The Expected American Veto of a United Nations Resolution

This article is not about wrongdoing being committed against the Palestinians and Palestine; it is about a crime against humanity, which, if we treat it carelessly, will continue unpunished as it has for decades, with a tendency to perpetuate itself.

The American veto of the United Nations Security Council resolution condemning the colonization policy of the Zionist state was expected. This is because ever since the year 2000, the United States exercised this power 10 times, nine of which to avoid the condemnation of the Zionists.

The most shameless lie was told by Ambassador Susan Rice, permanent representative of the United States to the U.N.; she explained that her country’s decision was adopted because it [the resolution] “could encourage the parties to stay out of negotiations” and added that the colonization destroyed “trust between the parties” and threatened “prospects for peace.”

Beyond the ostensible insult to moral and social conventions and agreements, there are clear contradictions in the ambassador’s statement. First, the construction of settlements is virtually not permitted; making it worse is that 93.3 percent of the Security Council’s members are against it. The settlement inhibits the participation of the parties in the negotiations. Second, if the construction of settlements devastates the trust between both parties, why then, continue in the obstinacy of colluding with the misconduct of the acts in practice, which are condemned by international laws. The construction of such settlements, to establish within them a foreign Zionist civilian population, is in itself a flagrant illegality chartered under the Fourth Geneva Convention, which “protects the civil population, including in occupied territories.” The Zionist state signed the Conventions on Dec. 8, 1949, and ratified them on July 6, 1951, but for those who have neither respected treaties nor all of the United Nations General Assembly’s resolutions nor the Security Council’s resolutions, committing themselves by signing and ratifying — and not complying — is also to be expected.

The 14 other members of the Security Council voted in favor of the resolution. It is not surprising that the United States has voted against it, consistent with its attitudes throughout time and all the corners of the world and principally in the Middle East; the United States enforced the idea that 14 other votes do not count, and that only one vote loaded with contradictions and injustices counts. This is the vulgar American concept of democracy: “If it is in my interest or in that of my protected Zionists, it is alright; if it is not, it is not alright.” This is not an isolated case.

For the Palestinian Authority, the American veto is an “unfortunate” decision affecting Washington’s credibility in the region. As was also to be expected, the Palestinians declared that they would re-evaluate their participation in the peace process.

This is the first time that the United States vetoed a Security Council resolution since Barack Obama assumed the presidency of his country. Obama, however, was not original in exercising the prestige of his office to favor the Zionist state; all of his predecessors proceeded like this.

Unable to convince Mahmoud Abbas, the chief of the Palestinian Authority, to remove the resolution project, he instructed his diplomats to telephone the rulers of the 14 members of the Security Council, asking them to vote against it. Whatever each consulted ruler’s response may have been, the United States and its president came out of this episode discredited. Obama entered and left demoralized.

José Farhat is a political scientist and director of international relations at the Institute of Arab Culture (ICArabe).