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Jon Dyson

A 5-Step Israeli UN Action Plan

Creator: Frank Franklin II | Credit: AP License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

1/   By its silence and lack of condemnation of states and entities which openly declare their intention to destroy Israel, the UN has betrayed its core Charter aim of working for peace. Instead, by the absence of demands that Iran, Hezbollah, the PA, Hamas and others abandon this aim, the UN effectively tolerates their goal.

2/   As is obvious, this has not contributed to a peaceful solution. It has also grossly distorted public understanding of the conflict and abandoned Israel in the face of serial threats to its existence. UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, is a major perpetrator of this betrayal.      

3/   What can be done to rectify this failure? Two current factors offer a set of circumstances which may prove favorable to the development of political perspectives to liberate Israel from the damage done by the UN:

  1. Donald Trump is the US president for the next four years. With a mixture of hope and trepidation, this could provide Israel with an unprecedented opportunity to shift the international political landscape towards Israel.    
  2. In June this year, a major UN conference on the 2-State Solution will be held.  Scheduled to be a well-publicized display of anti-Israel sentiments,  it is also a major opportunity for Israel to advance its political interests to member-states and to the international public.    

4/   A serious difficulty for Israel in this task is that even states friendly towards Israel are wary of open and full support. Most favor a 2-state solution.  The underlying political-ideological basis for this belief is that Israel occupies Palestinian territory and refuses a legitimate demand for Palestinian self-determination. In essence, this sees Israel as responsible for the conflict. Naturally, this inhibits public support from those states. To the extent that these positions remain unchallenged, there is little prospect of more fulsome international approval and advocacy.

5/  Therefore, the possibilities presented by the Trump presidency and the forthcoming UN conference should not be missed. Beginning with the UN conference on the 2-state solution in June, a particular approach is suggested below to transfer blame and thus guilt for the continued conflict away from Israel and onto the Palestinians. This will be linked to measures to reverse the extraordinary lack of condemnation by the UN of those states and entities that openly and explicitly aim to destroy Israel – in total defiance of foundational UN aims for peace and security.

Step One – A Question to UN states 

6/   Well ahead of the June conference a letter should be sent from the government of Israel to all UN member states. This will be very short. It will welcome the views of each country towards solving the conflict. It will also invite pre-conference responses to a single simple question: How do you envisage that Israel can safely withdraw from territory claimed by the Palestinians without convincing and reliable evidence that the Palestinian factions and population no longer intend to destroy Israel?

7/   For those who deny or ignore the eliminationist intentions of the Palestinians (see Annex below), a further question is this: what due-diligence have you undertaken to ensure that the Palestinians really would accept a state living peacefully alongside the Jewish state? 

8/   Naturally, with the existence of Israel at risk, the ‘convincing and reliable  evidence’ required has to be really convincing and reliable. If Israel gets this wrong and Palestinians retain their eliminationist aim, the result will not be a peaceful end to the conflict but an escalation of it. In this case, what appears to many as a superb policy is only superb for a situation that doesn’t exist (the acceptance of Israel) but disastrous for the situation that does exist (the non-acceptance of Israel). 

9/   This prospect can be demonstrated even more starkly by the following question:  How do you envisage that a Palestinian state that is intent on destroying Israel can produce a peaceful and successful 2-state solution? 

10/  As this is self-evidently impossible, the absence of serious or substantial answers points to the absence of a real solution to the conflict. To put this differently, when Palestinian aspirations to destroy Israel are factored-in, the simplicity and fairness of the idea of a peaceful and successful 2-state solution evaporates. In effect, the attractive-power of the 2-state solution relies on ignoring or denying Palestinian intentions to destroy Israel. 

11/  Therefore, by focusing on the critical failure of the proposed ‘solution’, these questions challenge the UN narrative which has hitherto escaped serious scrutiny.   Putting the UN ‘solution’ under the spotlight in this way makes it practically impossible to avoid the conclusion that a Palestinian state intent on annihilating Israel will be a disaster. Of course, many member-states of the UN are so hostile to Israel that they will not be deterred. But by posing the issue not previously confronted by the UN, a realistic discussion is opened up and publicized for the first time. This is much harder to avoid than a direct accusation which can simply be brushed aside with a denial.

12/  As is well-known, the core Palestinian claim is short and simple: Israel’s “occupation” is to blame for the conflict. Repeated without serious challenge over many decades, this is a highly effective message. Unfortunately, Israel’s equivalent political counter message is practically invisible and inaudible. Therefore, Israel needs to remedy this by focusing on its own central message – that the real driving force of the conflict is: 

  • the Palestinian refusal to accept and live with a Jewish state,
  • the Palestinian intention to destroy it. 

***

Step Two – Coordinated Interventions at the UN

13/  Also ahead of the UN conference, the PM’s office and the MFA should work with the US and other friendly states to coordinate the presentation of the same questions in a series of interventions both before and at the June conference. This will generate the noise and momentum needed to ensure newsworthiness. By incessant repetition in every article, interview and forum, the intention is to make it well-nigh impossible for Israel’s central message to be ignored.  

14/   Further, this central message is linked to other factors that Israel needs to become public knowledge. For example, the fact that the UN has not opposed, condemned or even mildly reprimanded those entities and states which intend to annihilate Israel is well-nigh incredible – despite this being in total opposition to basic UN aspirations outlined in the UN Charter.  

15/  Therefore, at the June conference a second question may be posed which simultaneously critiques the UN and  keeps the eliminationist aims of the Palestinians at the forefront of attention: What measures does the UN propose to ensure that the Palestinians jettison the Palestinian National Charter and abandon the aim of destroying Israel?  

***

Step Three – A Counter Resolution to the UN

16/  In conjunction with supportive states, the third step is to ‘attack’ the general view of the General Assembly and the likely view of the June conference that the Palestinians are victims deserving a state. This can be done with a counter-resolution to emphasize that a peaceful solution to the conflict is not possible as long as the Palestinian organizations maintain the aim of destroying Israel.  Therefore, the counter-resolution will conclude that the ONLY path to a peaceful solution is for the Palestinians to abandon the Palestinian National Charter and its aim of annihilating Israel.   

17/  To make this effective, the resolution should also propose the reversal of GA Resolution ES-10/23 of May 2023. This declared that: 

… the state of Palestine is fully qualified for membership of the United Nations in accordance with Article 4 of the Charter of the United Nations and should therefore be admitted to the United Nations.

Leaving aside that Palestine is not a state, Article 4 of the UN Charter actually says:

Membership of the United Nations is open to all other peace-loving states which accept the obligations contained in the present Charter.

As can be seen from its manifesto, the Palestinian National Charter, its daily Al-Hayat Al Jadida, and a host of other sources, the PA lives, breathes, dreams and acts for the destruction of Israel. It cannot by any stretch of the imagination be described as ‘peace-loving’. Consequently, the Palestinians are absolutely not qualified for membership.

18/  Further, the resolution will call upon the UN and  member states to condemn those who aim to eliminate Israel and demand an immediate end to this aim.  Therefore, recognition of a Palestinian state should be rescinded and made conditional on explicit, reliable and convincing acceptance of the Jewish state by the Palestinian factions. Without this, the UN effectively supports the continued Palestinian rejection of Israel and the war against it. 

***

Israel’s Audience & Public Relations

19/  Even if backed by the US and President Trump, these measures are currently unlikely to find immediate and overwhelming support in the UN. Nor is there any evidence that the Palestinians will accept such a perspective. Therefore, it is important to bear in mind that Israel’s target audience is not only the UN with its mix of friendly and hostile states, but the international public. This is why Israel needs to reconsider its Public Relations messaging so that these and other questions can be raised to the level of international public knowledge. To date, Israel has not found a way to achieve this.     

20/   To rectify this, the question-based approach holds two key advantages.  

  1. It avoids the typical lecturing and hectoring of telling states and individuals what they must think, or must do. This fails because telling-isn’t-selling.    
  2. It 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. These are the never-ending series of incidents that fuel the conflict but do not cause it, yet are almost always presented in a way that harms Israel. 

21/  This allows attention to focus directly onto Israel’s central message of the underlying causal-facts to demonstrate that the driving force of the conflict is the Palestinian refusal to accept a Jewish State and their intention to destroy it.  Repeated ad infinitum in every international forum, interview and article, the questions such as those above are simultaneously interrogations and accusations.  This transfers the standard blame for the conflict, and thus guilt, away from Israel onto the Palestinians.  

22/   To achieve this is to deliver big political and moral dividends for Israel.   In turn, this will create a political environment that will make it much easier to avoid or combat hostile measures from hostile states and institutions. In sum, this approach emphasizes that the key to successful Public Relations is not only the response-time or the quality of Israel’s hasbara, but its political content.

23/  As a result, instead of the standard UN assumption that Israel must make ‘painful’ concessions, it transfers the focus of concessions to the Palestinians. By reasoning that a ‘solution’ to the conflict which involves the destruction of Israel cannot be peaceful, the unreasonableness of such a solution is highlighted. 

***

How can Israel organize for this?

24/  Amazingly, during media interviews, our spokespersons show little awareness of these distinctions. As a result, they are ill-equipped to deal with the media focus on event-facts that typically trap them on the defensive. Additionally, they almost never have supporting materials available. And how often do they draw public attention to the Hamas Covenant or the Palestinian National Charter? Seldom?  Never? Instead, these should always be mentioned as an informative and insistent way to prove Israel’s central message.

25/   All this is why the international public remains overwhelmingly unaware of these issues. To solve this problem, and provide the political knowledge and guidance needed when responding to the noise generated by the Steps above, a much higher level of concerted and focused attention is required than Israel has achieved previously.  

26/  Therefore, via the PM’s Office and the MFA, Israel’s embassies should convene organizations such as the AJC, Stand-With-Us, the Israel Allies Caucus, UN Watch and many others. Prior to the June UN conference, these meetings can prepare the use of a series of questions to put advocates of a Palestinian state and the media on-the-spot, and so provide political ammunition to the international public.  Embassy initiated meetings can also be utilized to rehearse the skills and back-up knowledge necessary in several key topics (see Annexes).

***

Step 4 – The Trump Presidency

27/  Although initially aimed at the UN Conference of June 2025, the above approach would be a sound preparation for the construction of dense international Israel advocacy networks alongside the loose networks which currently exist in many countries. Four years of the Trump presidency are likely to offer opportunities for Israel to pursue a strategic perspective to advance its political interests at the UN and with international public opinion. 

28/   This is not business-as-usual but an unprecedented opportunity for Israel. It will involve many more questions than those above. For example, as noted earlier, the determination of the UN to expand Palestinian self-determination to full statehood studiously turns a blind-eye to Palestinian determination to end Israeli self-determination altogether. In a similar fashion, while invoking international law and advocating regional peace and security, these issues are entirely ignored by the UN in practice. As before, incessant repetition of simple questions illustrate this:

  • 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?

29/  With no sensible answers possible, these questions are also avoided like the plague by the UN – which is why they need incessant repetition to drill them into public consciousness. Further, by a placing the issues on a personal level, advocacy of a Palestinian state can be confounded by this simple question: 

  • What mutually satisfactory compromise would you propose if someone intended to kill you and you intended not to be killed?

***

Step 5 – Beyond Israel

30/  Finally, Israel would do itself a power of good by including issues in this political offensive that are not directly connected to Israel or Palestinians – yet raise issues related to Israel. For example, the Kurds are the largest national group without a state. Therefore, in conjunction with Kurdish representatives, Israel could initiate resolutions at the UN to secure a seat at the GA similar to that so disgracefully awarded to the PA.

31/  Likewise, Israel could propose resolutions to the UN in favor of Taiwan, which is barred from membership due to the Chinese claim to the island.  By not challenging this claim, the UN once again shamelessly discards the principles of justice, fairness, and self-determination, outlined in its Charter. Perhaps China and the UN can be incessantly reminded of the 2-state solution which they are so eager to support for Israel where it is least suitable?   

32/  In conclusion, the UN is a ready-made platform for Israel to stir matters up, to make a noise, to be politically assertive, to show political determination, to provide political leadership to friends, to build alliances, to disrupt the established UN narrative, and to show what is usually hidden from the wider international public.  All it needs is a strategic perspective that focuses on primary political content that always directs attention to causal-facts rather than event-facts. 

Jon Dyson
www.arguments4israel.com

Annexes 

About the Author
Born in UK 1944. First Class honors degree in Modern History and Economics. Lecturer in modern history at Manchester University. Director largest independent insurance brokerage in Manchester Founder of Dyson's Pensions and Investment Services in Manchester. Now retired. Made Aliyah in 2008 with my wife. Lifelong cyclist, swimmer and gym fanatic. Member Kibbutz Hamadia, Emeq Hamaianot. Website: www.arguments4israel.com
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