In
the first category, the daily said, action taken by the Security
Council on human rights violations included tribunals for the
prosecution of war crimes and crimes against humanity (in Bosnia,
Kosovo and Rwanda), an arms embargo (Kosovo), an international
presence (Kosovo and East Timor), and "all necessary means"
(i.e. military action) in the case of Iraq.
"Not
even the mildest of these remedies was adopted in the case of Israel,
whose violations - assassinations, deportations, house demolitions,
restrictions on freedom of movement, etc - are well documented,"
it added.
In
the second category - demographic manipulation - Israel has sought to
consolidate its occupation of the occupied Palestinian territories by
changing the population balance in two ways.
One
is to encourage Palestinian emigration through economic disruption and
land expropriation, as well as direct expulsion in some cases. The
other is through the establishment of illegal Jewish colonies whose
population has risen, since the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993,
from 200,000 to 400,000, the Guardian added.
In
1980, the Security Council issued a resolution saying that these
activities had "no legal validity" and constituted "a
flagrant violation of the fourth Geneva convention". It decided
to establish a commission "to examine the situation".
Israel
refused to co-operate with the commission and the Security Council
responded with another resolution "strongly deploring"
Israel's refusal.
Elsewhere,
it has been a different story. In Kosovo, for example, efforts to
drive out the majority ethnic Albanian population and replace them
with ethnic Serbs were denounced by the Security Council and backed up
with international action.
Similarly
in Bosnia and Rwanda, strong condemnation was followed by
comprehensive sanctions and enforcement action.
In
the third category - the right of refugees and displaced persons to
return to their homes - there is no relevant Security Council
resolution about Palestinian refugees, though there have been
resolutions regarding Bosnia, Kosovo, East Timor and Rwanda, said the Guardian.
"In
contrast with the compared cases where the right of return formed a
key component of all peace settlements and was enforced by
international operations", the PLO report says, "no attempts
have been made to enforce the Palestinian right of return and there
have been attempts [by Israel] to declare the Palestinian refugee
return issue a 'non-negotiable' one."
 |
|
There
is no relevant Security Council resolution about Palestinian
refugees
|
In
the fourth category - withdrawal of occupying forces - the strongest
action taken by the Security Council was against Iraq, following its
invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Member states were authorized to "use
all necessary means" to end the occupation.
In
the case of Bosnia, which in 1992 was occupied by Yugoslav and
Croatian army units, the Security Council ordered "a general and
complete embargo on all deliveries of weapons and military equipment
to Yugoslavia".
In
Kosovo, the Security Council backed up its withdrawal demand with
action to deploy an international security presence. Unlike these
rather short-lived occupations, the Israeli occupation of the West
Bank and Gaza has continued for 35 years.
The
only specific action taken by the Security Council during this long
period, according to the report, was in 1968 when it sent a special
representative to the occupied Palestinian territories and requested
Israel "to co-operate with him and to facilitate his work".
The
trouble with this pussy-footing approach is not simply that it lets
favored countries get away with things that others would be punished
for. It also sends them a signal that in the future they can act as
they please, the Guardian said.
"We
cannot stand by and do nothing", Bush told delegates to the U.N.
He was talking, of course, about Iraq. But in the case of Israel, we
not only can do nothing - we do do nothing.
