Arguments will be made that Israel has the right to protect its citizens. It does. However, Israeli action since 1947-48 has resulted in the untenable situation that makes it impossible to determine what boundaries contain Israeli citizens since hundreds of thousands of those citizens reside on Palestinian land as determined by the UN’s Resolutions 181 and 242 in particular. That is precisely why the UN must be the principal agent in resolving this crisis. Consideration of the Saudi Prince’s Peace Plan of 2002 could provide a solid base for discussions as it accomplishes two things, the determination of boundaries and the recognition of Israel by all Arab nations. Boundaries must be determined, but those boundaries must be just, i.e. boundaries established providing specific land to each party as 181 does. Should negotiations result in modification of those lines, both Palestinians and Israelis would have to be accepting of those changes. 

Once boundaries are reestablished, the UN must provide a Peace Patrol that will ensure the safety of both populations. Practical considerations would suggest that the UN peacekeepers would be stationed along the boundaries which will in many places be along the existing wall. However, as negotiations continue and as time passes, the wall must be torn down. It is illegal as determined by the International Court of Justice. Given enough time for successive generations to live beside each other, with peacekeepers serving as mediators for both groups, the two communities will confront the necessity of shared living which should result in shared employment, shared water resources, shared travel between the populations, shared knowledge of each others’ values, traditions, customs, arts and even cuisine.

The placement of an outside objective authority between the two populations will resolve the issues as detailed in all of the UNSC resolutions since 1967 - 248, 252, 259, 267, 271, 298, 338, 339, 381, 446, 452, 465, 468, 469, 471, 476 (with emphasis on all occupied territories and Jerusalem), 478 (focuses on the illegal actions of the Israelis regarding Jerusalem), 484, 512, 513, 517, 520, 521, 573, 592, 605, 607, 608,611, 636,641, 672 (specifically reaffirms resolutions 242 and 338), 673, 681, 694, 726,799, 904, 1073, and 1322 (2000). Under President Bush, no actions against Israeli aggression were countenanced and hence no UNSC resolutions were enacted or enforced. (See a detailed accounting of these resolutions and Israel’s defiance of them in an open letter to “Mr. Bush, What about Israel’s defiance of UN Resolutions?” Michael Ladah and Suleiman I. Ajlouni, 2002).

What benefits accrue from this action? First, Israel returns to a legal status in the eyes of the world’s communities with acceptance of all UNSC resolutions; Second, Israel is assured of security by the International community and by the Peacekeepers placed in Palestine/Israel to protect both populations; Third, Israel removes the cost of its military operations that forces it to occupy Palestine; Fourth, Israel opens up a new population, living beside it in peace, to commercial pursuits, a population in dire need of most goods; Fifth, Israel gains the recognition it has sought these many years should the provisions of the 2002 Peace Plan serve as the instrument for reconciliation; Sixth, Palestinians are assured of a homeland, of independence to determine their own government and laws; Seventh, with the help of the International community, Palestinians could rebuild their cities and towns, economic system, and infrastructure; and, Eighth, and finally,  both populations would benefit from cross fertilization of their respective economies including shared understanding of their respective cultures. 

Acceptance of the UN as the force that can bring about a lasting peace rests upon the following points: 1. The US is not and should not be the authorizing agent between these two populations since resolution of the crisis is ineluctably international in scope and was formed by international action by the accepted international body, the United Nations; 2. The US should not continue its military assistance to Israel on such a scale, thereby saving the American taxpayer billions of dollars annually while forcing Israel to confront existence in the mid-East without America’s unconditional support, a position that Netanyahu ironically supported when Prime Minister years ago; 3. Without US military and economic aid, Israel would have to defy the International community, be forced from the United Nations, and survive alone or accept that it must join the International community as a contributing partner and legal member; 4. The albatross that has hung from the neck of the United States these past 60 years, the control of its government by the forces supporting Israel both within that country and in America, would be severed, releasing as a consequence both the President and the congressional representatives from their subservience to a foreign power, allowing America to be free once again. 

The world has witnessed the ruthlessness of the Israeli state in its razing of Lebanon in the fall of 2006 and in its devastating destruction of Gaza trapped within the Israeli constructed entombment wall that surrounds them just three months ago. That ruthlessness, witnessed by the peoples of the world through film made available over the Internet, undertaken in open defiance of International law, of the Geneva Conventions, of the Charter of the United Nations, and in total disregard for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, declares to the world community of nations that Israel abides by no laws but its own, respects no sanctity of life but its own, submits to no authority but its own, defies all boundaries of established States to achieve its own ends, judges who will live and who will die by extrajudicial execution mocking thereby the laws of civilized states, shoots at will mothers and children seeking refuge where there is none, imprisons Palestinians without charge or due rights, tortures its prisoners, bulldozes the homes of helpless people, constructs walls to enclose those unable to protect themselves, lays siege to those it has incarcerated denying them even the basic food stuff of life, cripples the infrastructures of the helpless depriving them of medical supplies creating in the process unsanitary conditions destructive of human life, and without shame stands before the Nations United as the victim of discrimination, hatred, and racism, seeking from them license to continue these crimes against humanity.

Who will defend the actions of this state that threatens even now the state of Iran, that has attacked the state of Syria without provocation, that continues to defy the air space of Lebanon, that offers no recompense to that state for the destruction it caused costing billions of dollars, offers no compensation to the Palestinians or the UN for the destruction it caused in Gaza, has attacked its perceived enemies in Sudan and Somalia without seeking aid from the respective governments, and has declared openly that it will attack its alleged enemies anywhere in the world without consultation with countries involved? This is a state that seeks unending war. This state defies the International community, mocks it, and challenges it to intervene by condemning any acts taken against it as anti-Semitic and potentially genocidal.

Perhaps it is time for the United Nations to shoulder the burden of this state that stands in defiance of its very Charter and of all the International agreements that provide for the security of its members including nuclear non-proliferation treaties. Perhaps it is time for this President to stand against the state that shackles America into unending wars by forcing the US to support its constant aggression against its neighbors. Perhaps Emanuel’s trumpet has sounded the death knell of Israel’s hold over the United States releasing America to march to a different drummer, one who understands the chains that bind, the fires that burn, the walls that surround, and the illusions created by the ruthless that bury truth and freedom. Justice after all, in the words of Lord Hewart, “must not just be done, it must manifestly and undoubtedly be seen to be done.” 

William Cook, a senior editor of MWC News, is a professor of English at the University of La Verne in southern California and author of Tracking Deception: Bush's Mideast Policy, "The Rape of Palestine" and "The Chronicles of Nefaria." By this author: http://mwcnews.net/william-cook

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