US/Israeli Interests Diverge as Palestinians seek UN agency membership

The implications of Palestine seeking membership in UN and international organizations are seismic for Israel, Palestine and the US.  The divergent interests of the US and Israel will come to a head in Congress as members will have to choose between US interests and the Israeli interests. For Palestine, it is now more at parity with Israel as the threat of seeking justice within these UN agencies makes Israelis shiver as the threats of international sanctions, economic boycott and international criminal trials for its current and former leaders loom in the horizon.

For the Palestinians, the decision to seek membership in UN agencies is a win-win move which was precipitated by Israel’s breach of its commitment to release the last of the 104 Palestinian prisoners it was holding before the Oslo Agreement.  Palestinians were enticed by Secretary of State John Kerry to restart peace talks with Israel in July, 2013 on condition that 104 Palestinians will be released and that final status discussions would be addressed. The Palestinians agreed not to seek membership in UN agencies.

When Israel breached its part of the agreement, the Palestinians, seeing no progress on the final status issues, applied to 15 UN agencies for membership.  Israel wanted Palestine to recommit to the talks beyond the April 29, 2014 deadline set out when the “talks” began but the Palestinians stated that the release of the prisoners was already agreed to and would not commit to extend the talks for the same agreement. The US then tried to sweeten the deal by considering releasing the notorious Navy spy Jonathan Pollard in exchange for the release of 400 Palestinian women and children prisoners held by Israel. (The reader should note very clearly that this is an admission by Israel that it is imprisoning Palestinian children.)

Additionally, Secretary Kerry elicited a show of “restraint” by Israel in new housing starts that did not include settlements in East Jerusalem and did not include housing starts already announced. On Tuesday, April 1, 2014, Israel, in what it thought was a cunning move before an agreement could be reached, announced over 700 new housing starts. This was the last straw for the Palestinians and the Palestinian Liberation Organization Action Committee unanimously voted to seek UN agency membership.

The divergence of US and Israeli interests was evident when Palestine was granted membership in the UN agency UNESCO in 2012.  The US had to stop paying its membership dues in UNESCO as two US laws, over 20 years old, compel the US to de-fund any UN organizations which approves Palestine’s membership. The laws were intended to keep Palestine out of these organizations as a way to protect Israel. The law, however, was ill conceived for it has and will hurt the United States while protecting Israeli interests.  Congress attempted to influence member nations of these organizations to vote against the acceptance of Palestine for fear of losing significant US funding.  Members of UNESCO were not easily bribed.

For two years the Obama administration sought a waiver from Congress without success, and last November the U.S. lost its voting rights at UNESCO as a result of being two years in arrears.  US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Powers urged Congress on April 2, 2014 to repeal or waive the law in its application to Palestine stating that defunding UN agencies that admit Palestine is not in the interests of the US. She stated that defunding these agencies would be a “double win” for the Palestinians. With US influence in these agencies diminished through losing its voting rights, Russia, China and even Cuba would take the lead.

UNESCO’s purpose is to contribute to peace and security by promoting international collaboration through education, science, and culture in order to further universal respect for justice, the rule of law, and human rights along with fundamental freedom proclaimed in the UN Charter.  Some UNESCO sponsored projects include literacy, technical, and teacher-training programs; international science programs; the promotion of independent media and freedom of the press; regional and cultural history projects; the promotion of cultural diversity; translations of world literature; international cooperation agreements to secure the world cultural and natural heritage and to preserve human rights, and attempts to bridge the worldwide digital divide. These are all within the interests of the US but with the loss of its voting rights, that influence has been negated—all because Congress has put Israel’s interests ahead of the interests of the US.

A pro-Israeli Congress would be reluctant to allow Congressional members to vote their conscience to grant a waiver or repeal these laws. The Israeli lobby, true to its history of championing Israeli interests over US interests, will not allow Israel interests to be hurt and therefore, its considerable power over Congress will restrain Congressional members from voting for US interests and against Israeli interests. The Israeli lobby has demonstrated on numerous occasions that it champions Israel’s interest over the US interests; most recently over President’s policy visa vie Syria and Iran. The lobby in both cases wanted the US to attack these countries over a reluctant American public’s weariness over two unfunded wars.

With the Israeli lobby ever threatening each member’s election over their loyalty to Israel, members of Congress will be in a quagmire trying to decide whether they should act in the best interest of the US or Israel—or more accurately whether they are willing to put their own re-election interests at the mercy of the Israeli lobby or whether they will do the very thing they were elected—protecting US interests.

Secretary of State John Kerry was perceptive in January, 2014 when he stated that if a peace agreement is not reached, Israel will be further isolated.  He must have foreseen that the US must now act in its own self-interest and cannot therefore base its international relations based on the interests of Israel.

The US cannot allow other nations’ political agenda to drive the US out of the UN and its agencies. The decision whether to fund these agencies must be based on the totality of US security, political, and economic interests served by the agencies. Congress will have to stand up for American interests and tell Israel that the divergence of US and Israeli interests is at hand. US foreign policy cannot be based on the interests of another nation.

U.S. diplomats have warned Israel that the United States cannot stop further Palestinian moves at the United Nations, especially if the current negotiations collapse—which they have despite the statement by Secretary Kerry to not write off the “talks”.

The move to seek membership in UN agencies is yet another step toward legitimacy for the Palestinian State after having won “non-member observer state” status in 2012 from the UN General Assembly.  Legitimacy for the Palestinian Authority is also achieved from the Palestinian people who have been exasperated by yet another round of “talks” with Israel that are endless and lead to no end. A great majority of Palestinians, most of which are moderate and who were supporters of the Oslo Accords, have become frustrated with an endless state of talks that never end, that are always conditioned upon an agreement to agree on something else in the future.  They were also frustrated that as the Palestinian Authority was conducting “talks” with Israel, Israel killed over 60 and wounded over 900 Palestinians; Israel kept building and building more Israeli settlement housing; and the illegal Israeli settlers were cutting down more and more Palestinian olive groves. Thus, taking the step to seek membership in UN agencies is very much favored by the Palestinian people in Palestine and around the globe.

Once Palestine is a member of UN agencies, it can seek to address the Israeli violations. For example, Article 2 of the Fourth Geneva Convention states that signatories are bound by the convention both in war, armed conflicts where war has not been declared, and in an occupation of another country's territory. In addition, the United Nations Security Council, in 1993, adopted a report that concluded that the Geneva Conventions had passed into the body of customary international law, thus making them binding on non-signatories to the Conventions whenever they engage in armed conflicts. 

The Fourth Geneva Convention clearly states the illegality of an occupying power moving its people to occupied areas. The International Court of Justice has given an advisory statement regarding the Israeli wall built deep on Palestinian land. The advisory ruling in 2007 states clearly that as an occupying power, Israel is forbidden to settle in Arab areas captured during the 1967 war.  Thus the status of the Israeli colonization (settlements as the press calls them) will be legally challenged through legal means once Palestine is granted membership in the Fourth Geneva Convention and the International Court of Justice.

Palestine will be in position not only to bring war crimes against Israeli officials but against countries and corporations who support or benefit from the occupation of Palestine. Tzipi Livni, Israel's foreign minister during the War on Gaza in 2008-2009, was cautioned by legal experts not to leave Israel if the Palestinians resorted to the “nuclear option”, i.e. seeking membership in UN agencies. Corporations worldwide, like Caterpillar, can be sued for aiding in the Israeli practice of demolishing Palestinian homes, 27,000 since 1967. Legal precedents have been set by the case against former Yugoslavia President Slobodan Milošević and against Shell Oil--which had to make a hefty settlement to Nigerian farmers after being indicted for human rights violations in its efforts to extract oil. The tide is turning towards justice for the Palestinian people.

By applying for membership in UN agencies, the Palestinians are on the road to achieving parity with Israel. Parity is much needed. The latest action by the Palestinian Authority may be the action that achieves parity. Parity has been thwarted by the diplomatic shield that the US has been giving Israel for more than 6 decades. That shield is evaporating as Palestine’s admission into these agencies has caused a diversion of US and Israeli interests.

Palestinians Must Establish Parity With Israelis

By: Fadi Zanayed

When my children were young, I wanted to instill in them the art of negotiating.  I used what I call a “fixed deescalating incentive” lesson.  For example, when my son wanted money I offered him $10 to cut the lawn. He would skillfully counter that he would do the chore for $20.  When I would then offer $9 then $8 and $7 for his services, after he respectively countered with $18, $15 and $13, I would finally yield to the $10 price I originally offered. My children learned very quickly how to navigate me away from my original offer—they developed a knowledge that the consequence of my firmness and perceived strength was that I would end up doing the chore myself if I continued to negotiate in bad faith.  The lesson taught was that they needed to attain a position of parity when negotiating in order to achieve their desired result.  

I offer this example of negotiating skills to illustrate the type of negotiations the Palestinians have been engaged in with the Israelis for the last 20 years.  I negotiated with my children out of power and then had to compromise when they established parity in those negotiations—when they convinced me that I will have to do the chore myself if I was not going to negotiate in good faith.

Palestinians have not reached parity with the Israelis and just like my children they had to accept Israeli demands or get nothing at all.  It is only until the Palestinians establish parity in peace talks with the Israelis that they will achieve success in those talks. 

In 1993 when I first learned of the Oslo Accords and then subsequently learned of the limited “authority” that was agreed upon, I said, then, that the Palestinians would have never entered into those talks had Yasser Arafat been a young man.  Yasser Arafat accepted limited “authority” because he was in his waning years.  He wanted to achieve something.  He wanted to be the “father of Palestine.” If he did not accept what limited “authority” the Israelis gave him, he would have received nothing at all. 

Arafat was not willing to fight anymore as he was in his early years and Israel sensed this.  Thus, Israel offered him the $10 that I offered my son—limited authority in limited areas.   And while Arafat gave the Israelis recognition, denounced violence and removed the “destruction of Israel” from the Palestine Liberation Charter, the Israelis did not budge at all.  In fact, Oslo Accords’ commitment to enter final status talks by 1999 was taken off the table.

Because Palestinians allow Israelis to feel superior, as I continuously have argued in earlier articles, Israel continues to behave in ways that perpetuates the immorality of the occupation of Palestinians and Palestinian land.  Israelis can continue the apartheid practices of checkpoints, the segregation mentality imbedded in the construction of a wall and the unlearned lessons of ethnic cleansing in its own people’s history because of this perceived superiority.   Only when the Palestinians gain a position of parity with the Israelis will they achieve their desired result. 

How do the Palestinians achieve a position of parity with the Israelis?

To start, the Palestinians must stop behaving like children.  

Israel, through its Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor, has floated the “bottom up” approach in which existing Palestinian Authority powers in the autonomous zones established in the 1990’s throughout the West Bank could be extended in various ways, with “other authorities, jurisdictions and powers.”  While more authority is nice, it is not the ultimate goal—ending the occupation, providing for a just solution to the Palestinian refugees and establishing one contiguous Palestinian State in the West Bank and Gaza with East Jerusalem as its capital.   Palestinians must resist the child like reactionary temperament and resist these overtures to make the Israel’s look good in the international realm but place a wedge in Palestinian solidarity.  Palestinians must stop accepting “limited authority in limited areas” and start demanding the end of the occupation now.

Second, Palestinians must unify.

Nothing signals the weakness of the Palestinians as does the disunity between Fatah and Hamas.   These two political parties within Palestinian society must come together and present a united front towards Israel.  The fact that Israel and the US will not talk to Hamas is not open to discussion because neither country can dictate as to who will represent the Palestinian people.   Unity of Fatah and Hamas must be of paramount importance to all Palestinians.

Third, Palestinians must show Israel the prosperity of peace.

Palestinians must convince Israelis that peace has economic and social benefits.  Normalization of relations with Arab countries, children on both sides do not have to live in a constant state of fear, increased tourism dollars and an Israel that is not isolated from the rest of the world can all become the by-products of peace.

Fourth, Palestinians must show Israelis the consequences of the status quo.

Israelis must come to understand that the Palestinians cannot continue to allow the status quo to endure.  There needs to be consequences to the perpetual peace talks that result in nothing while more and more Palestinian land is confiscated. Thus Palestinians have to step up and strengthen the boycott, disinvestment and sanctions movement (BDS) around the globe.  They have to continue the pressure of non-violent actions against Israel—boycotting Israeli products that come into the West Bank and bringing attention to Israeli immorality attributes of demolishing homes, uprooting olive groves, building illegal settlements and torturing Palestinian political prisoners.

In addition, Palestinians must keep the option of the stone as a consequence to failed talks.

By adhering to these four points, Palestinians will have the fortitude to negotiate with the Israelis on parity.  Palestinians can then demand that the occupation must end and end now.