UNSCR 1860…Israel’s Real Fiasco Exposed

Mohamad Shmaysani Readers Number : 112

09/01/2009

The United Nations Security Council approved Gaza Strip ceasefire resolution number 1860. The resolution, submitted by Britain, passed with a majority of 14 votes. The United States abstained from voting.

Notably, the word "Hamas", the key Palestinian party in the Israeli war on Gaza is not mentioned in the document. Israel's UN Envoy Gabriela Shalev said that "the international community must focus its attention on the cessation of Hamas' terrorist activity and make clear that a terrorist organization can never be a legitimate leadership."

Israel maneuvered at the UN and attempted to postpone the vote by 24 hours to score any achievement from its Gaza war, but failed.

LIVNI ON UN RESOLUTION: WE’LL ACT ONLY ACCORDING TO OUR CALCULATIONS

In its first reaction to the UN resolution, Israeli Foreign Minister said that Tel Aviv "has acted, and will continue to act only according to its calculations, in the interest of the security of its citizens and its right to self defense."

What concerns Israel the most is that after 14 days of military operations, Hamas was not going anywhere.

For his part, Vice Premier Minister and head of the Israeli Shas party Eli Yishai lashed out at the international community saying: "The world has become Haniyeh and Hamas' lobbyist. Nothing will happen if this resolution stays on paper. Our interest is all that matters."

MAIN PROVISIONS OF THE RESOLUTION

The UN resolution "Stresses the urgency of and calls for an immediate, durable, and fully respected ceasefire, leading to the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza." However, the text only requires Israel to fully withdraw from the Strip after a complete ceasefire goes into effect in the area.

It also calls for arrangements in Gaza to prevent arms smuggling to Palestinians and reopen border crossings, and for "unimpeded provision" and distribution of aid in Gaza.

Addressing the council, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice praised the resolution and said she abstained only because the United States first wanted to see the outcome of an Egyptian mediation effort.

Observers see the UNSCR as a gift to some Arab nations, namely the so called moderate Arab regimes, to save face as they came under intense public pressure to secure an immediate end to Israel's 13-day war on Gaza that has killed more than 760 Palestinians.

It was one of the rare times that Arabs insist on not leaving New York before reaching a resolution on an issue because the magnitude of the massacre in Gaza has brought their regimes on the brink of danger.

ANALYSIS: ISRAEL IN DENIAL; RESISTANCE POSE CONDITIONS

The UN resolution, in fact, is not binding since it does not fall under Chapter Seven of the UN Charter. Israel has a history ignoring international resolution and likewise the US has a history of vetoing UN resolutions that are critical of Israel.
Rice did not veto resolution 1860 yet she did not vote in its favor.
Her move signals that Washington is not satisfied with the resolution, implicitly telling Tel Aviv that resolution 1860 is not binding, hence, to act accordingly. The resolution “stresses the urgency” for an immediate ceasefire but does not say “a cease fire should take effect as of” a determined date and hour.

Moreover, the resolution says that the ambiguous ceasefire “leads to the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza” linking the pullout to an undetermined time limit.

Furthermore, the UN resolution calls for arrangements (Return of Abbas.......) to reopen crossings and the “distribution” of aid in Gaza. This means that the situation in the Strip would return to square one which is the continuation of the blockade on Gaza. Resolution 1860 does not “call” for the end of the Israeli embargo on the Strip. It also welcomes the Egyptian initiative.

Hamas representative in Lebanon Osama Hamdan said Hamas was not affected by the Security Council's resolution. He stressed the resolution is primarily a reflection of Israel's failure in the field.
"This failure is what brought the resolution about, but we stress that no one has consulted with us. This resolution does not take the Palestinian interest into consideration, and does not address lifting the siege or opening the crossings," Hamdan said.

Palestinian groups based in Syria, including Hamas, believe the Egyptian plan in its current formula aimed at securing a permanent ceasefire in the Gaza Strip "has no valid basis," a Palestinian official said on Thursday. Hamas however added that it will study the proposal and inform the Egyptian side of its reservations.

The proposal is based mostly on the 2005 agreement on the crossings that Israel signed. It established that the Rafah crossing would be operated by the Palestinian Authority and a third party - in this case the European Union - would supervise its operation.

But Hamas’s landslide victory in general elections of 2006 resulted in putting off effectively the document governing the crossings in Gaza.

"The Franco-Egyptian initiative does not contribute towards finding a solution since it is a threat to the resistance and the Palestinian cause, allowing the enemy to continue its aggression. We reject the presence of international forces or observers in Gaza, since this is aimed at defending the security of the occupation and reinforcing the blockade against the resistance. We call for a halt to the aggression, a withdrawal (of Israeli forces) without delay, lifting the blockade and opening the crossing points, especially at Rafah,” Palestinian groups based in Syria, including Hamas said in a joint statement Thursday.

The decision by Israel to adopt the Egyptian-French-American “compromise” may bring an end to the fighting in the Strip, however if Israel rejected the proposal it may bring about the crash of President Mahmoud Abbas' rule in the West Bank. And that will, by extension, destroy the so called road map. At midnight Friday the tenure of Abbas as President of the Palestinian Authority comes to an end.

For now, Israel rejects including Hamas in any deal or compromise because it does not want to give legitimacy to the resistance movement.

Hamdan firmly said that if the UN resolution is to be amended to something more practical, "it must be done with us and us alone, along with the other Palestinian resistance organizations," he said, adding that his movement is not bound by the current resolution.

Tel Aviv’s military and political dilemma lies here.
For 14 days, more than 30,000 Israeli soldiers, air forces, naval forces, security forces, thousands of raids, more than 4,000 Palestinian civilian victims and more than 110 Israel army casualties, the Zionist entity has failed to achieve a single point to claim it can come out of the Gaza war with an upper hand. Militarily speaking, the Israeli army needs salvation fast. Politically speaking, Israel has not scored any results of its aggression on Gaza, therefore it has literarily nothing to bargain on, except from threatening to target more civilians.

As Israel is more likely to emerge broken, again, from this war while Hamas and other resistance movements are still strong, calm, still firing rockets at settlements and fighting back and inflicting heavy losses in occupation army ranks, Tel Aviv is in denial.

It finds it difficult to accept Hamas having an official role in Gaza after the war ends as including the resistance group in governance will never mean the “new security reality” that Israel promoted as one of its objectives.