Posted on 04/15/2002 1:12:19 PM PDT by veronica
Despite Yasser Arafat's denunciation of terrorism ahead of his meeting with Colin Powell, Islamic states at the United Nations Human Rights Commission will today win backing for a resolution that is expected to condone using "all available means, including armed struggle" to achieve Palestinian statehood.
Rulings by the commission and other leading UN bodies such as the Security Council and the General Assembly are significant because they enable causes to claim international legitimacy.
Mr. Arafat, the Palestinian leader, said on Saturday that the Palestinian leadership "rejects using violence and terror as a way to achieve political goals."
The statement opened the way for Mr. Arafat's meeting yesterday with Mr. Powell, the U.S. Secretary of State.
However, wording that renews support for a Palestinian armed struggle remained last night in a resolution that the Human Rights Commission, whose 53 members include Canada, will vote on today during its annual meeting in Geneva.
The resolution was drafted by the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), whose members hold 14 seats on the commission. China, Cuba and Vietnam are co-sponsoring the resolution.
"Any vote in favour of this resolution -- as it stands -- will be a vote in support of Palestinian suicide bombings," said Andrew Srulevitch, executive director of UN Watch, a Geneva-based monitoring group.
"Even an abstention would be a sign of indifference to the murder of Israeli civilians."
Returning to the commission year after the year with resolutions that are heavily critical of Israel, the Islamic caucus has had little difficulty mustering majorities to have them passed.
The United States is among the few stalwart friends Israel has at the UN, but it found itself ejected from the commission last year while several countries with poor human rights records were welcomed aboard or retained their seats.
Canada refused yesterday to reveal its voting intention. "The debate is continuing on this, and when it is over we will decide how we will vote based on the final text," said Oussamah Tamim, a spokesman for the Department of Foreign Affairs.
Practice is such that the last hours are unlikely to see any change to the resolution, titled "Violation of Human Rights in the Occupied Arab Territories, Including Palestine."
It affirms support for a Palestinian armed struggle by "recalling" a 1982 General Assembly resolution that slammed both Israel and the white-run government of South Africa.
Restating past goals by referring to former documents is common diplomatic practice. The General Assembly, which today comprises 189 member states, has in the last half century passed almost 1,000 resolutions on the Arab-Israeli conflict.
The 1982 resolution "reaffirms the legitimacy of the struggle of peoples for independence, territorial integrity, national unity and liberation from colonial and foreign domination and foreign occupation by all available means, including armed struggle."
The OIC had wanted to drive home the point of the 1982 resolution by repeating the words endorsing an armed struggle in the new resolution. But the Islamic caucus also sought backing from Western members of the commission, who objected.
European Union members of the commission convinced the OIC to refrain from repeating the words "all available means, including armed struggle," but the OIC did not drop the "recollection" of the 1982 text, diplomats said.
"The international record will still show there has been a repeat of support for 'all available means' because the 1982 resolution is still being recalled," said Mr. Srulevitch. "So the OIC is still getting what they wanted. The EU members who negotiated with them simply helped them to camouflage it."
Of eight EU members on the commission, support from Britain and Germany remained unsure last night.
The OIC agreed to three other changes in recent days.
Instead of talking of Israeli "state terrorism," the resolution now refers to Israeli "mass killings." It substitutes "1,200 killed" since the second intifada began in September, 2000, for "1,200 martyrs." The words "policy of assassinations" in reference to the Israeli government are deleted.
But the text remains a six-page indictment of Israel.
It "strongly condemns the setting on fire of the Church of the Nativity ... in Bethlehem," for example.
"You just have to turn on CNN to see that the church is not on fire," said Mr. Srulevitch.
The text also says Israeli military checkpoints are "used as a trap to kill Palestinians." The Israelis say the roadblocks aim to prevent the passage of terrorists.
Examples include, a supposed compromise on the status of Jerusalem ... with the Mufti of Palestine (handpicked by Arafat) declaring the next day that such a compromise is absolutely forbidden by the Koran and it is every Moslem's duty to obtain the opposite result. Or a purported Arafat call for a ceasefire ... with one of his henchmen announcing, within 24 hours, that the ceasefire only applies to those areas already in Arafat's hands.
Here, Arafat, having been squeezed by the US into a weak condemnation of "suicides" (a term he has not used to describe the kamikaze bombings and therefore probably unfamiliar to his constituents), is able to obtain an effective cancellation from none other than the UN itself. But this latest ploy may have exhausted Israel's patience with keeping Arafat alive.
At the same time, by making itself a co-belligerent with Arafat, the UN has pretty much assured itself that Israel will not trust it to provide impartial peacekeepers or observers.
...and sell off the property on First Avenue to get back some of the money we've wasted.
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