U.S. abstention should be seen in light of Washington's desire to preserve good international relations ahead of possible military action against Iraq.
"It's definitely a disappointment," Lancry told Israel Radio. "But with the complex American situation regarding the Iraqi issue and its desire not to further strain relations with its European partners, they preferred to take a position in the middle."
Israeli Infrastructure Minister Effie Eitam said there were other elements working against Israel. "We have to take security council resolutions in the proper proportion," he told Army Radio. "We have to remember that Syria has its turn at the council presidency and Europe also doesn't show balance in its approach to us."
"The resolution that we've adopted this evening was flawed in our view in that it failed to explicitly condemn the terrorist groups and those who provide them with political cover, support and safe haven in perpetuating conflict in the Middle East," Deputy US Ambassador James Cunningham said, in explaining the US abstention.
The vote was seen as a victory for the Palestinians and their Syrian backers on the council.
The Palestinians had failed several times to secure a Security Council resolution since violence broke out in the Middle East in September 2000. In December 2001, the United States, one of the five permanent Security Council members with veto power, blocked a similar Palestinian resolution.
The United States _ Israel's closest ally _ had threatened to use its veto again but ultimately abstained when some of the language it had sought on condemning terrorist attacks and bringing the perpetrators to justice, was inserted into the final text.
The United States was not able to support the resolution, however, because it did not mention Israel's security concerns and failed to identify Hamas and Islamic Jihad as the militant groups responsible for two deadly suicide bombings in Israel last week.
Diplomats said Syria, a non-permanent council member, had worked hard to keep Islamic Jihad's name out of the text. The Palestinian organization is headquartered in the Syrian capital of Damascus.
US Ambassador John Negroponte had said Monday that the
United States would not support a "one-sided resolution that fails to recognize that this conflict has two sides, that fails to condemn acts of terror and the groups that perpetrate them and that fails to call for the dismantling of the networks that threaten all the people of the Middle East, both Arab and Israeli."
The original Palestinian draft blamed Israel for the upsurge in violence and demanded that Israeli forces withdraw from Palestinian cities.
But it did not address Israel's security concerns or mention Palestinian suicide bombings, including the two last week that prompted Israeli troops to surround Arafat's West Bank headquarters in Ramallah and demolish buildings inside the compound.
Israel, which does not have a seat on the council, was opposed to a new Security Council resolution on its conflict with the Palestinians, regardless of the wording.
"Any resolution here will be perceived as rewarding terrorism," Deputy Israeli Ambassador Aaron Jacob said.
The compromise resolution approved by the council "demands that Israel immediately cease measures in and around Ramallah, including the destruction of Palestinian civilian and security infrastructure."
It further demands "the withdrawal of the Israeli occupying forces from Palestinian cities toward the return to positions held prior to September 2000."
The resolution also "calls on the Palestinian Authority to meet its expressed commitment to ensure that those responsible for terrorist acts are brought to justice." and it reiterates a demand for the cessation of all acts of violence.
Israeli forces rolled deeper into Palestinian territory on Tuesday clashing in the Gaza City with Palestinian gunmen as Arafat dug in at his West Bank headquarters, refusing to yield to an Israeli siege and demands for about 200 men inside to surrender.
Using unusually harsh language to criticize Israel, the United States expressed grave concern Monday for Israel's actions which "aggravate the situation and ... do not contribute to progress on comprehensive Palestinian civil and security reforms."
In its draft proposal, submitted earlier Monday, the United States also sought to condemn suicide bombings, name Islamic Jihad and Hamas as the responsible parties and call for the two militant groups to be treated as terrorist organizations under the provisions of an anti-terrorism resolution passed after the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington.
But the Palestinians and their Arab partners on the Security Council rejected the American draft, setting off 10 hours of negotiations as France, Britain, Norway, Bulgaria and Ireland worked to find a compromise.
Under pressure to act in the face of escalating death and destruction in the Middle East, the Security Council opened its chamber Monday to debate on the crisis and was in-and-out of private consultations all day on the matter.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan asked both sides to reverse course in exchange for a peaceful solution to the 54-year-old conflict.
Calling terrorist attacks "morally repugnant," Annan
urged all Palestinians, "especially the leaders of all political factions, to renounce this wicked instrument of terror clearly and irrevocably, now and forever."
To the Israelis, he appealed for "greater care to protect civilians" and to cease acts which hinder Palestinian progress on reform and security.
In his speech, Palestinian representative Nasser Al-Kidwa described Israel's actions around Arafat's compound as "dangerous, criminal and illegal."
Israel's ambassador, Yehuda Lancry, said Israel's military measures were "the only thing which stands between Palestinian terrorists and their Israeli victims."
(With The Associated Press)
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God bless,
Kindgo
Inside the will of God there is no failure. Outside the will of God there is no success.
Posts: 4320 | From: Sunny Florida | Registered: Jun 2002
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Kindgo
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U.S. Abstains in U.N. Vote Criticizing Israel
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Sept. 24
— By Evelyn Leopold
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United States abstained on a U.N. Security Council resolution on Tuesday demanding Israel stop its siege of Yasser Arafat's compound, thereby allowing the measure to go into force.
The resolution, approved by the other 14 council members after 11 hours of negotiations, also called on the Palestinian Authority to ensure those responsible for terrorist acts were brought to justice.
The United States has killed similar measures in the past by using its veto power in the council. But diplomats said Washington decided against doing so in order not to alienate Arab opinion during its campaign against Iraq.
"The resolution that we've adopted this evening was flawed in our view in that it failed to explicitly condemn the terrorist groups and those who provide them with political cover, support and safe haven in perpetuating conflict in the Middle East," U.S. representative James Cunningham said.
The United States refused to vote for the new resolution because it did not name the Syrian-based Islamic Jihad and Hamas groups as responsible for bombings in Israel last week. Those demands were contained in a draft resolution Washington proposed on Monday.
The text was negotiated by Britain and France, which sponsored it along with Bulgaria, Ireland and Norway.
It "demands that Israel immediately cease measures in and around Ramallah, including the destruction of Palestinian civilian and security infrastructure."
It also demands the "expeditious withdrawal of Israeli occupying forces" from Palestinian cities toward positions held prior to September 2000, the date of a Palestinian uprising that has cost more than 2,000 lives.
Israeli forces wrecked Arafat's headquarters complex in Ramallah in the West Bank last Thursday after two suicide bombings killed seven people in Israel in the past week and shattered a six-week lull in such attacks.
On Monday, U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte introduced his own resolution to counter one proposed by Palestinians. The American proposal also would have asked for an end to Israel's destruction of the Palestinian president's compound.
The U.S. draft contained unusually harsh language chastising Israel, saying its actions "aggravated" the situation and did "not contribute to progress on comprehensive Palestinian civil and security reforms."
American threats of military strikes against Iraq were on most members' minds during a seven-hour Middle East debate with 44 ambassadors addressing the council, despite U.S. contentions the two issues were separate.
'DOUBLE STANDARDS'
"Why these double standards?" asked Yanya Mahmassani, representative of the Arab League. "Why are not the U.N. Security Council resolutions on Israel enforced the way they are on other countries?"
Baghdad's U.N. ambassador, Mohammed Aldouri, did not mention U.S. threats against his country in his address to the council. He apologized for sitting next to Israeli Ambassador Yehuda Lancry rather than Palestinian U.N. observer Nasser al-Kidwa, saying the speaking order had been changed.
Aldouri then criticized the "Zionist war machine" and said objections to the Palestinian draft represented "the policy of might" and could lead to an explosion.
Al-Kidwa accused Israel of defying three decades of council resolutions and asked the 15-nation body to "shoulder its responsibilities" and ensure those were enforced.
Lancry, who wanted no resolution at all, blamed "Palestinian terrorist groups" for setting back peace efforts and said his country's tough military stance was the only thing standing between the suicide bombers and Israeli civilians.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned Israel at the start of Monday's debate that its battering away at the Palestinian Authority was "a bankrupt policy" that bolstered extremists and would never end Middle East violence.
He denounced Palestinian suicide bombings as "morally repugnant" acts that ate away at hopes for a political solution in the Middle East.
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God bless,
Kindgo
Inside the will of God there is no failure. Outside the will of God there is no success.
Posts: 4320 | From: Sunny Florida | Registered: Jun 2002
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