Background Report Probing the U.S. ‘foul-up’ in the UN

In exploring the Carter Administration’s “failure in communications” that was given by the President as the reason for the U.S. approval of the anti-Israel resolution adopted March 1 by the United Nations Security Council, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee appears determined that the State Department provide proof that Jewish settlers in “occupied territories” are “illegal” as the Administration is insisting.

The committee has called on Roberts Owen, the State Department’s legal advisor, to provide documentation at its hearing which was due this Thursday but which has now been postponed to early next week. This marks the first time the issue has reached the Senate level of inquiry. Sen. Richard Stone (D. Fla.), chairman of the committee’s Middle East subcommittee, was to have conducted the proceedings. Instead, Sen. Frank Church (D. Idaho), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, will preside.

The ‘Administration contends the settlements violate the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949. The Security Council incorporated this position in its resolution and described “Jerusalem” as “occupied territory,” stated the convention is “relative to the protection of civilian persons in time of war” and “is applicable to the Arab territories occupied since 1967, including Jerusalem.” Eminent scholars doubt the Administration’s view while Israel declares the convention does not apply.

QUESTION OF LEGAL RIGHTS

Even Secretary of State Cyrus Vance himself, who gave the final word to U.S. Ambassador Donald McHenry at the Security Council to approve the resolution, had doubts. Vance said, in 1977, “it is an open question as to who has legal rights to the West Bank.” Herbert Hansel, who preceded Owen in the legal post, wrote of the settlements as “probably” illegal.

In describing the U.S. vote for the resolution as “incompetent and hypocritical,” Sen. Jack Danforth (R. Mo) recalled Vance’s view and added that “it has been since reaffirmed by legal scholars, including Eugene Rostow, former Undersecretary of State and former Dean of Yale Law School.”

When he was Assistant Secretary for the Middle East, Alfred Atherton, now U.S. Ambassador to Egypt, testified before Congress that the question of whether Israel’s settlements policy was a violation of international law has not yet been resolved.

Rep. William Lehman (D. Fla.) pointed this out in Congress a week ago. As a practical matter the Security Council resolution is not binding on Israel since it is not under the mandatory section of the UN Charter. In McHenry’s words, in response to a question here last week, the resolution is “advice to Israel.” An independent observation is that today’s Security Council’s “advice” could be made “tomorrow’s order with sanctions.”

While the State Department would like to bury the Security Council resolution, as Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher and chief spokesman Hodding Carter have suggested, members of both branches of Congress are not so inclined. Vance, McHenry and Assistant Secretary of State for Near East and South Asian Affairs Harold Sounders are also being called to testify at the Senate hearing.

The House is considering a “resolution of inquiry,” asked by Rep. Elizabeth Holtzman (D. NY) and Rep. Christopher Dodd (D. Conn.) that would have President Carter provide the House “all information and facts” regarding the U.S. decision.

Independent observers believe that ultimately Carter will issue orders that “at least” repudiation of the U.S. vote should become on official document of the United Nations. Thus far, the Administration is noting that “mechanism” does not exist for altering the resolution that includes “Jerusalem” seven times as “occupied territory,” speaks of “Palestinian” land and water rights. Thus, officially there is no record at the Security Council that the U.S. vote was a “mistake” and all those representations have U.S. support.

Public criticism of the Carter Administration in the Congress has thus for not been joined by Democratic Party leaders in either House but Rep. William Broomfield (R. Mich.), ranking member of the House Foreign Affair Committee, has spoken out sharply. No voices have been raised in defense of the Administration. Some, in condemning the resolution and the “foul-up,” now Carter’s repudiation as “bourageous.”

SOME STRONG ATTACKS

Perhaps the strongest Senatorial attack came from Danforth. Noting that, although the U.S. has abstained from voting previously on two similar resolutions during the last year, Danforth observed “the President declares the latest vote represented no change in U.S. policy” and Danforth added:

“It is hypocritical to vote for something we have publicly rejected. Further, our action is completely inconsistent with previous American policy. To include Jerusalem as part of occupied ‘Palestinian and other Arab territories’ as the resolution does, is clearly a departure from the U.S. position which had stated that Jerusalem, both east and west, was to be considered one indivisible entity.”

Rep. Lester Wolff (D.NY), challenged the Administration’s legal stand. “The areas in question,” Wolff said, “are unallocated areas of the British Mandate. Israel is in no way violating any international law in settling on these areas. If anyone has ever been in violation of international law, it would be the Jordanians, who seized lands in 1948. The boundaries set up in the 1949 armistice referred to in UN Security Council Resolution 242 never constituted internationally-recognized borders, and have never been recognized by any nation except Pakistan and the United Kingdom.”

Defending Israel’s policy as a security measure, Rep. James Blanchard (D.Mich.) observed the Carter Administration’s “policy appears to entail a lessening of our commitment to Israel in order to curry favor with neighboring regimes.” He said “obviously the Administration will insist that it is maintaining the U.S. commitment for secure borders and for the sovereignty of Israel. We can talk all we want about this commitment and reaffirm our position over and over again but if that commitment does not include the understanding that Israel will need some type of security presence, at certain strategic points on the West Bank, then our words are meaningless.”