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Double Standards: Iraq, Israel, and the United Nations

(The Economist - UK) - The UN distinguishes between two sorts of Security Council resolutions. Those passed under Chapter Six deal with the peaceful resolution of disputes and entitle the council to make non-binding recommendations. Those under Chapter Seven give the council broad powers to take action, including warlike action, to deal with "threats to the peace, breaches of the peace, or acts of aggression." Such resolutions, binding on all UN members, were used against Iraq after its invasion of Kuwait. None of the resolutions relating to the Israeli-Arab conflict comes under Chapter Seven. Resolution 242 of 1967, passed after the Six-Day War and frequently cited in the double-standards argument, does not instruct Israel to withdraw unilaterally from the territories occupied in 1967. It does not condemn Israel's conquest, for the good reason that most Western powers at that time thought it the result of a justifiable pre-emptive war. It calls for a negotiated settlement, based on the principle of exchanging land for peace. In the case of Iraq, the Security Council has instructed Mr. Hussein to take various unilateral actions that he is perfectly capable of taking. Resolution 242 cannot be implemented unilaterally, even if Israel wanted to do so. Some of the diplomats who drafted Resolution 242 said afterwards that they intended to allow for some changes in the armistice lines that separated Israel and its Arab neighbors before the war of 1967. The Arabs maintain that the resolution requires a complete withdrawal from every inch. But even if this were so, the resolution cannot be implemented without arriving at a negotiated agreement. It is commonly asserted that Israel's occupation is "illegal." This is questionable. In the view of Sir Adam Roberts, professor of international relations at the University of Oxford, it was a "serious mistake" to describe the occupation itself in this way. Legal or not, the occupation has lasted a terribly long time. But this is not solely Israel's fault. In 1967, it was the Arabs who rejected Resolution 242. They did not, in fact, acknowledge Israel's right to exist at all after 1967, until Egypt alone made peace. The UN's approach has been to recognize the complexity of the respective claims, lay down broad principles, and urge a negotiated peace. The case of Iraq could hardly be more different. That country is in conflict with the UN itself, having refused to comply with the clear instructions, under Chapter Seven, to give up its weapons of mass destruction. Israel has still not signed the NPT. As with any other treaty, governments are free not to sign. What they are not free to do is sign, receive the foreign (civilian) nuclear help to which signing entitles them, and then try to build a bomb secretly. This is what Iraq tried to do, and may still be trying to do. Israel is thought to possess a nuclear arsenal, but being a nuclear-armed power is not, by itself, a breach of international law and is not evidence of "double standards."
2002-10-14 00:00:00
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