Without US cover at UN, Israel could face diplomatic avalanche - By Raphael Ahren - The Times of Israel

http://www.timesofisrael.com/left-alone-at-un-israel-can-ignore-but-not-avoid-diplomatic-fallout/?utm_source=The+Times+of+Israel+Daily+Edition&utm_campaign=450202e1aa-2015_03_25&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_adb46cec92-450202e1aa-54829185 Without US cover at UN, Israel could face diplomatic avalanche Already violating countless resolutions, Jerusalem has little to fear immediately from a Security  Council vote on Palestine. But there would be painful repercussions in the long run BY RAPHAEL AHREN March 25, 2015, 12:52 pm 35 Email Print Share WRITERS Raphael AhrenRaphael Ahren is the diplomatic correspondent at The Times of Israel. Follow or contact: Facebook Twitter Email RSS NEWSROOM Email the Newsroom Facebook Twitter RELATED TOPICS UN SECURITY COUNCIL PALESTINIAN STATEHOOD ISRAELI DIPLOMACY MORE ON THIS  STORY Plan for 1,500 homes in East Jerusalem reportedly frozen After vote, Pyrrhic victories for both Netanyahu and Obama Qatar trying to broker long-term Israel-Hamas ceasefire Netanyahu’s ‘Arab droves’ warning may have been decisive in his victory German parliament to vote on Palestine recognition Sara Netanyahu drank 3 bottles of bubbly a day, says ex-caretaker Democrats unmoved by Israeli entreaties on Iran It would have been unthinkable just a few short years ago for the White House to consider furling up the diplomatic umbrella it had used for decades to shield Israel at the UN. Get The Times of Israel's Daily Edition by email and never miss our top stories   FREE SIGN UP! But even as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has attempted to do damage control for a series of recent controversial pronouncements,reiterating his support for a two-state solution and apologizing for his election day anti-Arab rhetoric, Washington seemingly remains determined to “reassess” its policy vis-à-vis Israel and the Palestinians. Very little, if anything, would change on the ground, but a Security Council resolution calling for a Palestinian state is certain to have severe diplomatic repercussions for Israel, analysts say. While the administration insists it has made no changes to US policy yet, officials say that President Barack Obama strongly is considering backing Palestinian moves at the United Nations Security Council. This could mean that Washington will hold back from vetoing a French or Jordanian resolution calling for the creation of a Palestinian state based on the 1967 lines with land swaps. The US could even propose its own resolution seeking to enshrine the parameters of a future peace deal based on a two-state solution. No Palestinian flagpoles are going to pop up across the West Bank in the near term, nor will Jerusalem have to fear an immediate barrage of harsh sanctions or other punitive measures as a direct result of a resolution in Turtle Bay. But a Security Council resolution would signal to the international community that the Americans are no longer interested in providing cover for Israel’s desire to maintain the status quo, which is liable to set in motion a diplomatic avalanche that will ultimately weaken Israel’s position in negotiations with the Palestinians. “The symbolism could potentially have some longer-term implications,” said international studies professor Stephen Zunes, who coordinates the University of San Francisco’s Middle Eastern Studies program. Washington backing Palestine-related moves at the UN would highlight Israel’s isolation even more, which might motivate Israelis to vote for a less hawkish government in the future, surmised Zunes, a known critic of American diplomatic support for Israel. While no sanctions come automatically with the violation of a Security Council resolution, the administration’s putative move at the UN might spur the European Union to start implementing punitive measures, such as labeling West Bank products, which would negatively impact Israel’s economy, he said. PM Netanyahu at the Likud party headquarters in Tel Aviv, early on March 18, 2015, hours after the TV exit polls were announced for the previous day’s elections were published. (photo credit: Miriam Alster/Flash90) Jerusalem adamantly opposes any Security Council resolution on the Palestinian issue, though it appears few efforts are being made to dissuade the Americans from their ostensible plan to push for one. Instead, the Netanyahu administration has focused all its efforts at preventing a bad nuclear deal with Iran, a senior Israeli official said Tuesday. Officials in Jerusalem have been arguing that the US administration’s threats on the Palestinian front were intended to divert attention from the Iran deal it is currently negotiating. So far the Americans have only said they would reassess their policy but have not taken any decision, the official argued. “US policy has always been that peace will be achieved by direct negotiations between the parties. That is the correct policy — there’s no other way to achieve peace,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Israel holds the record in ignoring Security Council resolutions Things are bad, but they could be even worse. At the end of the day, said Robbie Sabel, a former legal adviser to Israel’s Foreign Ministry, any Security Council resolution on Palestine will not be enforceable and therefore Israel doesn’t have to worry about immediate concrete reprisals. It would be different if said resolution were passed under Chapter VII of the UN charter, which deals with threats to world peace or “acts of aggression.” But in its entire history, the Security Council has never passed a resolution on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict under Chapter VII and it is virtually guaranteed that the currently discussed draft will be no exception, several international law experts said. Sanctions imposed on states based on resolutions filed under Chapter VII are binding on all UN member states — for example the sanctions leveled on Iran over its rogue nuclear program. But since this won’t be the case with the US-backed Palestine resolution, Jerusalem won’t have to confront a concerted international sanctions regime. However, individual states or bodies such as the EU could independently decided to sanction or boycott Israel. Any Security Council resolution on the two-state solution would instead be filed under Chapter VI, which exhorts states in conflict with each other to engage in negotiations. Legal scholars argue whether such resolutions are legally binding, but agree that there is no way to enforce them. The much-dreaded resolution on the two-state solution is therefore not much more than a “political statement,” said Sabel, who teaches international law at the Hebrew University. Rather than a Palestinian doomsday weapon heralding Israel’s imminent withdrawal from the West Bank, it should be seen as a “non-binding recommendation” on the two parties to negotiate based on the framework provided by the resolution. Israel is already in violation of nearly 100 Security Council resolutions, most of them calling for a withdrawal from occupied territory, so another resolution could easily be added to the list and filed away by Jerusalem. While there are many other countries that ignore Security Council resolutions (most of them US allies), Israel holds the record, a 2002 study found. Most well-known among them is Resolution 242 of November 1967, which says that Middle East peace should include the “[w]ithdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict.” Other resolutions condemn Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem, though so far there are none that would specify the terms of Israel’s withdrawal more concretely. But drafts being circulated, which the US may let pass, would do exactly that — by explicitly making the 1967 lines the basis for the future border between Israel and Palestine. And that could put a serious dent in Israel’s negotiating position, said Dore Gold, a former Israeli ambassador to the UN and close Netanyahu adviser. “A UN Security Council resolution that explicitly delineated Israel’s future borders would first and foremost undermine Israel’s bilateral agreement with the Palestinians, that made the future of borders an issue for negotiations and not something that would be imposed from the outside,” Gold said. Dore Gold (Photo credit: Moshe Shai/Flash90) A Security Council resolution demanding an Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 lines, even with minor land swaps, would contradict the spirit of Resolution 242, Gold argued. “It should be stressed that in a 1975 memorandum between the US and Israel, Washington gave assurances that it would vote against any initiative in the Security Council that would alter adversely or change Resolution 242 and 338[after the Yom Kippur War] ‘in ways that are incompatible with their original purpose.’” A US-backed resolution enshrining the Green Line as the base line for a future peace agreement will not change anything on the ground but it will upgrade the Palestinian Authority’s negotiation position, said Ilai Saltzman, an Israeli international relations professor currently teaching at Claremont McKenna College in California. “This is a slippery slope. If the Americans will not veto any resolution it opens up a window for additional shifts in US foreign policy.” ‘It will allow the Palestinians to assume the role of Israel in the late 1940s and 1950s. We’ll have a complete reversal of the roles of David and Goliath’ True, Jerusalem will maintain the ability to prevent the de facto establishment of a Palestinian state. But one Security Council resolution on the matter will lead to another, and Israel’s violation of all of them will eventually put Israel on a collision course with the entire international community, Saltzman added. “There will be an accumulative effect of these resolutions and eventually, even if Netanyahu sustains his premiership for the full four years, the pressure will only increase over time,” he said. Israelis are proud that they accepted the UN partition plan of 1947 while the Arabs rejected it, Saltzman said. Israel ignoring a Security Council resolution calling for a two-state solution could undermine that position, he posited. “It will allow the Palestinians to assume the role of Israel in the late 1940s and 1950s. We will have a complete reversal of the roles of David and Goliath.” More dangerously, Saltzman added, an American willingness to abandon Israel at the UN has the potential to unleash sanctions and penalties from the European Union, which has long considered imposing certain restrictions, especially on goods from the West Bank. “The international community is very much fed up with the Israeli occupation,” he said, and if it the US translated that frustration into policy, “this could seriously undercut European-Israeli relations. Israel will be in a very precarious situation.”

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In the wake of Raj Nath questions:Conversion: natural phenomenon if allowed to be natural - By Dr. Javed Jamil

In the wake of Raj Nath questions: Conversion: natural phenomenon if allowed to be natural

 

Dr. Javed Jamil

 

Home Minister Raj Nath Singh has chosen a minority platform to ask a few questions on conversion: Is conversion necessary? Can social service not be performed without resorting to conversion? Can no religion prosper without encouraging conversion? Will any country allow changes in its demographic character? And is it not true that the minorities demand anti-conversion law all over the world but not in India?

 

The questions clearly bring to surface the fear that the majority community in India has about its losing a position of dominance in the country that it has been enjoying since Independence. They have succeeded in doing this through the use or misuse of the constitution that has guaranteed reservations for only Hindus, through misuse of India’s democratic exercise which makes it impossible for minorities to make an impact on the governance, through the use of privatization which has allowed the rich and Upper-caste Hindus to dominate the economic as well as educational scenario and through the brutal use of their muscle power with the support of the government machinery. The questions also reflect the lack of confidence in Hindu mindset about the survival of their own religion. They have already used the Constitution to stop conversion from Hinduism to Islam and Christianity through a blanket ban on the continuation of reservation in case Dalits convert to Islam or Christianity. Now they want to expand this ban further by just stopping the right of any man to abandon the religion in which he was born.

 

There are several basic concepts regarding conversion that need to be clarified. There is a general perception that “conversion” relates to change from one religion to another. The truth is that conversion is a ubiquitous phenomenon and involves all the ideologies and the subsects within the religions. As part of the international campaign against religion as a whole, the forces of economics have been relentlessly campaigning against religion calling it the root cause of all the problems. In this process, they are using all their arsenals to convert the people to their ideologies of various kinds of liberalism including the commonly known ones, the communism and the capitalism. There have been lobbies of various kinds – pro-abortion-anti-abortion, pro-gay-anti-gay, pro-war-anti-war, and many others that are always busy in converting people to their sides. NGOs these days are funded by the international agencies and corporate sector to advance the ideas that suit them. If for example, an NGO applies for funds to campaign against abortions as a whole, it is not likely to be solicited; but if it applies for an exclusive campaign against female infanticide, it is highly likely to get the funds. If an NGO wants funds to raise awareness against the threats posed by prostitution and to campaign for a ban on it, it will never get funds; but if it asks funds for the regular medical check-up of prostitutes to keep them of HIV-free (so that their clients need not fear coming to them), they will get a good amount.

 

The conversion has been used by Hindus themselves in the past to a great effect. Just before the beginning of this millennium, in the days of Asoka “the Great”, the majority of Hindus had converted to Buddhism. Later, the Hindu organisations swung into action, changed certain concepts of their own religion (stressing vegetarianism for instance) to reconvert the Hindus back to Hinduism. This was despite the fact that Buddhist did not come from outside. Within Hinduism also, there have been various movements aimed at converting from one ideology to the other. There was a strong Arya Samaji movement a few centuries back, and it continued to have a strong presence till Independence. Now, there are few Arya-Samajis left in the country. In recent decades, Sai Baba clan has continued to grow among Hindus.

 

Conversions within Islam and Christianity have also been a continuous phenomenon. There has been a war between Catholics and Protestants, both being busy in converting Christians to their respective ideologies. Within Islam also, Shiites, Ahle-Hadith and other Sunni groups have also been trying to lure people to their respective sects through reasoning and influences.

 

Atheism in itself has emerged as a formal ideology in the 19^th Century. An overwhelming majority of “Christians” in European countries including Britain, France and Germany, is that of atheists; many of them refuse to call them Christians.

 

This proves that the change of ideologies is a permanent phenomenon, and no attempts to stop it can ever succeed. Nobody can be forced to continue in the ideology (religious or non-religious) of his family, and he has the right to follow what appeals to him most.Everybody has the right to think his religion/ideology is best and if he thinks so, he will always try to argue his case privately or publicly. What is to be stopped is the use of temporary lures or force in pursuing objectives.

 

Can social service not be performed without resorting to conversion? I would like to tell Raj Nath that social service is the right as well as the duty, which every group irrespective of its ideological positions wants to perform. Even corporate sector has a social sector attached to it. Political parties do also have programmes of social service. Almost all religions also want to prove to the world that their concern is not limited to a few theological issues but they are also concerned about the welfare of the people. This is a positive aspect of their activities, and it will be nonsensical to create obstacles in their way by levelling the allegations of attempts to convert in the garb of social service. Any ideological group has the right to influence people through service, and religion based organisations cannot be denied this right. Contrary to the popular perception that only Christian or Islamic organisations are using social service to influence the people, Hindu organisations too have been actively involved in expanding their clout through various social services. There is a chain of Shishu Mandirs in the country imparting primary and secondary education. Jains have a big chain of institutions, and of course Christians have been particularly successful in the field of education. Organisations belonging to almost all religions have established health centres and hospitals for public service. Muslims of India in fact lag behind in this area compared to other communities. These efforts need to be encouraged, not discouraged. Private institutions established by corporates are involved in spreading Western models of education because they suit their machinations.

 

Can no religion prosper without encouraging conversion?The fact cannot be denied that the proponents of every ideology, religious or non-religious, have the hidden desire to see the whole world accepting their beliefs and practices. There is no exception to it. This is natural. If anyone considers his religion or ideology as best, he would want everybody to do the same. Again, what is to be stopped is the use of questionable methods to influence people.

 

Will any country allow changes in its demographic character? Again, Mr. Singh has to be told that the demography of the countries has continued to change, and it has often changed quite rapidly. In the beginning of the 6^th Century, the whole Arab world, East Africa, Persia and Southern Europe was following Paganism, Zoroastrianism or Christianity. The rise of a single man, Muhammad, the Final Prophet of the Religion of God, which assumed the Arabic name Islam with his advent, the whole of this area converted to Islam before the arrival of the next century. During the reign of Asoka, India became a Buddhist dominant country. Within a few centuries, it again became a Hindu country. The whole Europe used to be a Christian continent till the beginning of the Industrial revolution. Now the majority of Europeans are atheists even if they are counted as Christians, and in next twenty years, Muslims may well become the majority in most European countries. The demography of all countries continues to change depending on various factors including large-scale migration and reproductive tendencies.  

 

Now coming to the final question: And is it not true that the minorities demand anti-conversion law all over the world but not in India? This is of course not true, at least in the case of Muslims. The confidence of Muslims in their own religion is so strong that they do not worry about the conversion of Muslims to other religions. Of course, they oppose any questionable ways of conversions. In Europe, they are in minorities, but despite all the adverse propaganda against Islam, the conversion to Islam is biggest in the continent. This is equally true of America, Canada and Australia. I have never heard about any minority demanding a ban on conversions in any country.

 

Every human being has the right to follow his beliefs. Every human being has the right to help others. But no one has the right to malign other beliefs or faiths, or use obscene words against the esteemed figures of any ideology. Use of force or lure of money and positions have to be stopped. But stopping people from joining any ideological clan, religious or non-religious, through law will be counterproductive. It will stall the evolution of thought. It will ultimately be an obstacle in the peaceful survival of the human beings as Mankind. India is a country where more than 95 percent of the people believe in God, religious morality and family system. There is a huge threat to religious morality and family system from the forces of economics, which are bent upon using human susceptibilities for commercial ends. It is high time all religious communities in India united against the threat to social and family system. Once they realize this larger aim, the differences between various communities and mutual rivalries will automatically subside, and India will emerge as a role model for the whole world.

 

·          Dr Javed Jamil is India based thinker and writer with over a dozen books including his latest, “Quranic Paradigms of Sciences & Society” (First Vol: Health), “Muslims Most Civilised, Yet Not Enough” and “Muslim Vision of Secular India: Destination & Road-map”. Other works include “The Devil of Economic Fundamentalism”, “The Essence of the Divine Verses”, “The Killer Sex”, “Islam means Peace” and “Rediscovering the Universe”. He can be contacted at doctorforu123@yahoo.com or 91-8130340339.