The Blogs: 3 Step Israeli UN Action Plan

Primary Aims

1/ The UN Conference for Palestinian state in early June is part of a widespread political, legal and media attack on Israel. Encompassing the UN, the EU, many individual states (including many of our ‘friends’), the ICJ and ICC, this onslaught will only intensify. Yet how is Israel prepared to deal with this? In fact, does Israel have a political strategy for dealing with it – and a strategic perspective for what lies beyond the UN Conference?

2/ Danny Danon has already explained that the situation for Israel at the UN has become much more difficult; the intensity of Resolutions against Israel are beyond imagination; that every week there are reports loaded with hostile content. Consequently, he said that Israel needs to play offense. But what is that offensive and where is it?

3/ In line with the need for an offensive, this brief action plan proposes a pro-active political attack with three primary aims:

Reverse the absence of condemnation by the UN of those who intend to destroy Israel.
Reverse the blame and thus guilt for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict away from Israel and onto the Palestinians.
Show the path to the ONLY possible peaceful solution.

Step One – Engage UN Member States

4/ Hopefully, Israel has already coordinated with our closest international allies to meet this challenge. Additionally, ahead of the Conference, Israel should reach-out to all UN member states inviting their views on resolving the conflict. They should be invited to respond to a series of questions.

Questions that challenge a Palestinian state

How can a Palestinian state that is intent on destroying Israel produce a peaceful and successful 2-state solution?
How can Israel safely withdraw from territory claimed by the Palestinians without convincing and reliable evidence that the Palestinian factions no longer intend to destroy Israel?

Questions to challenge the role of the UN

What due-diligence has the UN undertaken to ensure that Palestinian intentions align with a vision of a peaceful solution?
What measures has the UN proposed to ensure that the Palestinians jettison the Palestinian National Charter and abandon the aim of destroying Israel?

Step Two – Coordinate Interventions at the UN

Questions to take control of the discussion

5/ The PMO and the MFA should work with the US and other friendly states to repeat the questions from Step 1. These should be repeated in every article, interview and forum so that eventually it will be impossible for these issues to be ignored.

6/ In order to direct attention to the driving force of the conflict, the following should be emphasized:

The Palestinian refusal to accept and live with a Jewish state.
The Palestinian refusal to accept a 2-state solution as an end to the conflict.
The Palestinian intention to destroy Israel is the insurmountable obstacle to any peaceful solution.

Step Three – Counter Resolutions to the UN

7/ The first paragraph of Article 1, the UN Charter declares that its first purpose is:

To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to peace,

8/ Yet it is well-known that for decades Hamas and many other armed terrorist groups and hostile states have maintained and acted upon the open and explicit intention of destroying Israel. In all that time, the UN has never condemned this aim or demanded that it should be abandoned. The practical effect of this betrayal of the UN Charter is that the UN has tolerated and thus effectively permitted these eliminationist intentions to proceed unchecked – with today’s war in the Gaza Strip as a consequence.

9/ Therefore, central to an Israeli political offensive is the need to reverse this. Given the current composition and disposition of the UN it is evident that an Israel counter-resolution on this basis will not succeed immediately – even if backed by the US and President Trump. Instead, the perspective for the 3-Steps is not for a fast and decisive victory but the gradual expansion of international support for Israel and weakening of support for Palestinian statehood.

10/ During a long-term campaign, two main considerations are envisaged:

Israel’s political aim is not only to reach the UN and engage on these issues with member states, but also to reach the international public.
Accordingly, these questions need constant repetition to build support and make them the expected response from Israel.

11/ With this stipulation, the purpose of the proposed resolutions is to win support within the UN and with the wider international public as follows:

Condemn incitement against Israel

Demand that the UN condemn those who aim to eliminate Israel.
Demand UN solidarity with Israel against these eliminationist threats.
Demand that the UN pressurizes the Palestinians to abandon the Palestinian National Charter and the aim of eliminating Israel (see Annexes).

Challenge UN recognition of a Palestinian state

Demand the revocation of all UN Resolutions that endorse Palestinian statehood due to the open and explicit Palestinian intention to eradicate Israel.
Demand that UN acceptance of Palestinian self-determination be conditional on explicit and reliable Palestinian acceptance of the Jewish state.

12/ In reality, many more questions are involved. In particular, the UN perpetually invokes international law yet perpetually ignores it. Therefore, simple questions can be designed to reveal this. For example:

How can international law be served by establishing a state that intends to destroy another state?
How can regional peace and security be served by the creation of a state that intends to eliminate another?

Comments on the 3-Step Plan

13/ By posing simple questions that clearly require strong answers, that are never supplied by supporters of a Palestinian state, the campaign would undoubtedly generate tremendous noise at the UN. This would secure world-wide media interest and offer Israel an audience of many millions to alert a wider international public to issues that supporters of a Palestinian state never answer.

14/ The campaign would end the monopoly of the standard depiction of the conflict as a black-and-white issue with Israel always seen as the guilty party. This would be a huge political advantage for Israel to succeed in getting such issues out in the open – even without an outright or immediate win.

15/ The above approach also addresses a serious political difficulty for Israel. This is that even friendly states are wary of open and full support. Most favor a 2-state solution. The underlying political-ideological basis for this is the belief that Israel occupies Palestinian territory and denies demands for Palestinian self-determination. Political and intellectual echelons of many countries see Israel as responsible for the conflict. Naturally, this inhibits public support from those states. To the extent that this remains unchallenged, there is little prospect of more fulsome international approval (see Annexes).

16/ Following the lead of the Palestinians who always present a simple message that blames the conflict on the “occupation”, the incessant repetition of the 3-Steps questions in every article, interview and international forum is likely to be a revelation to wide sections of the international public. For many in the ‘international community’, this will represent a Copernican-style revolution of the customary way of seeing the conflict. As a result, Palestinian statehood may be considered a superb policy, but only for a situation that doesn’t exist (Palestinian acceptance of a Jewish state) and disastrous for the situation that does exist (Palestinian refusal to accept a Jewish state).

Why the campaign will succeed even if resolutions fail.

17/ By putting this under the spotlight for the first time, it becomes much more difficult to avoid the conclusion that a Palestinian state intent on annihilating Israel cannot be peaceful or within international law. Without expecting an immediate or outright win at the UN, this will make it progressively more difficult for states and the UN itself to ignore Israel’s interests. By asking questions rather than making direct accusations, which can simply be brushed aside with denials and counter-statements, it becomes much more difficult for advocates of a Palestinian state to disguise their avoidance of answers.

18/ However, many member states of the UN are so hostile to Israel or entrenched in their views that they will not be deterred. Additionally, states have many reasons and interests behind their international ‘positions’. But by posing the issues in ways avoided by those that favor Palestinian statehood, it places hitherto missing due-diligence at the center of international concerns for the first time. To get these issues out-in-the-open to the international public will be a big political achievement for Israel.

19/ Furthermore, this approach enables the argument to be shifted away from an exclusive and largely media-driven focus on what may be termed the event-facts of the conflict. Event-facts are an endless series of incidents that undoubtedly fuel the conflict but do not cause it – and are almost always presented in a way that harms Israel. Instead, the 3-Steps approach permits a way to shift focus to causal-facts which highlight that the Palestinian intention to eradicate Israel is the driving force of the conflict and is the insurmountable obstacle to any peaceful solution.

How to Make it Happen

20/ Amazingly, throughout the current war with Hamas, our international spokespersons show little awareness of the distinction between event-facts and causal-facts. As a result, they are ill-equipped to deal with the media focus on event-facts that undoubtedly fuel the conflict but are not its cause. This typically traps them on the defensive. Consequently, the political power of causal-facts, which point to the core problem and its solution, is almost never exposed. This is the chief weakness that produces Israel’s inability to turn victory in battles into victory in international politics.

21/ Additionally, our spokespersons almost never have supporting materials available – such as the Hamas Covenant, the Palestinian National Charter, the UN Charter and the Fourth Geneva Convention. A more convincing approach would be to refer to these documents ad infinitum as an informative and insistent way to raise them to the level of international public knowledge and demonstration of Israel’s central message.

22/ Via the PMO and the MFA, Israel’s embassies should convene advocacy organizations, large and small, to coordinate pre-preparation and back-up for the campaign at the UN. Embassy initiated meetings can also be utilized to rehearse the skills and supporting knowledge necessary in several key topics (see Annexes) and so provide political ammunition for state and public diplomacy as well as the media skills necessary.

23/ Finally, the UN is a superb international arena for Israel to stir matters up, to make a noise, to be politically assertive, to show political determination, to provide political ammunition and leadership to friends, to build alliances, to disrupt the established UN narrative, and to show what is usually hidden from the international public. All it needs is an ambitious strategic vision with the energy, persistence and focus to direct attention to causal-facts and not remain perpetually stuck in event-facts.

Annexes

* The Palestinian Intention to Destroy Israel
* REFUTING the Charge of ‘Occupation’
* Conflicting Concepts of the Two-State Solution
* Why Israel Builds on the West Bank
* UNSCR 242 Does Not Require Israeli Withdrawal
* The Power of REPETITION