Nikki Haley, US Ambassador to the UN, gave this speech to the UN yesterday:
Thank you, Mr. President. In this meeting, I will not use Council’s time to address where a sovereign nation might decide to put its embassy, and why we have every right to do so. I will address a more appropriate and urgent concern.
This week marks the one-year anniversary of the passage of Resolution 2334.
On that day, in this Council, in December 2016, the United States elected to abstain, allowing the measure to pass. Now it’s one year and a new administration later. Given the chance to vote again on Resolution 2334, I can say with complete confidence that the United States would vote “no.” We would exercise our veto power. The reasons why are very relevant to the cause of peace in the Middle East.
On the surface, Resolution 2334 described Israeli settlements as impediments to peace. Reasonable people can disagree about that, and in fact, over the years the United States has expressed criticism of Israeli settlement policies many times.
But in truth, it was Resolution 2334 itself that was an impediment to peace. This Security Council put the negotiations between Israelis and the Palestinians further out of reach by injecting itself, yet again, in between the two parties to the conflict. By misplacing the blame for the failure of peace efforts squarely on the Israeli settlements, the resolution gave a pass to Palestinian leaders who for many years rejected one peace proposal after another. It also gave them encouragement to avoid negotiations in the future. It refused to acknowledge the legacy of failed negotiations unrelated to settlements. And the Council passed judgment on issues that must be decided in direct negotiations between the parties.
If the United Nations’ history in the peace efforts proves anything, it is that talking in New York cannot take the place of face-to-face negotiations between the regional parties. It only sets back the cause of peace, not advance it.
As if to make this very point, Resolution 2334 demanded a halt to all Israeli settlement activity in East Jerusalem – even in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City. This is something that no responsible person or country would ever expect Israel would do. And in this way, Resolution 2334 did what President Trump’s announcement on Jerusalem as the capital of Israel did not do: It prejudged issues that should be left in final status negotiations.
Given the chance today, the United States would veto Resolution 2334 for another reason. It gave new life to an ugly creation of the Human Rights Council: the database of companies operating in Jewish communities. This is an effort to create a blacklist, plain and simple. It is yet another obstacle to a negotiated peace. It is a stain on America’s conscience that we gave the so-called BDS movement momentum by allowing the passage of Resolution 2334.
To the United Nations’ shame, this has been a disproportionately hostile place for the Middle East’s most enduring democracy.
The United States refuses to accept the double standard that says we are not impartial when we stand by the will of the American people by moving our U.S. embassy, but somehow the United Nations is a neutral party when it consistently singles out Israel for condemnation.
For decades, Israel has withstood wave after wave of bias in the UN and its agencies. The United States has often stood beside Israel. We did not on December 23, 2016. We will not make that mistake again.
This week marks the one year anniversary of a significant setback for Middle East peace. But the United States has an undiminished commitment to helping bring about final status negotiations that will lead to lasting peace.
Our hand remains extended to both parties. We call on all countries that share this commitment to learn the hard lessons of the past and work to bring Israel and the Palestinian people in good faith to the peace table.
Thank you, very much.
End
Nowhere in this diatribe by Haley does she address any of the Specifics of the Resolution and it’s reiteration of many UNSC Resolutions and International Law passed in past years.
Items like:
– Guided by the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations, and reaffirming, inter alia, the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by force
– Reaffirming the obligation of Israel, the occupying Power, to abide scrupulously by its legal obligations and responsibilities under the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, of 12 August 1949, and recalling the advisory opinion rendered on 9 July 2004 by the International Court of Justice
– Condemning all measures aimed at altering the demographic composition, character and status of the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, including, inter alia, the construction and expansion of settlements, transfer of Israeli settlers, confiscation of land, demolition of homes and displacement of Palestinian civilians, in violation of international humanitarian law and relevant resolutions
– Recalling the obligation under the Quartet Roadmap, endorsed by its resolution 1515 (2003), for a freeze by Israel of all settlement activity, including “natural growth”, and the dismantlement of all settlement outposts erected since March 2001, Recalling also the obligation under the Quartet roadmap for the Palestinian Authority Security Forces to maintain effective operations aimed at confronting all those engaged in terror and dismantling terrorist capabilities, including the confiscation of illegal weapons
– Condemning all acts of violence against civilians, including acts of terror, as well as all acts of provocation, incitement and destruction
– Reaffirms that the establishment by Israel of settlements in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, has no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law and a major obstacle to the achievement of the two-State solution and a just, lasting and comprehensive peace
etc, etc.
Haley opposes International Law and supports the deprivation of Human Rights to the Palestinians whose lives have been ruled for over 50 years by Israel now. . .
Decent and Thinking people should set aside their Prejudices and metaphorically “Walk in a Palestinians shoes”.
Especially at this time of celebrating Hanukkah.
True, she isn’t trying to speak “for the other side.” She is trying to balance the debate by putting forward the opposing view.
Is it possible to debate something without someone rolling out the “diatribe” accusation? Does flinging the word diatribe about, get justice, satisfaction, and pleasure?
But your views raise another issue, is international law always “just?”
Does anyone raise the issue that Jordanian occupation of E Jerusalem was also “illegal?”
That the hostilities against Israel in 1948 were “illegal?”
That the creation of Jordan was outside the League of Nations mandate?
That the expulsion of Jews in the aftermath of the 1948 amounted to a form of ethnic cleansing?
That part of the consideration for the creation of Israel was to recognize the injustices carried out around the world and this was an opportunity to create a homeland for them where they could be safe?
That under Arab rule, all non-Muslims were classed as Dhimmi and were given less rights than Muslim citizens?
International law only works when countries voluntarily agree to submit to it. Whenever it doesn’t suit them, they just ignore it.
Where is there self determination for Ukrainians, why aren’t people protesting against the Russian government as it sponsors a insurrection there?
Where is there self determination for the Tibetans as China continues to carry out its hegemony there?
Will international law bring justice for the Karen, the Armenians, the Yazidi, the Rohingya, the Irish, the Welsh, the Scots, the English, the Franks, the Byzantine Christians, the Cypriot Greeks, the Bosporus Greeks, the Coptic Christians, the Syriac and Assyrian Churches and the Tutus?
There are plenty of shoes try on. All will show that international law is not just. It is capricious.
Have the protests against the UN’s disproportionate response to Arab-Israeli affairs changed anything? The number of resolutions against Israel outnumber any other country, yet the situation in Israel is significantly less threatening to life than the Syrian civil war.
You want justice? Then we have to be fair across the board. Actually there is a case to be made for Israel to invade Jordan in order to put to right the land earmarked for it under the League of Nations agreements. But would it? Probably not because it’s not in its immediate national interest.
Even democracy isn’t the ultimate answer: I can show you a PNG tribe that values betrayal and murder as the highest form of social conduct. They revere legends of past chiefs that have deceived someone and slaughtered them. Just because the majority hold to that view, does it make it right? So within the UN the Muslim block of countries are sufficiently unified to vote as one. Hence the disproportionate number of resolutions. Does that make it right?
Hypothetically if a majority say that the only good jew is a dead jew does it make it OK?
Usually people support the weak minority. The original problem was how to carve up the former Ottoman Empire to form some sustainable nation states. One of the factors within that problem was how to create a Jewish homeland where they could be safe from prejudice and intolerance. These were the original problems and they are the ones not being addressed. Until they do, everyone is targeting the wrong issues.
To get the right answer, you have to start with the right question.
International law is capricious and exercised with self interest. You need a higher moral law.
I will say again.
Nowhere in Haleys Diatribe (a forceful and bitter verbal attack against someone or something) does she address any of the specifics of the Resolution.
A Resolution that reiterates International Law.
A Resolution that reiterates resolutions that have gone before.
Core of the issues in Israel/Palestine are Land and Who gets to live on that Land.
In Israels Declaration of Independence, it agreed it’s Borders – The 1948 UN Partition lines.
In Israels Declaration of Independence, it set out who became Israeli Citizens – All the people who were resident on the lands. It DID NOT exclude Non Jews. Arguably, that makes the Arab Refugees Israel Citizens deprived of their rights.
In 1948, Israel went way outside the borders it had agreed to and then Deliberately Ethnically Cleansed over 750,000 Non Jews from those lands.
The Issue now in Israel Palestine is ALL about EQUAL Human Rights.
Are the Non Jews there considered as Human by zionism?
Do the Non Jews, as Humans, have the Same and EQUAL Human Rights as the Jews there?
Or are Jews being afforded much higher Human and Civil Rights in Israel/Palestine than non Jews? An Apartheid state if you will. . .
All the discussion of who was there first. Who is of the approved Background. Who holds the Guns, etc is Irrelevant.
The question is whether ALL people get Equal Human and Civil Rights. Or is there going to be some Differentiation based on Jewishness/Non Jewishness. Some Idea of Racial Superiority. An Idea that the vast Majority of the Western World rejected a long time ago. Take South Africa as an instance.
@Neil
Your passion for justice is laudable but your framing of the problem is wrong and so you won’t get justice, because the way you framed the problem is too small. For example, your timeline begins at 1967, not 1917.
The Arabs got more than 95% of the land formerly ruled by the Ottoman Empire in that region. The Jews having less than 5% of it. The situation doesn’t seem so unjust to me.
When two ethnicities can’t live at peace together, then any kind of partitioning is going to cause grief, to both sides. The India-Pakistan and Greek-Turkish population exchanges are good examples.
You zero in on the Arab pain and ignore the Jewish pain, when hundreds of thousands of Jews were expelled from the newly formed regional states. Do you fight for their rights, or are you only one-eyed? Is that your brand of justice?
Your idea of racial politics means that you can’t have a safe homeland for any ethnic minority that is facing majority societies that deem it right and just to subjugate, ostracize and oppress their hapless minorities.
This is why I listed those ethnic minorities who are currently being oppressed in the world.
The moment a Rohingya homeland is created, is the minute someone like you would call it Apartheid, citing your ever just and perfect international law, as you imply with Israel.
And if you read the draft Palestinian constitution (the Basic Law) it says: Palestine is part of the Arab homeland. The state of Palestine abides by the Charter of the League of Arab States. The Palestinian people are part of the Arab and Islamic nations. Arab unity is a goal. The Palestinian people work on behalf of its realization.
So the Arabs want an Arab homeland and the Jews want a Jewish homeland. You criticize the Jews for wanting a homeland; are you equally going to criticize the Arabs for wanting to form a race-based state? Is your justice a one-way street or a two-way street?
Your faith in international law is misplaced. International law as we see it today is flawed and can’t deliver the justice you seek. The same can be said for the UN.
Regarding ethnic cleansing: You overlook the calls by the leaders of the Arab powers for civilians to leave, because they fully expected to conquer Israel and then the civilians could return to celebrate the Arab victory.
If there is any ethnic cleansing, you should look at the number of Jews living in the surrounding regional states. They used to have many Jewish citizens. Are you criticizing them for ethnic cleansing? Are you saying that there are no Arab Israeli citizens? 20% of the Israeli population are Arab!
And those Arabs serve in the army, police, Knesset, and the Israeli judiciary. In fact an Arab judge sentenced a former Israeli PM to prison. Can you imagine a Jewish judge being in a position to do the same in Jordan, the Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, or Egypt? You are more one-eyed than a Cantabrian at Lancaster Park during a Ranfurly Shield match!
You want equal rights? Why doesn’t the PA write into their constitution that Jews are welcome to live among the Arabs and will be accorded the same rights as any other “Palestinian” citizen? Why in common vernacular, a Palestinian is automatically thought of as someone who isn’t Jewish? Because the very idea of a Palestinian is race-based. A Palestinian is commonly thought of as an Arab.
Regarding racial supremacy: Really, after the Holocaust? The irony is that there is no “race” called the Jews. An old rabbi once said to me “can you call yourself a Jew if you do not love the Lord your God, with all your heart, mind and soul?”
Jewishness is arguably faith based, not race based.
Until you are prepared to consider the welfare of the Jew as much as the Arab Palestinian, the justice you seek is unreachable.