By Colum Lynch | Foreign Policy | July 28, 2014
Despite a history of rocky relations between U.S. President Barack Obama and
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Obama administration could
largely be counted on to watch Israel's back in the U.N. Security Council, where it
succeeded for more than five years in blocking successive efforts by the
Palestinians to gain more of the trappings of an independent state and to get the
world body to formally censure Israeli settlement policies.
That changed after the stroke of midnight Sunday when, in the early minutes of
Monday, July 28, the U.N. Security Council, with the backing of the United States,
issued a formal "presidential statement" demanding that Israel and Hamas
implement an "immediate and unconditional" cease-fire to end fighting that has
left more than 1,000 Palestinians and 43 Israelis dead. The Palestinians say they
will continue to seek Security Council support for a legally enforceable resolution
demanding that Israel halt its military offensive in Gaza.
The latest U.N. diplomacy comes during a period of deepening tensions between
the United States and Israel over the course of Israel's military operation in Gaza,
which Obama maintains needs to stop now, but which Netanyahu insists must be
allowed to continue in order to destroy Hamas's network of subterranean tunnels
used for raids on Israel. "I understand that Israel can't have a cease-fire in which
they are not able to -- that somehow the tunnels are never going to be dealt with.The tunnels have to be dealt with. We understand that; we're working at that,"
Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters in Paris on Saturday in a press
conference with the foreign ministers of Turkey and Qatar. "By the same token,
the Palestinians can't have a cease-fire in which they think the status quo is going
to stay and they're not going to have the ability to be able to begin to live and
breathe more freely and move within the crossings and begin to have goods and
services that come in from outside."
The U.S. action in New York coincides with growing international pressure to act to
stem the suffering of civilians in Gaza at a time when the U.S.-backed Egyptian
cease-fire proposal is stalled and the American diplomatic initiative to lock down a
peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians has fallen short.
Richard Gowan, a U.N. expert at New York University's Center on International
Cooperation, said the United States is trying to walk a diplomatic tightrope by
telegraphing displeasure with Israel while heading off a fiercer battle in the council
with the Arabs, who favor the passage of a much tougher Security Council
resolution on the conflict. "In backing the council's statements, the United States
is signaling its frustration with Israel," he said. "But it is also warding off a fight
over a tougher resolution on the crisis it would probably have to veto."
The U.S. action also reflected mounting frustration in the State Department over
Israel's rejection on Friday of Kerry's plan for a seven-day cease-fire. The Israeli
cabinet unanimously voted against Kerry's initiative while political figures across
Israel's political spectrum accused America's top diplomat of crafting a deal that
unfairly rewarded Hamas. Many Israeli officials noted that the militants also
rejected Kerry's call for a seven-day cease-fire, as well as a subsequent call for
extending a humanitarian pause that Israeli accepted."Both sides are feeling somewhat aggrieved," said Robert Danin, a former State
Department official and senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. "John
Kerry feels stung by the Israeli reaction and the way they played it," he said.
On the other hand, he added: "There is a consensus in Israel that what Kerry
proposed was not helpful to what Israel was trying to do. There is a sense of
incredulity."
In response to the U.N. call for a cease-fire, Israel's U.N. ambassador protested the
council's failure to condemn Hamas's battering of Israeli towns and cities with
more than 2,500 rockets since the fighting began.
"Ladies and gentleman, we heard a presidential statement right now from the
Security Council that miraculously doesn't mention Hamas or rockets or Israel's
right to defend its citizens," Israeli U.N. envoy Ron Prosor said sarcastically.
U.N.-based diplomats say America's support for the U.N. Security Council
statement may serve as a message to Israel about its rejection of the U.S.-backed
Egyptian diplomatic initiative.
Danin suggested that the United States may be seeking to leverage its position by
playing on Israeli fears of being left to fend for itself at a United Nations that
appears to be universally opposed to the current offensive. "We can be part of this
and help you or not," Danin said, summarizing the Obama administration's likely
message to Netanyahu.
A U.N.-based European diplomat said Washington was likely furious over the way
Kerry has been publicly denigrated in Israel. It wouldn't be the first time: In
January, Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon was quoted by the Israeli dailyYedioth Ahronoth as dismissing Kerry's peacemaking efforts as "obsessive" and
"messianic." He later apologized after the State Department blasted his comments
as "offensive and inappropriate."
The European diplomat said Washington's move was "an expression of discontent"
and a signal that the United States might be willing to go further in taking action
against Israel than before. It was the first time that the U.N. Security Council had
taken a formal action on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since January 2009, when
George W. Bush's administration abstained on a resolution calling for a "durable"
cease-fire to pave the way for Israel's military withdrawal from Gaza. At the time,
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the United States essentially agreed
with the goal of that resolution, which was supported by the council's other 14
members, but that U.N. action threatened to harm mediation efforts in Egypt to
resolve the crisis.
The Obama administration has been more reluctant to allow U.N. involvement. In
February 2011, Susan Rice, then the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, cast
the administration's first veto in the Security Council to block the adoption of a
Palestinian resolution denouncing Israel's expansion of Jewish settlements. Later
that year, the United States killed off a Palestinian bid for recognition as a state
before the Security Council by wielding the threat of another American veto.
Indeed, since the Obama administration came into power in 2009, the United
States had a perfect record of blocking Arab initiatives on the Israeli-Palestinian
crisis in the U.N. Security Council.
The Security Council did previously issue a so-called "press statement" urging the
parties to abide by a 2012 cease-fire agreement. But according the peculiar
parliamentary rules of the Security Council, such statements are not considered formal actions and carry no legal bearing on the parties. Today, Palestine's U.N.
envoy and other Arab diplomats expressed frustration with the council's slow
response to the crisis in Gaza.
Riyad Mansour, the Palestinians' U.N. envoy, told reporters that he was
"disappointed" over the council's decision to merely support a simple statement
rather than a tougher, legally binding resolution proposed several weeks ago by
the Palestinians and their Arab allies to ensure the safety of Palestinian civilians.
"We were expecting the Security Council to deal with the issue of providing
protection for our people," Mansour said. "They should have adopted a resolution
a long time ago to condemn this aggression and to call for this aggression to be
stopped immediately."
New York University's Gowan said such calls are growing increasingly difficult to
ignore. "Since taking office in 2009, the Obama administration has tried to avoid
handling Israel and Palestine through the United Nations, in contrast to crises with
Iran and Syria," Gowan said. "It's harder for the U.S. to maintain this position after
the failure of Kerry's peace plan and the current violence."
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