Wednesday, February 8, 2012

The Arrogance of the UN Veto


            Arrogance is just one more word to describe the Apartheid Israeli government.  This time it involves the United Nations Security Council veto power which is granted to the five permanent members (United States, Great Britain, France, China and Russia). 

            This week China and Russia vetoed a UN Security Council Resolution against Syria for the second time in four months.  The reaction from the US and Apartheid Israel was typical.  U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called the veto a "travesty". Members of Apartheid-in-Chief Benjamin Natanyahu’s cabinet were disappointed by the veto and Knesset members were appalled by Russia's behavior.

            This arrogant reaction by the US and Apartheid Israel comes after a February, 2011 US veto of a UN Security Council Resolution which would have condemned the settlements as “illegal” and after the US threatened to veto a proposed UN Security Resolution on Palestinian Statehood in September, 2011.

            Apartheid Israeli supporters point to the Russian naval base in Syria and to the sale of jet fighters to the Assad regime to state that Russia has some sort of culpability in the Syrian murderous crackdown of the Arab Spring in Syria. This position would suggest to any logical person that the US, which is working closely with Apartheid Israel on military exercises and sells (gives is a better word) jet fighters to Israel, is then complicit with Israel in the occupation of Palestine.

            The problem with the US foreign policy is that it does what it will not allow others to do. The US can support the illegal settlement of Palestine by Apartheid Israel but Russia and China cannot support the brutal Syrian murderous actions against its own people.  Apartheid-in-Chief Netanyahu is conspicuously silent on the Russian and Chinese veto. However, he did state recently before a cabinet meeting:

At the end of last week we received a reminder about the environment we're living in. We heard Iran's ruler talk about Israel's destruction, we saw the Syrian army massacring its own people. Some leaders have no compunctions about harming their people or their neighbors.[i]

Zvi Bar’el, the writer of the Haaretz opinion article in which this quote was taken, then stated:

True, it's a lousy environment. Only one sentence is needed to complete the picture: "And there are governments that don't mind continuing to occupy other nations for nearly 50 years.

            This arrogance of expressing moral outrage at the atrocities of other countries while committing atrocities yourself is typical of how repugnant the world political stage has succumbed.  This indignation comes down to the use of the UN veto by the five permanent nations.  The US cannot use the veto to allow Israel to continue its apartheid occupation of Palestine and its obnoxious suppression of the Palestinian human spirit to be free; and then condemn the Russians and Chinese for vetoing the condemnation of the Syrian brutal suppression of the Syrian people’s human spirit to also be free.  One cannot support the condemnation of one human suppression and veto the condemnation of another human suppression.  It just is not morally right.

            While the veto in the UN Security Council is a power that will not be so easily given up by the five permanent members, it is time to rethink this awesome power. At this juncture, however, it would be better if the five permanent members of the UN Security Council would rethink their use of the veto.  Instead of using the veto to advance one’s self-interest, they should use the veto on a consistent basis that will advance the human spirit to be free.   I understand that this may be asking too much from China, but the US, as the sole super power, needs to lead with a moral conviction.  The US needs to be consistent in its foreign policy.



(© Copyright, Fadi Zanayed.  Publication or distribution of this material is allowed provided its content is not altered and the source and its author are cited.)

[i] Veto Morality, Zvi Bar'el, February 8, 2012, http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/veto-morality-1.411637

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