June 22, 2017
by Ramzy Baroud
The United States Ambassador
to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, seems to be championing a single cause:
Israel.
When Haley speaks about
Israel, her language is not merely emotive nor tailored to fit the need of a
specific occasion. Rather, her words are resolute, consistent and are
matched by a clear plan of action.
Along with Haley, the
rightwing Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu is moving fast to cultivate
the unique opportunity of dismissing the United Nations, thus, any attempt at
criticizing the Israeli Occupation.
Unlike previous UN ambassadors
who strongly backed Israel, Haley refrains from any coded language or any
attempt, however poor, to appear balanced. Last March, she
told a crowd of 18,000 supporters at the Israel lobby, AIPAC’s annual
policy conference, that this is a new era for US-Israel relations.
“I wear heels. It’s not for a
fashion statement,” she told the crowd that was thrilled by her speech. “It’s
because if I see something wrong, we’re going to kick ’em every single time.”
Trump’s new sheriff/ambassador,
condemned, in retrospect, UN Security Council Resolution 2334, which strongly
criticized Israel’s illegal settlements. While still in its final days in
office, the Obama Administration did not vote for – but did not veto the
Resolution, either – thus setting a precedent that has not been witnessed in
many years.
The US abstention, according
to Haley, was as if the “entire country felt a kick in the gut.”
What made Israel particularly
angry over Obama’s last act at the UN was the fact that it violated a tradition
that has extended for many years, most notably during the term of John
Negroponte, US Ambassador to the UN, during the first W. Bush’s term in office.
What became known as the ‘Negroponte
doctrine’ was a declared US policy – that Washington will oppose any
resolution that criticizes Israel that does not also condemn Palestinians.
But Israel, not the
Palestinians, is the occupying power which refuses to honor dozens
of UN resolutions and various international treaties and laws. By
making that decision, and, indeed, following through to ensure its
implementation, the US managed to sideline the UN as an ‘irrelevant’
institution.
Sidelining the UN, then, also
meant that the US would have complete control over managing the Middle East,
but especially the situation in Palestine.
However, under Trump, even the
US-led and self-tailored ‘peace process’ has become obsolete.
This is the real moral but,
also political, crisis of the Haley doctrine, for it goes beyond Negroponte’s
silencing any criticism of Israel at the UN, into removing the UN entirely –
thus international law – from being a factor in resolving the conflict.
In a talk at the Geneva-based
Human Rights Council – which is made up of 47 member countries – Haley
declared that her country is ‘reviewing its participation’ in the
Council altogether. She claimed that Israel is the “only country permanently on
the body’s calendar,” an inaccurate statement that is often uttered by Israel
with little basis in truth.
If Haley read the report on
the 35th
session of the Human Rights Council, she would have realized that the
Rights body discussed many issues, pertaining to women rights and empowerment,
forced marriages and human rights violations in many countries.
But considering that Israel
has recently ‘celebrated’ 50 years of occupying Palestinians, Haley should not
be surprised that Israel is also an item on the agenda. In fact, any country
that has occupied and oppressed another for so long should also remain an item
on international agenda.
Following her speech in which
she derided and threatened UN member states in Geneva, she went to Israel to
further emphasize her country’s insistence to challenge the international
community on behalf of Israel.
Along with notorious hasbara
expert, Israel’s Ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, Haley
toured the Israeli border with Gaza, showing sympathy with supposedly
besieged Israeli communities – while on the other side, nearly 2 million
Palestinians in Gaza have been trapped for over a decade in a very small
region, behind sealed shut borders.
Speaking
in Jerusalem on June 7, Haley took on the UN ‘bullies’, who have
‘bullied’ Israel for too long.
She said, “I have never taken
kindly to bullies and the UN has bullied Israel for a very long time and we are
not going to let that happen anymore,” adding “it is a new day for Israel in
the United Nations.”
By agreeing to live in
Israel’s pseudo-reality, where bullies complain of being bullied, the US is
moving further and further away from any international consensus on human
rights and international law. This becomes more pronounced and dangerous when
we consider the Donald Trump Administration’s decision to pull out from the
Paris accords on global warming.
Trump argued that the decision
was of benefit to American businesses. Even if one agrees with such an
unsubstantiated assertion, Haley’s new doctrine on Israel and the UN, by
contrast, can hardly be of any benefit to the United States in the short or
long run. It simply degrades US standing, leadership and even goes below the
lowest standards of credibility practiced under previous administrations.
Worse still, inspired and
empowered by Haley’s blank check, Israeli leaders are now moving forward to
physically remove the UN from Israel’s occupation of Palestine. Two alarming
developments have taken place on that front:
One took place early May when
Culture and Sport Minister, Miri Regev, made a formal demand to the Israeli
cabinet to shut
down the UN headquarter in Jerusalem, to punish UNESCO for restating
the international position on the status of Israel’s illegal occupation of East
Jerusalem.
The second was earlier this
month, when Prime Minister Netanyahu called on Haley to shut
down UNRWA, the UN body responsible for the welfare of 5 million
Palestinian refugees.
According to Netanyahu, UNRWA
‘perpetuates’ refugee problems. However, the refugees’ problem is not UNRWA per
se, but the fact that Israel refuses to honor UN resolution 194 pertaining to
their return and compensation.
These developments, and more,
are all outcomes of the Haley doctrine. Her arrival at the UN has ignited
a US-Israeli
hate fest, not only targeting UN member states, but international law and
everything that the United Nations has stood for over the decades.
The US has supported Israel
quite blindly at the UN throughout the years. Haley seems to adopt an entirely
Israeli position with no regard whatsoever for her country’s allies, or the
possible repercussions of dismissing the only international body that still
serves as a platform for international engagement and conflict resolution.
Haley seems to truly think of
herself as the new sheriff in town, who will “kick ’em every single time”,
before riddling the bullies with bullets and riding into the sunset, along with
Netanyahu. However, with a huge leadership vacuum and no law to guide the
international community in resolving a 70-year-old conflict, Haley’s cowboy
tactics are likely to do much harm to an already bleeding region.
Since the Negroponte doctrine
of 2002, thousands of Palestinians and hundreds of Israelis were killed in an
occupation that seems to know no ends. Further disengagement from international
law will likely yield a greater toll and more suffering.
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