WILL CLINTON INFLICT IRREPARABLE HARM ON ISRAEL — OR REJECT U.N. RESOLUTION ON HEBRON, JERUSALEM?

(Washington, D.C.): The United Nations
Security Council is due to vote tomorrow
on a resolution denouncing Baruch
Goldstein’s 25 February atrocity
involving the mass murder of Palestinian
Arabs in Hebron. The resolution is more
than just a statement of the
international community’s opprobrium over
this heinous crime, however. In
the worst tradition of the sponsoring
institution, it has become a lethal
instrument in the ideological war against
Israel and Zionism.

Specifically, the resolution formally
includes Jerusalem as “one of the
territories occupied by Israel in June
1967.” By so doing, its authors are,
in the words of Senators Connie Mack
(R-FL) and Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY)
— and at least 56 other U.S.
Senators — clearly
“attempt[ing] to prejudice”
what is supposed to be a “‘final
status’ issue to be negotiated between
the parties.”

Indeed, it would establish even
before the first stage of the so-called
Israeli-PLO “peace process” is
implemented that the international
community agrees with the PLO that
Jerusalem will not remain the unified
capital of the Jewish State. As
such it would not be just another
meaningless U.N. Security Council
resolution — the umpteenth hollow
symbolic gesture or a fig leaf intended
to disguise the “family of
nations'” inability or unwillingness
to act responsibly. It would,
instead, represent a stunning victory for
Israel’s enemies in their ideological war
aimed at rending the “historical
connection of the Jews to Palestine”
and thereby undermining the Zionist claim
to a homeland in the Middle East. href=”#N_1_”>⁽¹⁾

Since Israel is the only
nation in the world that is denied
the right to hold a seat on the U.N.
Security Council on a rotating basis,
the Jewish State is uniquely reliant upon
the influence — and, if necessary, the
veto — of the United States to prevent
its security and vital equities from
being compromised by that body.
Unfortunately, the Clinton Administration
appears willing to refrain from
exercising its veto of this resolution.
Its rationale: Adoption of this statement
by the Security Council will induce
Yasser Arafat to resume negotiations
on implementation of the September 1993
Declaration of Principles. href=”#N_2_”>⁽²⁾

To their lasting credit, conscientious
members of the United States Senate, led
by Sens. Mack and Moynihan have
excoriated the Administration for making
a “false choice” between
“biased U.N. resolutions and support
for the peace process.” As the
attached letter to the President
correctly observes:

“Any peace process is
only as good as the principles upon
which it is built. U.S.
support for prejudicial language on
Jerusalem directly undermines the
principle of direct negotiations
established in Madrid and the
Declaration of Principles agreed to
in Washington. Sacrificing
core principles for short-term
objectives will ultimately retard,
not advance the peace process.”

The Center for Security Policy
strongly endorses the principled view of
a majority of the U.S. Senate that the
Security Council resolution regarding the
Hebron massacre must be vetoed by the
United States. Anything less will invite
the resurrection of an odious U.N. that
equates Zionism with racism and
perpetrates other ideological assaults
against Israel. Worse yet, American
acquiescence in such a resolution could
encourage international conditions that
empower and embolden Israel’s enemies to
return to more conventional warfare
against the Jewish State.

– 30 –

1. For more on the
nature of this ideological war — and its
extremely high stakes — see the href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=94-D_29at”>attached excerpts
of a speech given yesterday by Center for
Security Policy Director Frank J.
Gaffney, Jr. before the Women’s
Pro-Israel Political Action Committee
meeting in the Senate Caucus Room.

2. N.B. The U.S.
is not even tying this extraordinary
concession to Arafat’s faithful
follow-through on an agreement
implementing the first stage of the
September Accord, or even to a commitment
from him to complete such an agreement.
All he is being asked to do is show up.
In fact, it is not even clear that U.S.
acquiescence to this resolution will do
that.