Fabrizio Casari, November 5th 2023
There is no ceasefire and not even a momentary pause. The genocide against Palestinians continues, and in addition to the TNT in Gaza, it also has to deal with propaganda. Indeed, because Blinken's visit to Sharon was a farce aimed at reinforcing the reciprocal game of the parties, between the United States, a faithful ally but reasonably concerned about the international context, and Israel, anxious only to finish Hamas. Really it was a move designed to placate the international community, sending messages to the capitals of the Middle East and for internal purposes, both in Washington and in Tel Aviv.
In the United States, the Arab-American community is furious with Biden: an Arab American Institute poll reveals that only 17% are willing to re-elect Biden (in 2020, 59% were with him): it is a small but important community in swing states such as Michigan and Pennsylvania. In Israel, on the other hand, hatred of Netanyahu runs through civil society and the army, and one minute after the ceasefire Netanyahu will have to resign; he tries to swim against the current by making himself known as an exterminator of Palestinians, but be that as it may, his political career is over.
Nasrallah, Hezbollah's leader in Lebanon, clarified that Al Aqsa's Operation Flood "is one hundred percent Palestinian." Which means that the organizational and military background of the Hamas operation cannot be assigned to Hezbollah or Iran. Therefore, Israel and the United States cannot use this argument to give themselves the opportunity to settle scores with Hezbollah.
Because such an idea is circulating in Tel Aviv, especially in the extremist circles of extreme right-wing Zionism: the presence of 20,000 US marines, the call-up of the 460,000 Thasal reservists and the political and diplomatic support of the West, with little left over, presents the opportunity not only to flatten Gaza and prepare the displacement of the new borders after the mass expulsion of all the Palestinians, but also to attack Hezbollah in Lebanon as never before. In short, a general framework favorable to a broader force action.
Hypotheses cooled by Vladimir Putin's warnings, the unavailability of the Emirates and the tough stance of Turkey, which has approved an anti-Israel law in the last few hours. Although the positions adopted by Erdogan are always the result of the convenience of the moment for the Ottoman power, the confrontation with Israel represents the massive indignation of all Sunni Muslims that Ankara cannot underestimate, since it aspires to represent them. At least as long as Netanyahu is prime minister, Ankara shuts down all dialogue.
There is a growing rejection of Israeli crimes by international public opinion and the bodies representing the community of States. Never before has the world accused Israel of the role of executioner, of absolute contempt for the norms of international law, and this is a matter of concern for a country, unable to support itself, that needs access to everyone's money to be able to survive.
The impotence of the UN
The rejection of even a humanitarian pause places Israel alone in front of the international community, but the UN has proven to be totally inadequate to deal with Tel Aviv's crimes. In any vote on Israel, as speculatively in the one on the blockade in Cuba, two ideas emerge about what democracy is, what International Law is and what tools are necessary to make it prevail over the interests of a minority with genocidal instincts. Along with this, however, also emerges the impotence of the world community forced into the bottleneck of a West that uses the UN when it needs to and deprecates it when it does not.
Craig Mokhiber, Director of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, resigned in protest at the UN's inability to stop the genocide. "Once again," the senior official declared, "we see how genocide is unfolding before our eyes and how we are unable to stop it. The genocide of the Palestinians is the product of decades of Israeli impunity offered by the United States and other Western countries and of decades of dehumanization of the Palestinian people."
A bold gesture by Mokhiber that forcefully poses yet again the central question for global governance: how to ensure that the international community enforces its deliberations? Faced with the conflicting positions between the General Assembly and the Security Council, the unsustainability emerges of a discord paralyzing the institution. And if one takes into account that the General Assembly has not been silent, it becomes clear that it is precisely the governance of the organ that needs to be rethought.
The inadequacy of the regulatory system is evident when the Security Council creates a rift between the levels of debate and decision-making, reducing the will of the entire international community to satisfy the interests of the great powers.
The Security Council, by virtue of the right of veto, thus reverses its role: instead of representing and bringing to the operational synthesis what is decided by the General Assembly, the sovereign organ of the institution, it imposes its decisions at its sole convenience and creates a rupture between the institution and the organ, that is, between the international community represented by the Assembly and its executive organ.
That the Council needs to be reformed both in its composition criteria and in the methodology of its actions there is no longer any doubt, if anything resistance. To date, only the Sandinista Father Miguel D'Escoto, elected President of the General Assembly by acclamation in 2008-2009, has presented a proposal to reform the Council, which obviously has not pleased the Western collective. The reason? It implies a strengthening of the community of States and with it a parallel reduction of imperial arrogance, which instead would like to see the end of the UN to permit the affirmation of the law of the strongest as a regulatory and normative instrument in international relations.
Obviously, the Security Council cannot represent all nations, not even the majority of them, but its functioning cannot continue to be - like its representation - the mortgage of a minority on the majority. The fundamental issue was and still is the exercise of the right of veto, by which a single country can override the will of the international community.
A political imbalance that makes the institution dysfunctional and contributes to maintaining an unjust, illegitimate and even ineffective international order, one that in any case no longer represents international power relations and the changes that are taking place in the different continents, in short, of the planetary framework that it is supposed to represent.
The modernization of the organization is indispensable, because the world has changed and the current Council only partially reflects the current framework of planetary balances. It would be necessary to overcome a composition that is only post-World War II with the addition of China. Other criteria would be needed to represent the international community: the representativeness of the world as a whole as a general criterion and, specifically of each country, its territorial extension, demography, economy, geostrategic position, political and military influence. In short, the power that it may have.
As for the basic criterion of representation, the first oxymoron is the fact that, although half of the UN countries belong to Africa and Latin America, both areas lack representation on the Council. Therefore, their entry would be both politically convenient, as well as proportionally correct. And as for the specific weight of the countries, the absence of giants such as India and Indonesia, Pakistan and Brazil, shows how the current composition lacks a sense of proportion in terms of the representation of peoples. Expanding the number of members is therefore a condition sine qua non for relaunching its effectiveness.
In a general readjustment of the composition of the Council, it would make sense to have a mechanism that aims at a broader balance. Thus, it could be envisaged, for example, a Security Council in which voting is carried out by a majority, at least two-thirds; without the possibility of a single country exercising its veto right. This would force everyone to seek a broader consensus, thus forcing an obvious reduction in the individual claims of each country and the consequent greater participation in decision-making.
It would be a way of affirming multipolarity in a body in which a geographical, demographic, economic and political minority of the planet continues to occupy the majority of the seats among the permanent members of the Security Council, which should instead represent the entire international community.
Everyone knows that the votes are counted first and then they are weighed and, therefore, no one exchanges the Marshall Islands for the United States and there are no plans to extend the veto right to non-permanent members of the Council either. But if the measuring stick is to be political realism and the global impact of countries on the international board, then we must be consistent.
Changing the profile of the Security Council, its criteria and its actions is the only way to restore political credibility to an institution that, especially in a historical phase that announces a reversal of the planetary balance of power, cannot continue to be hostage to a distorted and hypocritical idea of democracy, mother and daughter of a model that conceives the world divided into two zones: one meant to obey and the other to command. But the hourglass has already been turned. Change is happening now.