Keeping the Palestinian Authority Down at the United Nations

In “defiance of retaliation threatened” by the United States and the state of Israel, the Palestinian Authority announced in November 2012 that it planned to hold a vote in the U.N. General Assembly on the Authority’s request to become an observer state. According to The Wall Street Journal, “(s)uch a designation would give the Palestinian Authority the right over its airspace and territorial waters.” The Authority could participate in General Assembly debates, sponsor resolutions, and nominate candidates for Assembly committees. The Authority would be able to accede to treaties and join specialized U.N. agencies, such as the International Civil Aviation Organization, the Law of the Sea Treaty, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and the International Criminal Court. The Authority could thus press charges against Israelis before the Court.
Because 132 states had already recognized the Authority as a sovereign state and the U.S. does not have a veto in the General Assembly, the vote was expected to be in the Authority’s favor. Rather than wade into the long-standing Israeli-Palestinian standoff, I want to investigate the nature of the responses of the Israeli government and the United States to the likely passage.
In retaliation, Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz said in Israel, “If the Palestinians continue to advance their unilateral move they should not expect bilateral cooperation. We will not collect their taxes for them and we will not transfer their tax revenues.” Had the Palestinian Authority had held a similar position concerning unilateral moves, the Israeli government would doubtless not have held off in its unilateral moves, such as building a wall. Perhaps taxation should be added to the rights of observer states. The hypocrisy alone would justify that, not to mention the threat being made.
I suspect the control over airspace and the membership at the ICC were of particular concern to Israel. Security concerns were a given. Given Israeli influence over the American Congress, I suspect that the Israeli officials would also bristle at Palestinian demands being enforced by an over-arching authority to which Israel was at least in theory subject. That is to say, being held accountable.
Also in anticipatory retaliation, the American Congress “threatened to cut off $500 million in security and economic aid” to the Authority. Here, the American Government having been accustomed to the comfort of its veto on the Security Council no doubt left officials feeling a sudden and as though terrifying loss of control. Hence, as though impulsively, the Congress acted out in a manipulatory fashion to circumvent being in the minority on a vote.

Furthermore, the American threat suggests that the Israeli government might have disproportionate influence in the halls of Congress and in the White House, even given the state’s ally status. The duopoly of two major parties in American politics may be complicit here. The result may be that Israeli interests come before even American interests in American foreign policy.
Concerning both the state of Israel and the fifty United States, it is the tenor of such blatant threats and manipulation that is particularly striking in this story. Might it be that the reactions, particularly if knee-jerk, are in essence cultural—meaning that manipulation and threats have come to be a common feature of human interaction in those states. Rather than being to criticize Israeli or American policy, my point is that the reactions themselves can be indicative of a certain cultural decadence concerning the way certain people “deal with” not getting their way. Beyond the sheer childishness in “taking one’s marbles” if one does not get to make the rules of the game is the sordidness of the mentality that threatens and manipulates as a matter of course. I suppose the real question is how—or even whether—such a value system can be changed. At the very least, one is inclined by the fitting moral disapprobation to see to it that that particular psychology does not get its way, or is at least frustrated in the pursuit of its particular tactics. Making them transparent can be a first step to a better world, at least as among persons.

Source:

Joe Lauria, “Palestinians Set U.N. Vote, Defying Retaliatory Threats by U.S., Israel,” The Wall Street Journal, November 13, 2012.

Jamal Khashoggi: A Double-Agent Killed in Istanbul by Saudi Operatives

The New York Times labeled Jamal Khashoggi “a journalist critical of the Saudi government.”[1] His day job was being a contributing columnist to The Washington Post. Articles he wrote “included criticism of Saudi Arabia’s government. On [October 2, 2018], he entered the [Saudi] consulate in Istanbul and never emerged.”[2] Khashoggi was also a double agent, and it is for this rather than merely critical articles that he was really killed and cut into pieces in the consulate.

After “weeks of Saudi insistence that Mr. Khashoggi had left the consulate, unharmed, hours after entering,” Saudi Arabia’s government announced the “Khashoggi had been killed in a brawl inside the [Saudi] consulate [in Turkey].”[3] According to Turkish officials, the Saudi version was that “Khashoggi [had] died in a botched attempt at interrogation and abduction.”[4] Turkish officials even claimed to have recordings of the torture and killing.”[5]

The whole thing had been a “’’tremendous mistake’ by Saudi operatives acting ‘outside the scope of their authority,” said Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi foreign minister. [6] What “compounded the mistake,” he continued, would be the attempt to try to cover up.”[7]

It is highly improbable, I submit, that 15 operatives would be sent without the approval of the Saudi government at its highest level. Turkish government officials firmly believed that Khashoggi’s death was ordered at the highest level of the [Saudi] kingdom.”[8] They told the media anonymously “that a team of 15 Saudis flew to Istanbul on Oct. 2 to kill Mr. Khashoggi, most likely on the orders of the crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman.”[9] Additionally, the former head of Britain’s foreign intelligence service (MI6), John Sawers, observed at the time, “It’s very hard not to point a finger at [the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia].”[10] So, why would the highest level of the Saudi government go so far as to kill a Saudi journalist living in Virginia? Why all the lies? The Turkish Prime Minister picked up on them from the beginning.

I contend, from an anonymous American source, that Jamal Khashoggi was a double agent whom the Saudis killed and cut up into pieces (so as to sneak the remains out of the consulate in Istanbul). Just months earlier, the world witnessed the attempted assassination on British soil of Sergei Skripal, a former Russian spy who acted as a double agent.[11] So the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia could have considered killing Jamal Khashoggi as the appropriate response.
By implication, the world’s public could see only the lies meant ultimately to hide the fact that the Saudi Government killed a man who was not just a critical journalist who had left the kingdom in more ways than one. Behind the scenes lies the real story in more cases than the public could imagine. Such secrecy has always been a part of governing (and campaigning), but at some level the lies must surely impede democracy. Of course, autocratic governments would naturally be unmoved by such a constraint, but what about the U.S. Government, or at least its military, in keeping the real story hidden even from Americans?

1. Carlotta Gall and Ben Hubbard, “Turkey’s President Vows to Detail Khashoggi Death ‘in Full Nakedness,” The New York Times, October 21, 2018.

2. Emily Rauhala and Anton Troianovski, “The World Has a Question for the White House: When Do Murders Matter?” The Washington Post, October 19, 2018.

3. Carlotta Gall and Ben Hubbard, “Turkey’s President Vows to Detail Khashoggi Death ‘in Full Nakedness,” The New York Times, October 21, 2018.

4. Ibid.

5.Ibid.

6.Ibid.

7. Ibid.

8. Ibid.

9. Ibid.

10. Mary Papenfuss, “’Compelling Evidence’ Points to Saudi Prince in Khashoggi Death, Says Ex-MI6 Chief,” The Huffington Post, October 20, 2018.

11. Emily Rauhala and Anton Troianovski, “The World Has a Question for the White House: When Do Murders Matter?” The Washington Post, October 19, 2018.

China or USA: Which Will Rule Trade?

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) announced at its meeting in November 2012 that it would host negotiations among its members on “a sweeping trade pact that,” according to the New York Times, “would include China.” The trade agreement would include not only the ten countries that are in the association, but also six other countries that have free-trade agreements with the association. In addition to China, those countries include Australia, India, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea. Half of the world’s population would be included in the pact. Notably absent is the United States. This is no accident, as the Obama administration’s own proposal for an eleven-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership excludes China. In other words, the contending proposals may be more about a “control battle” between two contending empires—the United States and China—than anything else. Moreover, which proposal succeeds could say something about whether China succeeds the United States as the hegemonic super-power of the twenty-first century.

Barack Obama and Wen Jiabao: A contest of wills at the East Asia Summit in 2012.   Jason Reed/Reuters

That the immediate issue was that of China’s inclusion or exclusion can be gleamed from Barak Obama’s statement during one of the presidential debates in 2012. “We’re organizing trade relations with countries other than China so that China starts feeling more pressure about meeting basic international standards.” The inclusion of basic can be read as a slight against China. However, that protecting state-run enterprises as done by China would continue to be allowed under ASEAN’s Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership suggests that what the U.S. takes to be settled in terms of what constitutes the basics of international trade may not have been so settled after all. China could point to U.S. companies being able to deduct expenses on their income tax forms as a form of government aid to the home team. Since at least the mercantilist era in the seventeenth century, governments have carried out industrial policies designed to profit domestic companies and increase tax revenue. Laissez-faire-based trade may not be realistic, considering the myriad ways in which governments interact with business. Regulation itself, in being of a strategic to some firms more than others, could have a differential impact on domestic and foreign firms. It is unrealistic to assume that governments would stop regulating just so the trade is “fair” as well as “free.”

As the twenty-first century was coming into its own, two major economic powers in the world were contending not only for economic dominance, but political hegemony as well. Would it be another American century, or would power follow economic growth over to Asia? The “control battle” itself ostensibly about ordering trade alliances could be an indication that power was about to shift on a massive scale in terms of which economic power would become the definitive superpower.

Source:

Jane Perlez, “Asian Nations Plan Trade Bloc That, Unlike U.S.’s, Invites China,” The New York Times, November 21, 2012.  

The U.S. Military in Iraq: Were Human Rights Ignored?

Philip Alston, a United Nations human rights official, warned the U.S. Government in 2006 that he had received information indicating that Iraqi reports of American troops executing an Iraqi family were true. Five of the victims were children five years old or younger. According to Alston, the troops “entered the house [after a 25 minute gun battle], handcuffed all residents and executed all of them.” He noted that the troops attacked the house in part because they suspected that the family was involved in the killing of two American troops earlier in March, 2006. If this is true, both the vengeful attack and the subsequent investigation by the U.S. military, which concluded that the report of the execution was false, demonstrate what can go wrong when conflicts of interest are ignored.

In his Two Treatises of Government, John Locke writes that government is necessary because victims cannot be trusted to act as judges in meting out sentences in their own cases. At the very least, the aggressors could be expected to receive unduly harsh punishments because of the weight of vengeance on the victims’ judgment. So too, American troops cannot be trusted to take matters into their own hands concerning the shooting of other American troops. Moreover, the U.S. military cannot be expected to judge its own. So too, regarding the massacre of 1,200 prisoners at Abu Salim prison in Tripoli on June 29, 1996, which would prompt the protests that ultimately led to the fall of Qaddafi, the question of an independent investigation even by the rebels themselves should involve making certain that the ex-guards and government officials are not allowed to vitiate an investigation or its verdict. “We want a fair investigation to discover what exactly happened,” Jamal Bashir al-Gorgi said. His brother Faraj was killed. It is the ethical principle of fairness that is so easily discarded from justice when the victims become the victimizers.

Besides the matter of a military, whether African or American, “taking care of its own,” there is a danger, moreover, in having violence itself coming to be tacitly accepted simply because vested interests eviscerate accountability—which itself can foster a culture wherein spontaneous violence is not sufficiently held back from a normative standpoint. By the beginning of the twenty-first century, it could be that the world had become so accustomed to the continued existence of standing armies that violence itself had come to be expected, or at the very least engrained in societal norms. Hence, the U.S. military was thrust into Iraq as a clumsy reaction of vengeance after the terrorist attack in New York City in September, 2001. Incredibly, the military itself was trusted to investigate “its own” while Alston’s letter that was submitted to the U.S. Embassy in Geneva 12 days after the killings in March 2006 was virtually ignored.

It could be that the very existence of a standing army relegates human rights while potential vengeance is given a ready instrument. Indeed, the U.S. is not a member of the International Criminal Court (ICC), and the American union is one of the most militarized alliances in the world—ready to be engaged by a commander in chief who can de facto declare war on his own in spite of the conflict of interest. Perhaps if human rights were more valued in American society, such large standing armies as those in the U.S. would not be necessary. That is to say, perhaps there would be less hatred around the world directed at the American union.

Sources:

Richard Oppel, Jr., “Cable Implicates Americans in Deaths of Iraqi Civilians,” New York Times, September 2, 2011. 

Kareem Fahim, “Rebels Yank Open Gates of Infamous Libyan Prison, Seeking Clues to a Massacre,” New York Times, September 2, 2011. 

Extrapolating from the Arab Spring to Corporate Social Responsibility

Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Atlantic and a myriad of other companies, sees a natural extension or follow-through from the pro-democracy protests in the Middle East and North Africa to more corporate social responsibility. As much as I would like to think that the twenty-first century proffers a new world, I think we have to acknowledge the weight of the political, economic and social strictures that we have uncritically inherited.

The full essay is at "The Arab Spring and Corporate Responsibility."

The Russian Conscience: Human Rights in Syria

Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, warned on January 18, 2012, according to the New York Times, “that outside encouragement of antigovernment uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa could lead to ‘a very big war that will cause suffering not only to countries in the region, but also to states far beyond its boundaries.’” A very big war, it would seem, with very big stick, would be the result of “outsiders” stepping in to protect the Syrian protesters from their own government. In fact, the Times reports that “Lavrov said Russia would use its position on the United Nations Security Council to veto any United Nations authorization of military strikes against the government [of Syria].” It made no difference to Lavrov that the United Nations, including the Secretary General, had “repeatedly called for Syria [to] end a crackdown on opposition demonstrators, which Arab League monitors say resulted in hundreds of deaths over the past month.” In other words, the U.N. was officially impotent in being able to act on the basis of its “demand” because one of its members has a veto.

Lavrov’s position forces potential “outside” interventionists to justify their position. I would have thought that stepping in to stop people from being killed is a good thing. Lavrov was insisting it is bad. “If someone conceives the idea of using force at any cost—and I’ve already heard calls for sending some Arab troops to Syria—we are unlikely to be able to prevent this,” he said, “(b)ut this should be done on their own initiative and should remain on their conscience. They won’t get any authorization from the Security Council.” In other words, stopping people from being killed—from their own government no less—is a matter that would weigh on one’s conscience. One might ask Lavrov whether the Syrians killed because of his veto ought to weigh on his conscience. He was undoubtedly putting an absolutist view of national sovereignty before any right of “outsiders” to stop killing that at the very least, given a government’s formal monopoly of lethal force, unfair. Were he to relax his view of national sovereignty, would he still say that stopping the killing would remain on a conscience? There would not be much daylight between insisting even that and saying that interfering with Hitler’s concentration camps (or Stalin’s mass killing of the Polish elite) from abroad would have weighed on consciences. In other words, Lavrov can almost be read as being in favor of Assad’s killing spree, irrespective of national sovereignty needing to be respected for the world of nations to have order.

Of course, it could be objected that there was not much order in Syria at the time, and, moreover, that national sovereignty is not absolute on account of human nature, and that far from weighing on consciences, “outsiders” have a moral obligation to step in to stop killings when there is a reasonable expectation that they would otherwise happen. This obligation can be based on Kant’s imperative that there is a duty to treat rational nature, which humans have, as an end in itself and not merely as a means. This duty presumably includes stopping those people who would otherwise treat others only as means to their own designs. Alternatively, the obligation could be based on Hume’s moral theory, which holds that “immoral” simply is the sentiment of disapproval that humans naturally feel in watching something like a protester being dragged down the street and killed. In other words, what we naturally feel as a reaction to watching footage from Homs Syria is a valid basis for moral action.

Therefore, from both a rationalist and a psychological basis, moral theory can be used to justify the obligation of intervention by “outsiders.” This directly refutes Lavrov’s contention that there is an obligation not to intervene. Were one to talk with the family of a murdered Syrian, which position do you suppose the family members would say concurs with conscience? I’m thinking it’s not good ole Sergey’s. Fortunately, the rest of us can move on, past even our limp, even crippled U.N., to formulate and implement a mechanism with teeth for dealing with governments that engage in wholesale slaughter of their own citizens. Our consciences naturally demand nothing less.

Source:

Ellen Barry and Michael Schwirtz, “Russian Warns That Western Support for Arab Revolts Could Cause a ‘Big War’,” The New York Times, January 19, 2012. 

UN’s General Assembly as Nonbinding on Syria

According to the New York Times, “In a powerful rebuke to Syria’s government, the United Nations General Assembly voted overwhelmingly on [February 16, 2012] to approve a resolution that condemned President Bashar al-Assad’s unbridled crackdown on an 11-month-old uprising and called for his resignation under an Arab League peace proposal to resolve the conflict.” The reporter immediately undercuts his use of powerful by observing that the 137-12 vote (with 17 abstentions) is “a nonbinding action with no power of enforcement at the world body.” The “action” does represent “a significant humiliation” for Assad. I doubt very much if he felt humiliated. His UN ambassador “denounced the resolution as a politically motivated scheme to intervene in Syria by the Western powers and others who ‘would like to settle accounts with Syria.’” Altogether, the first two or three paragraphs of Gladstone’s article can be read in terms of logic as “X, not X.” Of course, the first X gets more attention, so the article gives the impression that the UN did something powerful when in fact the exercise was one of exposing the impotence of the world body.

That the resolutions of the General Assembly are nonbinding even for the UN is perhaps the epitome of self-emasculation. That the Security Council, on which just a fraction of the UN’s 193 members sit at any time, could have resolutions binding on the UN while the GA, on which every member sits, is allowed only non-binding “actions” suggests a democracy deficit in the UN itself—or at the very least a serious problem of priorities. The UN would have more legitimacy were its resolutions that are binding on itself voted on by all of the members—none of which having a veto and thus able to dominate the world body. This change would hardly be earth-shattering, as even “binding” resolutions have trouble finding enough respect to be acted on unless by certain members having a strategic geo-political interest in “volunteering” on the enforcement end. It is striking how Assad’s government can kill over 5000 citizens—whom Gladstone curiously refers to as “an uprising” as if Assad had met rather than led with weapons—and still be a valid member of the UN. I’m not convinced that unconditional love should apply to the organization that has a declaration of human rights, after all.

Therefore, rather than being “powerful” or “humiliating,” the nonbinding resolution of the UN’s General Assembly makes transparent just how bad that world body’s inherent flaws are. This conclusion is utterly hidden in the title that Gladstone went with: “General Assembly Votes to Condemn Syrian Leader.” A better, more realistic title would have been: “A lot of UN members mad at Syrian Government.” Let’s not gild the lily. With global warming and nuclear proliferation each being a viable threat to the continuance of our species, not to mention ourselves in particular regions, we can no longer afford to rely on the UN.

I envision a new world body with a General Assembly capable of enacting resolutions that are binding for still-existing members, none of which has a veto, and a Security Council consisting of rotating members that meets only to handle emergencies (again, no veto). The GA would be authorized to instruct the Security Council how to implement enforcement, using members as it will. Of course, countries would be free to leave the body and face isolation with respect to the benefits that membership provides. Behind this new organization is the realization that our species has stepped onto new land in the twenty-first century. This is not exactly a brave new world of terra firma (the frozen tundra melting in fact). We as a species now know that we can put our entire lot at risk.

We are even beginning to suspect that the historical absolutist interpretation of national sovereignty is now too dangerous, given what damage we can inflict on each other and on our species itself. Even for people not buying into this “new era” thinking, it must be obvious that the UN is an embarrassment and an utter failure with respect to protecting human rights and even ourselves from ourselves. Even just on the surface, a resolution that is non-binding even for the body that does the resolving suggests that the body itself is seriously flawed and deserves to be replaced. Yet as apparent as this reasoning may be, politicians are typically creatures of the status quo and won’t likely make a peep—preferring instead to cite Gladstone’s report of the “powerful rebuke.” Both the rebuke and Gladstone's characterization evince a case of the blind leading the blind. The beguiled followers blindly put still more clothes on the emperor while congratulating themselves on such a fine appearance having been achieved. “It looks good to me,” one blind man says to another. “I quite agree,” the other replies. All the while, the world sleeps, dreaming that it is wide awake.

Source:

Rick Gladstone, “General Assembly Votes to Condemn Syrian Leader,” The New York Times, February 17, 2012.