UN-Truth

The Associated Press (AP) is reporting today from Iraq that hundreds are flocking to see Saddam’s gravesite near his hometown of Tikrit.  One AP story has this: “Mohammed Natiq, a 24-year-old college student, said ‘the path of Arab nationalism must inevitably be paved with blood…God has decided that Saddam Hussein should have such an end, but his march and the course which he followed will not end,’ Natiq said.”  http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061231/ap_on_re_mi_ea/saddam

No, the mindset is not the expression of some defective culture, or religion, or genes, or DNA — it’s the product of decades, more than a century of decades, of being lied to, and dismissed, and oppressed.  

The license plates of the U.S. State of Vermont proclaim “Live free or die!”, so why should we expect anybody in the Middle East to believe something else?

Lawrence of Arabia lied to the Arabs, when he promised them independence if they fought with the British against the Ottoman Turks – he didn’t mean to lie, and he felt guilty about it to the end of his days.  But his bosses didn’t care.  They had other more strategic considerations.  The British were obsessed and annoyed by the French (and vice versa), and they tried to out-manoeuver and use each other whenever possible, but both were mistrustful of the Russians, and all of them were opposed to the Ottoman Turks who had ruled the Middle East for five hundred years. 

The Jewish representations, too, were used (London tried to play other diaspora organizations against the World Zionist Organization, for example), but the Jews used the Allied and Axis Powers back, with a vengeance. 

But, instead of finding any common cause with the Arabs, the Jewish leadership by-and-large despised the Arabs, and dismissed them, and dispossessed them, and continue to take pleasure in any small victory over Arabs.

The League of Nations was a shameless clearinghouse for colonialist ambitions of the victorious (over the Ottomans) Western European powers, and the United Nations simply took over the dossier, without ever solving the Middle East problems to this very day. 

UN General Assembly Resolution 181 was a legitimate disposal of the British Mandate of Palestine under what is called “international law” (the Arab delegations who were able to participate were out-voted and out-manoeuvered, but that’s democracy, isn’t it?). 

But, UN GA Resolution 181, adopted on 29 November 1947, authorized the partition of the former British Mandate of Palestine (the British didn’t want the hassle any more, and so just washed their hands of it and left) into a Jewish State and an “Arab” State, with economic union, and a “Special International Regime” (under UN rule at the beginning) for the city of Jerusalem. 

OK, Resolution 181 envisaged  “responsibilities” for the Trusteeship Council in the Partition Plan, but that never happened.

The General Assembly also requested the UN Security Council to take the necessary measures to implement the Partition Plan, and to determine as a threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression any attempt to alter by force the settlement envisaged in the Partition Plan.

Israel was proclaimed as the British pulled out, overnight, on 14-15 May 1948, but the “Arab” State of, or in, Palestine has not yet come into existence, despite many lost opportunites — lost not only by the Palestinians, as so many like to say, but also by Israel, by the United Nations, by the West, and by the rest of the world. 

All could have helped, but didn’t.

Let us also not forget that Israel was admitted as a full Member State in the United Nations in relatively short order, while Jordan (which had occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem) was not admitted until a Cold War package deal was concluded in 1955 – the Soviet Union said it believed that Jordan was just a British puppet.  This inequality in status at the United Nations also had a very negative impact on any well-meaning international attempts to reach a negotiated solution in this period.

Found on Col. Pat Lang’s blog — Al-Jazeera took a poll on the execution: Poll at Al-Jazeera:

“Should Saddam Hussein have been hanged?”

A. Yes 41.0%
B. No 43.2%
C. I don’t know 15.8%

Number of Pollers: 23013
Close Date: 7/1/2007

http://english.aljazeera.net/News/Polls/Polls

Also posted on Col. Lang’s blog: “…you have to admire the fact he didn’t repent of his megalomania, saying to the hangman, ‘Iraq is nothing without me.’  But he also was a skillful ruler and a legitimate one, as you pointed out in your briefing to the White House in late 1990 or early 1991. He had an extraordinary insight into his people –knowing when to massacre a section of a tribe or instead, build it a whole new sewage system and a string of free clinics.  Why demonize? Think of Somoza or the shah or Trujillo or the whole awfully bloody bunch of s—s we have used to advance our ends in the world. We did after all back Stalin and lied for years to the public about his actions and character. Amazing.” a comment by Richard Sale …  http://www.turcopolier.typepad.com/

Filed under: Iraq, Israel, Middle East Peace Process, Palestine & Palestinians, UN General Assembly, UN History