UN-Israel Policy

UN-Israel Policy
Phyllis Bennis
Foreign Policy in Focus, Vol. 1, No. 9, November 1996

Key Points

• US-negotiated regional pacts are largely influenced by Israeli concerns, which become "legitimate" negotiating positions in the eyes of the US
• US relations with Israel, more than with any other country (except perhaps Cuba), are highly influenced by domestic political considerations.
• The special nature of the US-Israel alliance has resulted in special protection of and impunity for Israel in international arenas.

No country on earth maintains the kind of special relationship with the US as does Israel. In virtually every arena, the US uses its aid, weapons, and political clout to prop up the Israeli state. For Israel, a country burdened with high military expenditures and diplomatic isolation in most international arenas, US support has proved critical.

In return for continued US backing, Israel has acted as a surrogate for US policy in the Middle East and beyond. This was especially true from the late 1960s through the 1980s, when Washington had few close ties with other nations in this region (which in addition to Israel includes Turkey, Iran, and twenty-two Arab nations). During the cold war Israel provided military training and other military support for ambitious regional pacification and counterinsurgency efforts in places as far-flung as Guatemala, South Africa, and Zaire-countries where direct US involvement was politically untenable.

Since the end of the Gulf War, US policy has attempted to craft a regional peace process that would provide stable conditions for integrating and expanding the area's economy-with Israel at the center. This diplomatic effort has also included encouraging increased international reliance on Israel as the key link connecting the Middle East to the broader global economy. The US accepted Israeli conditions for the 1991 post-Gulf War peace negotiations in Madrid, including the exclusion of the United Nations from the talks, the marginalization of Europe; and the postponement of such pressing issues as Jewish settlements in the occupied territories, refugees, and control of Jerusalem. Crucially, the US also granted Israel's demand for separate negotiations with each of its [much weaker] Arab opponents-rather than insisting on a comprehensive regionwide process that might have evened the playing field.

Once a small and struggling economy, Israel today has a booming economy. With the 1994-95 ending of the Arab boycott imposed in 1948, Israel's once derivative economy (long dependent on US government grants and favorable loans, as well as significant financial support from US individuals) is now a powerful player in world markets. Israel's military is one of the strongest in the world; its defense industry is one of the most advanced (and actually competes with the US in certain areas). These advances have not, however, led to changes in the generous US aid policies toward Israel.

Since the cold war's end the overall US foreign affairs budget has been cut roughly in half. Yet aid to Israel has remained intact. In 1996 the US gave Israel $1.8 billion in military aid and $1.3 billion in economic aid grants-constituting 25% of total US foreign aid. In addition, Israel received another half billion dollars to underwrite Tel Aviv's own foreign aid program, as well as transfers of new weapons systems and equipment from the Pentagon, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and other US agencies. The US also provided Israel $2 billion in loan guarantees. Israel is the only country receiving US aid that is allowed to spend large percentages of its grants at home, rather than using the money to purchase US goods and services. Of the $1.8 billion in military aid, for example, almost half a billion dollars are specifically allocated to research and development by Israel's own defense industry.

Aid to Israel is perhaps the most untouchable item in the congressional budget each year, surpassing even domestic entitlements. Beyond valuing Israel as a military and strategic ally, US support for Tel Aviv has a political and emotional intensity. The breadth of that support, reaching far beyond the organized Jewish community in the US, is evident in the depth of US press coverage of Israeli political life: elections, assassinations, negotiations, etc.

Israel's privileged position means that US electoral candidates vie over who is more pro-Israeli. One consequence is that serious criticism of Israel's policies (as opposed to raising an occasional concern about a specific tactic), especially during an election year, is essentially taboo in US political life.

Problems With Current US Policy

Key Problems

• Intensity of ties and assumption of protection of Israel in international arena limits the independent US role as an honest broker in the region.
• US has abandoned UN resolution 242, which it has claimed to support since 1967, including the resolution's call for a #147;land-for-peace" exchange as the basis for a regional settlement.
• New government in Israel is moving in direction contrary to stated US goals for regional peace process, while US leverage on Israeli government is limited by US domestic concerns and by overtly partisan ties between Clinton and Israel's Labor Party leaders.
• The US-sponsored Israel-Arab peace process has been flawed from the beginning by a pro-Israeli bias and by the failure to provide for even minimal Palestinian and other Arab requirements.

When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing Likud government came to power in Israel in May 1996, it immediately began reversing the goals of its predecessor and of the US Those goals, encapsulated in the treaties negotiated in Oslo (and signed in September 1993 at the White House) between Israel and the PLO and later between Israel and Jordan, would have granted only minimal concessions to the Palestinians-just enough to suppress the regional conflict to a level that would be acceptable to the international financial community.

But Netanyahu's accountability to a volatile mix of nationalist settlers and fundamentalist religious extremists meant he would not go even this far. He halted and reversed key components of the Oslo accords, while authorizing such provocative actions as the September 1996 opening of the tunnel adjacent to East Jerusalem's Islamic holy places, sparking massive Palestinian unrest. Clinton's earlier public embrace of Netanyahu's electoral opponents, Labor's Yitzhak Rabin and then Shimon Peres, resulted in a lowering of US political influence in Tel Aviv, despite continuing Israeli reliance on US international backing. Although Washington remains the key sponsor of the peace process, its acceptance of Israel's conditions and demands has narrowed the US ability to act as a truly honest broker. This pro-Israeli policy has left the Clinton Administration vulnerable to charges that it cares more about the appearance of continuing the process than about forging a just peace. Thus, Washington has depleted much of its reservoir of good will in the region, leaving little besides photo opportunities to show for it.

The US has abandoned its previous insistence that UN resolution 242, which prohibits the holding of territory taken by force and mandates a "land-for-peace" exchange, should be the basis of any comprehensive regional settlement. Despite 242 being the official basis of both the Madrid and Oslo agreements, the US has ceased defending the principle of land for peace. Moreover, it has not challenged Netanyahu's attempt to replace the "land-for-land" principle with a "peace-for-peace" approach, which is clearly an unviable option.

As a consequence of Washington's favoring of Israel, official US personnel, institutions, and even ordinary US citizens, are sometimes endangered by military or terrorist actions by extremist opposition forces throughout the region. Although these forces (Islamist, nationalist, democratic, and others) are diverse and not unified, they share opposition to Israel's role in the region. When Washington refuses to distance itself even from Israel's most provocative acts, the US-and its citizens- become surrogate targets of the most militant (and sometimes terrorist) forces. It is also true that whether or not the US publicly distances itself from any particular Israeli violation of international law, its continuing uncritical economic, political, and military support of Israel lead many thoughtful and moderate voices throughout the region to accept a similar view of US responsibility for every Israeli action.

Israel's violations of human rights have been documented for decades by human rights organizations, as well as by the State Department itself in its annual human rights review. The violations include arrest and long periods of detention without trial or judicial review, routine physical and psychological torture during interrogations, demolition of houses of families of suspects, and the expulsion of both individuals and communities of Palestinians from their homeland. When Israeli human rights violations are ignored by the US-and a US veto prevents the UN Security Council from criticizing or attempting to reverse those violations-Israel's legitimacy as the largest recipient of US economic and military aid comes under increasing challenge.

During the cold war, the US cast a long series of vetoes of Security Council resolutions condemning Israel. The last of these cold war era vetoes occurred in May 1990 when the US prevented Security Council criticism of Israel's human rights violations in the occupied territories. After five years without a single Security Council veto being used by any power, the US cast the first post-cold war veto in May 1995. This US veto blocked a 14-to-1 resolution demanding that Israel stop its imminent seizure of a large tract of Palestinian land in Arab East Jerusalem to be used for building Jewish settlements.

Foreign policy considerations have often resulted in quiet exceptions for many US allies and trading partners. But the exemption of its largest foreign aid recipient from the obligation to uphold even the most basic human rights standards seriously weakens any US claim of concern about human rights.

Further, it reinforces the culture of human rights impunity among dependent US client states that should have disappeared with the end of the cold war. The severity of electoral consequences for US politicians dangerously distorts the reality of Israel's role as a strategic ally. Choosing not to antagonize Israel's supporters (either at the voting booth or in political action committees responsible for large campaign contributions), US congressional representatives, senators, presidents, and other officials routinely fail to criticize even Israel's most flagrantly provocative acts. As a result, instead of committing itself to a foreign policy that would truly foster a just peace in the Middle East, the US has chosen to focus its public diplomacy on maintaining the appearance of continuing the peace "process."

Toward a New Foreign Policy

Key Recommendations

• US aid to Israel should be cut in consideration of the improvements in Israel's economic and military capabilities.
• Aid should be contingent on adherence to international human rights and legal norms.
• Domestic/electoral considerations should not lead to impunity for Israeli violations; Israel should be treated as an important ally, not an invulnerable icon.
• Serious regional negotiations should be reinitiated with Syria, Lebanon,and the Palestinians, based on UN resolution 242 and an exchange of land for peace.

US aid flowing to Israel every year-massive both in its dollar amount and as a percentage of total foreign aid-should be dramatically scaled back. US taxpayers subsidize a comfortable suburban lifestyle for Israeli citizens, but Israel does not need those billions for survival. As Labor Party leader Yael Dayan said in October 1996: "It's ridiculous to talk about Israel being the victims. We're an empire: It's ours to give, to be generous." US economic assistance should be targeted to the poorest countries, especially in Africa, rather than wealthy powers such as Israel.

Arms transfers, especially of the most advanced fighter jets and missile systems, should be stopped. Israel is the strongest military power in an already overly armed region. The US should demand that Israel immediately open its nuclear arsenal to international inspection and oversight, and in the longer term that it divest its nuclear weapons to create a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East.

Israel's strategic value to US policy has been important in the past. But in these last years of the 20th century, new US regional interests require the broadening of alliances to others in the Middle East. The exclusivity of the US-Israeli special relationship makes that difficult. The Washington-Tel Aviv embrace undermines the US role as an honest broker in Israel- Arab negotiations. As a result, the US is held accountable by others in the region for Israel's actions.

As one of Washington's closest allies, Israel should be expected to adhere to the highest standards of human rights covenants and international law. The US should implement even-handed guidelines for criticizing human rights violations whether perpetrated by its allies or by its opponents. Internationally, and especially in the Middle East, ending Washington's human rights double standard would bolster US credibility as a world leader seriously committed to a human rights agenda.

Washington should proffer its own policies-rather than those of Israel-in regional diplomatic initiatives. When Israel deviates from US policy (such as in continuing expanded settlement activities or in its disproportionate military activities in Lebanon), it should be criticized. The US should not recalibrate its own policy in acquiescence to Tel Aviv. The US defense of Israel in the UN should not be automatic but rather based on a careful assessment of the Israeli position in relation to defined US goals and to broader international and regional concerns. Efforts should be taken to identify a broader pool of diplomatic talent for Middle East appointments in the State Department and White House. Specifically, Washington should avoid the revolving door phenomenon between the staff of Israeli lobby-linked institutions and those appointed to high positions of influence in the foreign service.

The US should reassert that regional peace efforts must be based on the exchange of land for peace, as mandated in UN resolution 242, and it should support involving the UN and European nations as full partners. With the US-sponsored peace process collapsing, Israeli-Palestinian negotiations must be relaunched on a firmer footing. They must be based on a serious exchange of land for peace, and the US must be willing to take the lead in identifying the components of a comprehensive agreement, rather than focusing only on the need to continue talking.

In negotiations, the US should insist on the following:

• Equitable and just status for both Palestinians and Israelis in Jerusalem.
• Arrangements for the return of refugees from the wars of both 1948 and 1967.
• Security for a viable Palestinian state alongside Israel, with an end to land confiscations and armed Israeli settler privileges in Palestinian territory.
• Reasonable security guarantees for all residents in both states.

With respect to Syria, the US should demand that Israel commit to a complete withdrawal from the Golan Heights in exchange for a full peace with Damascus. To help keep the peace between Israel and Syria, Washington should provide guarantees to monitor the Israeli-Syrian border as part of a UN peacekeeping and monitoring mission. The US should demand that Israel withdraw from Lebanon in accordance with the requirements of UN resolution 425. Israeli negotiations with both Syria and Lebanon should be held to ensure the security of both sides of each border.

Copyright 1996 Foreign Policy in Focus