Sanctions and Resolutions: Why Iraq and Israel are Different

There is a difference between the Israeli 'violation' of UN resolutions and those of Iraq which are being being used by the US as the basis for taking action

1. Chapter Six deals with the peaceful resolution of disputes and entitles the council to make non-binding recommendations.

2. Chapter Seven gives the council broad powers to take action, including warlike action, to deal with "threats to the peace, breaches of the peace, or acts of aggression". Such resolutions are binding on all UN members.

1. Chapter Seven resolutions were used against Iraq after its invasion of Kuwait.

2. The resolutions relating to the Israeli-Arab conflict come under Chapter Six, not Chapter Seven.

3. By imposing sanctions--including military ones--against Iraq but not against Israel, the UN is operating in accordance with its own rules.

C. Palestinian Admission of the Difference: In a PLO report, entitled "Double Standards" and published at the end of September, it is pointed out that though the UN has upheld the Palestinians' right to statehood, condemned Israel's settlements and called for Israel to withdraw, nevertheless "no enforcement action or any other action to implement UN resolutions and international law has been ordered by the Security Council."

1. It does not instruct Israel to withdraw unilaterally from the territories occupied in 1967.

2. It does not condemn Israel's conquest, since it was considered to be the result of a justifiable pre-emptive war.

3. It calls for a negotiated settlement, based on the principle of exchanging land for peace.

1. While in the case of Iraq, the Security Council has instructed Saddam Hussein to take various unilateral actions that he is perfectly capable of taking, Resolution 242 cannot be implemented unilaterally, even if Israel wanted to do so.

2. On the question of borders, some of the diplomats who drafted Resolution 242 made clear they intended to allow for some changes in the armistice lines that separated Israel and its Arab neighbors before the war of 1967.

3. However, the Arabs maintain the resolution requires a complete withdrawal from every inch. Yet even if this were so, the resolution cannot be implemented without arriving at a negotiated agreement (ie, not unilaterally).

4. Israel says that it has already implemented much of 242, and that it is ready to implement the rest of it.

2) Two years ago, when he was prime minister, Mr Barak offered the bulk of the Golan Heights in return for peace with Syria.

b) When the Palestinians claimed that they were no longer bent on its extirpation, Israel responded.

1) All the agreements made between Israel and the Palestinians under the Oslo peace process were predicated on Resolution 242.

2) In 1993 Israel signed an agreement with the PLO under which the two sides undertook to implement Resolution 242 by negotiation, thus putting all the contentious issues--Jerusalem, the settlements and the refugees--on the bargaining table.

3) Israel subsequently withdrew from the main Palestinian population centers (although it has returned to them since the Intifada) pending negotiation of a final settlement.

4) Two years ago the talks failed, to be followed by a new Palestinian Intifada.

5) Ariel Sharon, has accepted George Bush's peace "vision", set out in June, of an Israeli withdrawal and a free Palestine based on the borders of 1967.

6) The Israelis claim that their agreement to negotiate the thorny issues with the Palestinians supersedes the relevant UN resolutions on settlements and the rest, a view that the Security Council might accept if the negotiations got back on track.

A. Resolution 1435, for example, calls on Israel to pull out of the Palestinian cities it has recently reoccupied and back to the positions it held before the violence started in September 2000. It has been ignored.

B. But like most recent resolutions, Resolution 1435 cuts both ways. It makes demands of the Palestinians, too, which have also been ignored. The Palestinian Authority is instructed to cease all violence and incitement, and to bring "those responsible for terrorist acts" to justice.

B. The Israelis say that the Palestinians never accepted the Jewish right to self-determination.

C. The UN says it recognizes the complexity of these respective claims, lays down broad principles, and urges a negotiated peace.

B. Iraq is in conflict with the UN itself, because it has refused to comply with the clear instructions, under Chapter Seven, to give up its weapons of mass destruction.

C. Israel's status as an undeclared nuclear power does not put it on a par with Iraq, which has tried to become one.

2. While, this angers the treaty's supporters, who want the treaty "universal", as with all treaties, governments are free not to sign.

3. However, what governments are not free to do is sign, receive the foreign (civilian) nuclear help to which signing entitles them, and then try to build a bomb secretly. This is what Iraq tried to do, and may still be trying to do.

4. While Israel is thought to possess a large nuclear arsenal, being a nuclear-armed power is not, by itself, a breach of international law.