125 Days to Go

By Sherwin Pomerantz

Today is 125 days until the opening of the fall 2011 session of the United Nations General Assembly on September 14th.

Yesterday I started the countdown so that we don’t lose track of time and for us to be fully aware of the serious problems that loom before us.

I had made mention in Wednesday’s blog about UN Resolution 377. Here is the quick background on that resolution.

United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) resolution 377 (V), the "Uniting for Peace" resolution, states that, in cases where the United Nations Security Council fails to act in order to maintain international peace and security, owing to disagreement between its five permanent members, the matter shall be addressed immediately by the General Assembly, using the mechanism of the emergency special session.

The Uniting for Peace resolution—also known as the "Acheson Plan"—was adopted on November 3rd 1950, after fourteen days of Assembly discussions, by a vote of 52 to 5 (Czechoslovakia, Poland, Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic voted against), with 2 abstentions (India and Argentina).

In it, the General Assembly “resolves that if the Security Council, because of lack of unanimity of the permanent members, fails to exercise its primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security in any case where there appears to be a threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression, the General Assembly shall consider the matter immediately with a view to making appropriate recommendations to Members for collective measures, including in the case of a breach of the peace or act of aggression the use of armed force when necessary, to maintain or restore international peace and security."

To facilitate prompt action by the General Assembly in the case of a dead-locked Security Council, the resolution created the mechanism of the "emergency special session" (ESS), which can be called upon the basis of either a procedural vote in the Security Council, or within twenty-four hours of a request by a majority of UN Members being received by the Secretary-General. In procedural votes, the permanent members of the Security Council do not have the ability to block the adoption of draft resolutions, so unlike substantive matters, such resolutions can be adopted without their consent.

Emergency special sessions have been convened under this procedure on ten occasions, with the most recent convened in 1997. However, unlike preceding ESSs, the tenth ESS has been 'adjourned' and 'resumed' on numerous occasions, over the past several years, and remains adjourned. Indeed, more than ten separate 'meetings' of this ESS have been held by the Assembly, since the Year 2000.

For the record, the Uniting for Peace resolution was initiated by the United States, and submitted by the "Joint Seven-Powers" in October 1950, as a means of circumventing further Soviet vetoes during the course of the Korean War.

What does this mean for Israel? Very simply, even if the US, by means of its Security Council veto, prevents the UN recognition of an independent Palestinian state, the General Assembly basically, through Resolution 377, has the ability to override the Security Council. Should it choose to do so and approve the petition to recognize Palestine unilaterally, Israel would then find 350,000 of its citizens living in a “foreign” country overnight and be faced with a demand from a sovereign power that they be removed. Under extreme conditions it is possible to visualize international forces being brought in to assist the newly established Palestinian state to forcibly remove the Israelis, perhaps even at gunpoint. Sound far-fetched? I’m not so sure. In today’s world, anything is possible.

Remember, Israel is the legitimate homeland of the Jewish people. Do we who live here believe that? If we do it would seem to me that we not only need to keep telling ourselves that over and over again but also act as if we believe it. That means laying out our own plan for the future that ensures our survival here. It was Nelson Mandela who said “I cannot conceive of Israel withdrawing if Arab states do not recognize Israel, within secure borders.” This should be our mantra as well as our expectation of what the world community should understand. This is our precondition for Palestinian statehood, nothing less!