Can U.N.’s ‘Godfathers’ Help in Mideast?

The debate on the risks and benefits of an international Middle East peace conference goes on in Israel and in the U.S. Administration despite the setback that its prime advocate, Israel’s Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, appears to have suffered.

The godfathers of the event, if it ever takes place, are to be the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council--Great Britain, France, China, the United States and the Soviet Union. Much of the debate as to whether such a conference is a good or bad idea centers on what role these godfathers are to play. Will they reflect the prevailing political climate at the United Nations? If so, it’s an ill omen. Or will they stay aloof and allow the parties to deal with each other directly as they wish?

These questions are important, and the waters at the Security Council should be tested in advance, because this conference promises to be very different from the 1973 model that proponents point to as an example of success. In the 1973 international Middle East peace conference everything was agreed on in advance, largely between the United States and the Soviet Union. In the proposed conference, process will be the key. The longer it is drawn out, the more likely that the influence and convictions of the 15-member U.N. Security Council as a whole and those of the greater U.N. system will make themselves felt and affect the chances for success.

Certainly in the political climate that prevailed at the United Nations in 1981, 1982 and 1983--let alone in 1975, when the “Zionism Is Racism” resolution was passed--it would have been inconceivable for any Israeli political leader to advance the idea of a U.N.-linked international conference. In 1981 Israel was, without reference to provocation or context, regularly being condemned for “aggression,” for--without basis in fact--allegedly poisoning West Bank schoolchildren and for violating international human-rights standards like the 1949 Geneva Conventions, with which Israel was essentially--if not entirely--conforming.

By 1985, however, a dramatic change had taken place. The number of Security Council meetings convened for the purpose of condemnatory resolutions aimed at isolating Israel and delegitimizing its very existence had declined nearly tenfold. To be sure, this was in part due to Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon, but the Security Council has never had any shortage of pretexts to convene anti-Israel meetings.

This change was in large measure due to the consistent stand taken by the U.S. government, acting through Ambassadors Jeane J. Kirkpatrick and Vernon A. Walters. The United States made it clear that it would not tolerate the abuse of the U.N. machinery and the manipulation of the symbols of law and justice to carry on a war by other means against Israel; if Israel were expelled from the United Nations, the United States would withdraw and withhold all financial contributions.

It is not only the mood at the United Nations that has changed in the last seven years; so have the public positions of the Soviet Union and China. It is reported, for example, that Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev recently informed Syrian President Hafez Assad that he wants Syria at the table in a non-spoiler role. But is the ostensible change in the United Nations and the Soviets real or cosmetic? Will they in fact play a spoiler role at the conference? Will the U.N. umbrella create an environment conducive to direct talks, or will it facilitate a whirlwind of conflicting claims? This, after all, is what separates Peres from Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, and what colors different views within the U.S. Administration. Is there a way of finding out in advance?

A productive, or at least a non-counterproductive, Security Council role is not out of the question. In the past the Security Council set the tone for productive talks under the U.N. aegis but outside the formal confines of the United Nations, which has often exacerbated rather than resolved conflict. In 1948-49 Ralph Bunche, as head of the U.N. Palestine Commission, mediated talks leading to the armistice agreements between Israel and its Arab neighbors; Undersecretary Brian Urqhart negotiated the role of U.N. peacekeeping forces in the area; recently Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar has played a useful role as intermediary in the Falklands, Cyprus and Afghanistan conflicts.

Let the Security Council make clear, if it can, through a consensus statement (a mechanism devised precisely for such declaration of policy) that both the council as a whole and its permanent members support a framework of discussion established by conference participants themselves, not by the mean-spirited resolutions passed at times by the U.N. General Assembly.

If the Security Council can do this, it would alleviate many fears that the proposed international peace conference will be a setting not for peace but for a continuation of conflict through other means. If it cannot, it would tell us a great deal not only about the prospects for the proposed conference but also about the United Nations’ capability to reverse course and once again be a force for peace.