Is Veto 51 the Last One?

The decision of the U.S. to veto the Palestinians’ proposal to condemn the settlements at the UN was one of the bitterest verdicts Israel has allegedly ever won.

In the statistics of the Security Council and in the documentation of the U.S.-Israel relations, the day before yesterday recorded the 51st veto the United States has exercised on the proposal of an anti-Israel resolution, out of which 45 have been in matters connected to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In actual fact, it has been one of the toughest, bitterest and grumpiest American decisions of an imposing veto that Israel has seemingly enjoyed in its favor. The language of the statement of explanation and clarification by Susan Rice, the United States ambassador to the UN, suggested that Israel would do better to understand it that a veto in this matter will no longer be enforced in the future — with all the implications this creates.

The Palestinians, for the lack of wisdom in their statesmanship, compelled the United States to veto the resolution on the settlement activity of Israel, but the loss is Israel’s entirely. The Palestinians indeed failed in the political move they were insistent to ignite in the context and climate of the currently liquid Middle East, but the United States stood alone against 14 members of the council — a state of affairs that in Barack Obama’s world of concepts does not mesh well with the principles of the foreign policy he outlined. Israel has been reminded once again of her international isolation and her political and fragile dependence on the United States in such affairs.

Ostensibly, the world of the Security Council of the UN and the response of the United States proceed in the customary manner. The Palestinians, supported by Arab countries and most of the permanent and non-permanent members of the Council, consolidated a resolution of condemnation against Israel on an issue of consensus like the settlements.

The United States is trying to cancel, postpone, moderate or change the formulation of the resolution. When she doesn’t manage to — as a result of the structure of the Security Council, the political dynamic of the council and the worldview of the rest of the countries — she doesn’t have a choice but to threaten with her veto.

Wondering Aloud

Since everything here is a game aimed at condensing and empowering the international legitimacy of the Palestinian position, the United States made it clear that no matter what, she would enact the veto. Out of consideration of the alliance with Israel, internal politics and the inexplicable stubbornness of the member states over the wording, timing and, essentially, the political profit in the move, the United States finally issued the veto. However, this was not before American officials and diplomats loudly brought up their amazement: Why does the president instruct to veto a resolution which almost word for word expresses his own policy?

Yet this time it seems to really be the last veto — for sure, one of the last — in this banal style. The United States is fed up with defending something perceived in her eyes as impossible and inappropriate in respect of her protection and patronage — the settlements. American declarations against the settlements in the Security Council are not a new thing. During the tenure of George Bush in 2006, as the rotating president of the Security Council, the United States harshly and unequivocally denunciated the “continued Israeli settlement activity.” But the day before yesterday, in an unprecedented way, the United States published, by means of an official statement for the media by Ambassador Susan E. Rice, an “explanation.”

In Rice’s Explanation of Vote, the United States explained that in fact and in gist, it agrees with the resolution. “For more than four decades, Israeli settlement activity in territories occupied in 1967 has undermined Israel’s security and corroded hopes for peace and stability in the region. Continued settlement activity violates Israel’s international commitments, devastates trust between the parties, and threatens the prospects for peace.” This was said by the United States of America, not Gideon Levy*.

Whoever constantly casts aspersions on the president of the United States, whoever entertains a fancy of outmaneuvering the United States on the subject of the freeze, whoever thinks that a lack of coordination with the United States is a tolerable condition, whoever didn’t speak with the U.S. president even once in the week before and the week after Hosni Mubarak’s downfall — let him not be surprised that the next time, there will be no veto.

*Translator’s Note: Levy is a notable leftist Israeli journalist, author and television panel member who authors opinion pieces and a weekly column for the Haaretz newspaper.