COMMENTARY BY DR JOHN WORLDPEACE FOR PRESIDENT 2016
See interlineated comments within article in BLUE BOLD CAPS
Dr John WorldPeace
141230 21:00
Resolution for Palestinian State Fails in United Nations Security Council
By MICHAEL R. GORDON and SOMINI SENGUPTADEC. 30, 2014
A United Nations Security Council draft resolution that set a deadline to establish a sovereign Palestinian state was defeated Tuesday night after it failed to receive the nine votes that are needed for adoption in the 15-member body.
ChinaYES
Russia YES
FranceYES
Argentina YES
Chad YES
Chile YES
Jordan YES
Luxembourg YES
USA NO
Australia NO
Lithuania ABSTAIN
Nigeria ABSTAIN
Republic of Korea ABSTAIN
Rwanda ABSTAIN
UK ABSTAIN
The United States and Australia voted against the measure. France, China and Russia were among the eight countries that voted for it. Britain and four other nations abstained.
The draft resolution, which was introduced by Jordan on behalf of the Palestinians, set a one-year deadline for negotiations with Israel; established targets for Palestinian sovereignty, including a capital in East Jerusalem; and called for the “full and phased withdrawal of Israeli forces” from the West Bank by the end of 2017.
The defeat could potentially lead Palestinian officials to seek recognition in other ways — including by joining the International Criminal Court.
Samantha Power, the American ambassador to the United Nations, said that the resolution was “deeply imbalanced,” setting deadlines that did not adequately take account of Israel’s security needs. “Today’s staged confrontation in the U.N. Security Council will not bring the parties closer to achieving a two-state solution,” she said. “This resolution sets the stage for more division, not for compromise.”
INTERESTING THAT THE UNITED STATES THE PRIMARY MEDIATOR DID NOT TRY TO BOLSTER THE DRAFT RESOLUTION. WHY DID IT NOT TRY TO REACH A "BALANCED" RESOLUTION???
Yet Ms. Power also cautioned Israel against interpreting the vote as “a victory for an unsustainable status quo” and said continued “settlement activity” would also undermine the chances for peace.
NO THE STATUS QUO WILL NOT HOLD. THE CRACKS IN A 50 YEAR OLD STATUS QUO ARE THERE AND GROWING LARGER. IT IS THE PALESTINIANS WHO ARE REQUIRED TO MAINTAIN THE STATUS QUO WHILE THE ISRAELI'S CONTINUE TO BUILD SETTLEMENTS AND REDUCE THE RIGHTS OF NON JEWS WITHIN THEIR BORDERS NOT TO MENTION WHAT THEY ARE DOING OUTSIDE THEIR BORDERS.
Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, said in a statement on Tuesday night, “We presented a resolution that is fully in line with international law, and which recalls several previously approved resolutions by the United Nations.”
INTERESTING THE PALESTINIANS ARE SAYING THEY ARE JUST ASKING THE UN TO ENFORCE IT RESOLUTIONS. AND THE SECURITY COUNCIL SAYS NO. AND THE UN LOOKS MORE AND MORE LIKE A TOOTHLESS DOG.
“Although the majority of the Security Council voted in favor of the resolution,” he said, “once again, certain countries continue to ensure impunity to the Israeli occupation and its severe international law violations by not voting in favor of the resolution.”
At first, Secretary of State John Kerry sought to defer a vote on the resolution, which the United States and some of its European allies feared would inflame tensions before the Israeli elections that are scheduled for March and strengthen the position of Israeli hard-liners.
IF YOU DONT WANT TO DO SOMETHING, ONE EXCUSE IS AS GOOD AS ANOTHER. MAYBE THE FACT THAT IT IS BETWEEN CHRISTMAS AND NEW YEARS WOULD HAVE BEEN JUST AS GOOD AN EXCUSE.
But American officials said it has been clear since Mr. Kerry’s mid-December trip to Europe that the Palestinians would insist on a vote. During that visit, Mr. Kerry met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, Mr. Erekat and ranking European and Russian diplomats.
So Mr. Kerry worked to line up enough abstentions from American allies like South Korea and Rwanda so that the United States would not have to wield its veto. Jeff Rathke, a State Department spokesman, said Tuesday that Mr. Kerry had called more than a dozen senior foreign officials over the previous few days, including a call Tuesday afternoon to Goodluck Jonathan, the president of Nigeria, which abstained.
Calculating that they were making headway, American officials were eager for the vote to occur this month instead of being deferred until January when the composition of the Security Council will change.
By avoiding a veto, the United States also avoided a fresh irritant in its relations with Arab nations, some of which have joined the United States in the campaign in Iraq and Syria against militants from the Islamic State.
SO IS THE UNITED STATES ACKNOWLEDGING THAT IT KNOWS THAT PROTECTING ISRAEL'S ILLEGAL OCCUPATION IS CAUSING TENSION WITH THE ISLAMIST THAT IS GOING TO POTENTIALLY COST MORE AMERICAN LIVES. THAT THE OBJECTIVE OF PROTECTING ISRAEL IS SUBORDINATING REDUCING TENSION IN A VOLATILE MUSLIM RADICALISM.
European nations, which have been generally sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, were split. Britain and Lithuania abstained, but France and Luxembourg voted in favor of the measure.
François Delattre, France’s ambassador to the United Nations, acknowledged that his government had reservations about some elements of the resolution but said France decided to support it because of “an urgent need to act.”
Jordan, which represents Arab countries on the Council, had earlier pushed for compromise language that could win full support, but Arab diplomats ultimately backed the Palestinian bid to put it for a vote by the end of the year.
WHY DID NOT THE PRIMARY MEDIATOR JOHN KERRY PUSH FOR COMPROMISE LANGUAGE. BECAUSE NO LANGUAGE OTHER THAN TURNING OVER ALL OF PALESTINE TO ISRAEL AND RELOCATING ALL NON JEWS OUTSIDE PALESTINE, CAN THE NEW ISRAEL BECOME A REALITY.
The Palestinians’ push reflects their mounting frustration with the American-brokered peace process and widening support from European lawmakers, who have voted in recent months to recognize a Palestinian state. The resolution was shared with Council members in mid-December and then toughened this week.
The decision by Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, to press for a vote also reflects intense domestic political pressure on him to regain credibility among an increasingly critical public.
In a December poll, the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research found that four out of five Palestinians supported joining more international organizations, while three-fourths of them backed joining the International Criminal Court.
American diplomats have repeatedly warned the Palestinians that joining the International Criminal Court would lead to congressional sanctions.
INTERESTING AMERICA, THE LAND OF ENDLESS LITIGATION AND RULE OF LAW, TELLS THE PALESTINIANS IF THEY TRY TO GO TO COURT, THEY WILL BE PUNISHED. IS THIS THE NEW AMERICAN DICTATE OF LIFE, LIBERTY AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS???
Nonetheless, the Palestinian leadership has threatened for months to ratify the treaty that created the International Criminal Court, which would make Israel vulnerable to prosecution for crimes against humanity, particularly for its settlement activity.
ISRAEL IS PROTECTED. THEY DO NOT ABIDE BY INTERNATIONAL LAW NOW. ARE THEY GOING TO SUBMIT TO THE INTERNATION COURT. HOW LAUGHABLE.
The Palestinian leadership is to meet Wednesday in Ramallah and announce the next steps. “I.C.C. is clearly an option; I cannot say whether it will be approved,” Xavier Abu Eid, a Palestine Liberation Organization spokesman, said Tuesday.
Jodi Rudoren contributed reporting from Jerusalem.
SOURCE: RT
Palestinian statehood bid fails at UN Security Council as US, Australia vote against
Published time: December 30, 2014 22:19 Edited time: December 31, 2014 06:42 Trends Palestinian statehood Tags Israel, Middle East, Politics, UN
The UN Security Council has failed to adopt the Arab coalition’s bid calling for the creation of a Palestinian state and an end to Israeli “occupation”. The veto power US and Australia voted against the move with 5 abstentions.
The draft resolution gathered only 8 votes in favour, so it was automatically defeated. The US however still used its veto power and voted against the resolution. Another veto power state, the UK, along with Lithuania, Nigeria, Korea and Rwanda have abstained from the vote.
"This resolution sets the stage for more division, not for compromise," said US Ambassador Samantha Power, calling the draft a “staged confrontation.”
“The United kingdom supports much of the content of the draft resolution. It is therefore with deep regret that we abstained from it,” said UK ambassador to the UN, Mark Lyall Grant. “We are disappointed that the normal and necessary negotiation did not take place on this occasion.”
However, Russia’s UN envoy Vitaly Churkin said that Moscow “cannot share the objections of those who believe that the draft resolution was undermining the prospects of the negotiating process.”
“Unfortunately last year revealed how this process has gone into a blind alley, with its monopolization by the United States and their pullback from the Quartet [US, EU, UN and Russia]. We believe this to be a strategic mistake,” said Churkin.
“This draft reflects just demands of Arab states, including the Palestinian people, and is in accord with the relevant UN resolutions, the ‘land for peace’ principle, the Arab peace initiative and middle-Eastern peace roadmap. And is also in accord with China’s consistent position. We express deep regret over the failure of the draft resolution to be adopted,” said Liu Jieyi, China’s permanent representative to the United Nations.
Israeli authorities said they are "satisfied" with the failure of the Palestinian statehood bid at UN Security Council.
An official bid for statehood was submitted to the Council Tuesday by a Jordan-led Arab coalition. The bid featured a revised draft resolution of a similar proposal submitted earlier this month. Delegates voted on the measure Tuesday afternoon.
Highly opposed by the US and Israel, the first version of the draft resolution was submitted “in blue” to the UN Security Council last Wednesday. The Council includes five permanent members who hold veto power and ten additional members who serve two-year terms.
The resolution gives 12 months for a “just, lasting and comprehensive peaceful solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which it regards as the creation of a “sovereign and viable” Palestinian state based on 1967 borders, as well as the withdrawal of all Israeli forces from the occupied territory by 2017.
Its text had already seen several amendments that concern East Jerusalem as capital of the future state of Palestine, Israeli settlement building, and Palestinian refugees’ right of return, Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) Executive Committee member Abu Yousef told Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper.
According to the current draft, Jerusalem is regarded as the capital of both Israel and Palestine, but the role of East Jerusalem in a future Palestinian state is not specified. “International legitimacy is our ceiling on this issue, and we cannot drop below this ceiling,” Yousef told the paper.
“I think there is very little doubt that any resolution in the Security Council that actually created a Palestinian state or called for real statehood would be vetoed,” US activist and journalist Phyllis Bennis told RT. “I think there is a big question whether the drafts that are now circulating actually do that. The French amendments in particular significantly weaken the idea that this is something that would actually create the Palestinian state.”
Bennis explained that “there is no consequence named. The resolution is not taken under either Chapter 6 or Chapter 7, which are the coercive chapters of the UN charter.” These chapters imply the use of military force and putting pressure against the state, such as sanctions.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on Tuesday his administration would"no longer deal"with Israel in case of the resolution's failure. "If the Arab-Palestinian initiative submitted to the Security Council to put an end to [Israeli] occupation doesn't pass, we will be forced to take the necessary political and legal decisions," the Algerian APS news agency quoted Abbas as saying.
Last Thursday, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman called a UN bid for Palestinian statehood an “act of aggression.”
“Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is adopting measures whose sole aim is to attack Israel, with no benefit for the Palestinians,” Lieberman said in a statement.
This summer, tensions in Jerusalem and the West Bank escalated, leading to the 50-day conflict between the Israel Defense Forces and Palestinians. Operation Protective Edge claimed over 2,200 lives – most of them Gaza civilians.
SOURCE: USA TODAY
UN rejects Palestinian resolution to end Israel's occupation
Edith M. Lederer , Associated Press 2:28 a.m. EST December 31, 2014
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The Security Council rejected a Palestinian resolution demanding an end to Israeli occupation within three years late Tuesday, a blow to an Arab campaign to get the U.N.'s most powerful body to take action to achieve an independent state of Palestine.
The United States, Israel's closest ally, had made clear its opposition to the draft resolution, insisting on a negotiated peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, not an imposed timetable. It would have used its veto if necessary but it didn't have to because the resolution failed to get the minimum nine "yes" votes required for adoption by the 15-member council.
The resolution received eight "yes" votes, two "no" votes — one from the United States and the other from Australia — and five abstentions.
"We voted against this resolution not because we are comfortable with the status quo. We voted against it because … peace must come from hard compromises that occur at the negotiating table," U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power said.
She criticized the decision to bring the draft resolution to a vote as a "staged confrontation that will not bring the parties closer." She added that the resolution was "deeply unbalanced" and didn't take into account Israel's security concerns.
ISRAEL HAS REFUSED TO STATE IT POSITION AT THE LAST PEACE MEETING
"Our effort was a serious effort, genuine effort, to open the door for peace," said Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian U.N. ambassador. "Unfortunately, the Security Council is not ready to listen to that message."
Until shortly before the vote, council diplomats had expected the resolution to get nine "yes" votes. But Nigeria, which was believed to support the resolution, abstained. Its ambassador, U. Joy Ogwu, echoed the U.S. position saying the ultimate path to peace lies "in a negotiated solution."
The Palestinians, nonetheless, could point to support from two European nations, France and Luxembourg, reflecting the growing impatience especially in Europe over the lack of progress in achieving a two-state solution, and the increasing pressure on governments to do something to end the decades-old conflict.
This impatience, and frustration over the Security Council's paralysis in dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, was echoed by many on the council, including the United States.
Jordan's U.N. Ambassador Dina Kawar, the Arab representative on the council, said after the vote: "The fact that this draft resolution was not adopted will not at all prevent us from proceeding to push the international community, specifically the United Nations, towards an effective involvement to achieving a resolution to this conflict."
Mansour said Palestinian leaders will be meeting on Wednesday "and will decide on next steps."
Before the vote, Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said that the Palestinians can return again to the Security Council, which will have five new members starting Thursday who are viewed as more sympathetic to their cause.
If the council says "no" again, he said, the Palestinians will seek to join the International Criminal Court. They could then press charges against Israel for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
France had put forward a draft resolution setting the outlines for a peace agreement and setting a two-year deadline for negotiations — and French Ambassador Francois Delattre told the council he will be pursuing council action to resolve the conflict.
Israel's image and its standing, especially in Europe, have come under increasing pressure as a result of this summer's Gaza war and its refusal to halt settlement building.
Israel Nitzan, the Middle East adviser at Israel's U.N. Mission, delivered a brief message to the Palestinians after the vote: "You cannot agitate … your way to a state."
THE STATUS QUO IS NOT IN PLACE AS THE FRUITLESS NEGOTIATIONS CONTINUE. THE PALESTINIANS MUST MAINTAIN THE STATUS QUO BUT THE ISRAELI'S ARE ALLOWED TO CONTINUE TO BUILD SETTLEMENTS AND OTHER ACTS OF AN APARTHEID STATE LOOK ALIKE.
Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas found himself under pressure at home to proceed with a U.N. vote and to take other measures after months of unrest with Israel. Pressure increased earlier this month after a Palestinian minister died from a heart attack after scuffling with Israeli security forces in the West Bank at a protest against settlements.
That incident came after months of tensions that included the collapse of the latest round of U.S.-backed peace talks, a 50-day war between Israel and Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip, Israeli security measures that restricted Muslim access to a revered holy site in Jerusalem and a spate of Palestinian attacks that killed 11 people.
The violence seems to have mostly subsided in recent weeks but attacks persist.
Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, a strong supporter of the resolution, took issue with the U.S. and others who said it undermined prospects for negotiations.
"We believe this to be a strategic mistake," Churkin said, "just as casting off our proposals to do brainstorming in the council in order to determine ways to reinvigorate the negotiating process, including sending to the Middle East a council mission."