The UN's role in the Middle East will always have more to do with development than with resolving the Arab-Israeli struggle, UN expert Thomas Weiss tells Dina Ezzat "The US is in a position to do more, but Israel is not in a position to be pushed very far, certainly not by the UN," commented Thomas Weiss, presidential professor of political science at the CUNY graduate centre in New York and director of the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies, in an interview with Al-Ahram Weekly on a recent visit to Cairo. Speaking days before US Middle East Peace Envoy George Mitchell announced that the fate of Israel's construction of illegal settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories including East Jerusalem would be discussed by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and US President Barack Obama in Washington, professor Weiss was in Egypt at the invitation of the American University in Cairo. Author of What's Wrong with the United Nations and How to Fix It (2009), as well as many other works on the UN, Weiss is no stranger to the politics of the UN. He is sceptical of Arab attempts to push the UN Security Council to intervene in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and he is sceptical, too, of attempts to make the US play a more balanced role. If Washington really wanted to influence Middle East peace-making in a more equitable way, it would not wait for the Arab countries to solicit the intervention of the UN, Weiss said. If the US does not intend to act on the illegal Israeli settlements, then it is unlikely that it will do so if the issue is brought to the UN. "The US is the strongest backer of Israel, and it will simply say no" to anything that runs against Israel's interests, Weiss said. Weiss does not see the current Israeli government as one that wants peace, and in his view there is little point in Arab countries investing their efforts in soliciting the support of the UN. "The UN acts on the will of the major powers," he said, and the maximum the UN can be expected to do is to take on "a facilitating role". Nevertheless, the direct involvement of UN bodies, including the Security Council, in resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict should not be the only criterion by which the role of the UN should be judged, Weiss added. Much material comes out of the many UN bodies in relation to the situation in the occupied Palestinian territories, and this material has a valuable part to play. UN statements also have a significant role to play in influencing world opinion on the Arab- Israeli struggle. "In this regard, the Goldstone report on the war in Gaza demonstrated the UN at its best," Weiss commented, referring to Judge Richard Goldstone's report on Israel's war on Gaza in 2009. In his report, Goldstone listed Israeli war crimes in Gaza that could amount to crimes against humanity, while also listing allegations against Hamas in a war that caused the deaths of some 1,500 Palestinians. "The Middle East is a region where the UN has extended its diplomatic energy through UN Security Council resolutions (their full implementation aside) and peace-keeping missions," Weiss said, even if there is still the issue of "results versus efforts." Weiss added that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in Palestine had served four consecutive generations of Palestinian refugees, and the fact that it had become a permanent mission was a constant reminder of the UN's failure to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. "The UN cannot bring peace," and peace cannot be imposed on the Middle East, Weiss said. Peace was something that the parties themselves would have to find their way towards, perhaps with the assistance of the US. "The role of the UN would then be to support a peace agreement," for example through a peace-keeping mission. Weiss accepted that the image of the UN was not wholly positive among many Arabs, and he agreed that in addition to the stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace process there was also the UN's role in the US-led war on Iraq in 2003, during which the UN "failed to prevent Washington and London from going to war." Mismanagement of the Iranian issue would further harm the image of the UN in the Middle East, he said. Meanwhile, Weiss has not given up on the UN's role in the Middle East, even if he sees this as being mainly about promoting development, encouraging economic justice and enhancing the positive management of resources. "Promoting ideas and concepts," is a crucial part of the role the UN plays globally and in the Middle East, Weiss said. The UN's role in decolonisation and its efforts to end gender discrimination are examples that Weiss particularly likes to stress.
