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8167th Security Council Meeting: Situation in Middle East Part 3
Twenty-five years after the historic Oslo Accords, the United Nations had fallen into a pattern of managing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, rather than resolving it, the Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process told the Security Council today, underscoring the Organization’s responsibility to help the sides return to negotiations and quickly show results.
“Now is not the time to give up on Oslo,” said Nickolay Mladenov via video link from Jerusalem, but rather, to push for policies that rebuilt trust. The lack of political will to resume negotiations had elicited a heavy price: violence, settlement expansion, Palestinian political divide and the dire situation in Gaza under the control of Hamas. “Taken together, these elements kill hope,” he said.
Absent a credible proposal to underpin final status negotiations, the international community must build the conditions for resumed talks, notably by bolstering consensus around the two-State solution.
However, the United States’ 6 December 2017 recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital had led to protests and low-level violence across the West Bank and Gaza, he said, while its greatly reduced $60 million pledge to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) had heightened anxieties for 5.3 million refugees. Allowing the Palestinian national project to backslide risked destabilizing a precarious situation, he stressed, and the recent funding cuts to UNRWA only reinforced those concerns.
In the ensuing open debate, the Permanent Observer of the State of Palestine said the world had borne witness to decisions made in 2017 that denigrated Palestinians’ rights and dismissed the global consensus prevailing for decades. To the United States, he said: “We reject this unilateral, provocative decision, which directly contravenes the Charter and United Nations resolutions on the matter.” It was an understatement to say that Palestinians faced an existential crisis. He appealed for collective action in following up on the explicit calls made in resolution 2334 (2016).
Israel’s delegate, in turn, said the real threat came from Iran, which allocated $1.5 billion to its proxies, including in Judea and Samaria. More than $800 million was sent each year to Hizbullah alone, which was then used to terrorize Israel and southern Lebanon. “These are hard facts that cannot be refuted,” he stressed. Iran sought to destroy Israel, destabilize the region and threaten the world. The Council must fully implement resolution 2231 (2015).
Iran’s delegate said “Iran-ophobia” had become a kind of obsession for the United States and Israeli regimes. The United States’ provocative recognition of Al-Quds Al‑Sharif as the capital of the Israeli regime revealed its complicity in depriving Palestinians their right to an independent State.
Throughout the day, delegates likewise took issue with the United States decision, with the representative of the Russian Federation stressing that the emotional response reflected how delicate the question of Jerusalem truly was. The solution lay in a prompt resumption of dialogue on all contentious issues. Long-term and fair agreements that dovetailed with previous decisions of the international community were required, reflecting the interests of both sides.
Lebanon’s delegate, meanwhile, said Israel’s claim of exclusive control of Jerusalem, and the United States’ recognition of that city as Israel’s capital, buried any hope of a just, comprehensive and lasting peace. Israel’s stated intention to build a wall along the Blue Line and in sensitive occupied areas could lead to conflict.
Jordan’s delegate said decisions about Jerusalem taken outside a comprehensive resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian issue were unacceptable. Jordan would continue to engage with the international community to reject any attempt to change Jerusalem’s historical status. She called on States to fully support UNRWA, stressing that implementation of relevant Council resolutions was the only way to create the conditions for balance in the region.
Stressing the need for direct negotiations through both parties — rather than through unilateral resolutions of major donors of the peace process — the speaker from the League of Arab States said the United States decision to declare Jerusalem as Israel’s capital flouted all international agreements governing the Middle East peace process.
For her part, the representative of the United States said her country had done nothing to pre-judge the final borders of Jerusalem or alter the status of the holy sites. Rather, it remained committed to the possibility of a two-State solution, if agreed to by both parties. Recalling that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas had recently declared the Oslo peace accord “dead”, she said such words were not those of someone willing to work towards peace.
On that point, Norway’s delegate said his country and the European Union would convene an extraordinary ministerial session of the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee in Brussels on 31 January. That meeting would address measures that could help restart final status negotiations, and sought to assist the Palestinian Authority in reinstating control in Gaza, as outlined in the Cairo agreement of 12 October 2017.
Egypt’s delegate similarly advocated support for Egyptian efforts to foster Palestinian unity, which itself was one of the best means for building a strong, Palestinian society capable of being a partner for peace.
Also speaking today were representatives of China, Netherlands, Kuwait, Sweden, France, Ethiopia, Bolivia, Poland, United Kingdom, Equatorial Guinea, Côte d’Ivoire, Peru, Kazakhstan, Maldives, Liechtenstein, Cuba, Pakistan, Indonesia, Japan, Venezuela, Botswana, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Estonia, Argentina, Syria, Brazil, Morocco, Turkey, United Arab Emirates (on behalf of the Arab Group), Iraq, Iceland, Qatar, Bangladesh, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and Malaysia, as well as the European Union and the Holy See.
A representative of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People made a statement, as well.
The meeting began at 10:09 a.m. and ended at 4:28 p.m.
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