If indeed the UN is handling similar issues differently depending on who the member states are, then a question arises: How is the supposed neutrality and image of the UN as an honest arbiter affected by its differential treatment of members? And: What impact does this have for international justice?
Israel’s Wall and the DMZ
The World Court has ruled the Apartheid Wall (Wikipedia calls the 650-700-km structure that reaches a maximum height of 8 meters and cuts through much of the West Bank the “Israeli West Bank barrier”) to be illegal and ordered it torn down.
William Parry’s picture book — Against the Wall: The Art of Resistance in Palestine (Pluto Press, 2010) — vividly drives home the oppressor-oppressed dynamic. The book portrays Israelis separating Palestinian families from one another, Palestinians being prevented from tending to their crops, Israelis inflicting economic deprivation on Palestinians, Israelis targeting of school children, and Israelis intended humiliation of Palestinian workers passing through checkpoints in the wall. Against the Wall also depicts the spirit, art, and determination of the Palestinian resistance, the anger of the occupied people, and messages to the world.
In the case of Israeli Jews, the wall is their statement of desiring separation from Palestinians. In stark contrast, the 38th parallel on the Korean peninsula is a demilitarized zone forced by Americans on Koreans, many of who still desire reunification.
With the defeat of Japan looming in the closing days of World War II, the division of Korea was decided at the Potsdam Conference. North Korea states,
“[T]he Korea question was decided according to the interests of the United States … contrary to the requirement and demand of the Korean people.” [1]
Koreans also blame Japan for the separation:
Had the Japanese not occupied Korea, the United States could not have interfered in Korean affairs and the question of the 38th parallel would not have come into being. Therefore, Japan also takes blame for the division of Korea. [2]
Nukes and ICBMs
Although undeclared, it is well known that Israel has a nuclear arsenal, yet it escapes censure by the US and sanctions by the UN.
One might inquire how a state like the US with its huge stockpile of nuclear-tipped ICBMs has standing to criticize other states for doing what it does? Does this not pose a moral quicksand for the US? Also why does the US elude censure for not abiding by article VI of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons?
Some Questions
If outsiders had allowed Koreans to decide their fate, if outsiders had not forcibly split the Korean peninsula, would Koreans be agitating, fighting to unify the Korean peninsula? [3]
If Palestinians had been able to determine and control immigration to their country, as is the case for nation states everywhere, would they have allowed a group of outsiders to establish an exclusive state for that group’s people negating their own state?
If the answer to both questions is no, then why are the Palestinians and North Koreans demonized for decisions made by outsiders that denied them their natural rights?
Conclusion
On the one hand we have a self-designated Jewish State that was carved out from a landmass colonized by Britain. Britain passed the matter to the UN which took a chunk of the land and gave it to others, without the consent of the Palestinian people who for millenia have lived, loved, played, worked, and farmed there. Israel, the Jewish state, ethnically cleansed 800,000 non-Jews from the land and later expanded its non-declared borders. Israel is clearly a racist state. All this was with the acquiescence of the US. Israel has been in contravention of several UN resolutions, in violation of the Geneva Conventions, and has never been sanctioned by the UN. In addition, the US has exercised several vetoes in the UN Security Council to protect Israel from censure. As well, Israel became a nuclear-armed state with ICBMs. Does the US demand sanctions against Israel? No, it lavishes billions upon Israel each year; currently running at $3.8 billion a year. Most of this “aid” [4] is in the form of military assistance — which is being challenged as violating US law against supporting secret nuclear states.
Korea, the state of the Korean people, saw its people separated into the two halves of the peninsula. This again was imposed from the outside, without the consent of the Korean people, chiefly by the US. North Korea has committed no acts of ethnic cleansing. On the contrary, it was the victim of major devastation caused by the US when the latter intervened in a civil war, committing numerous war crimes. [5] The US threatened North Korea with nuclear weapons during the war on the Korean peninsula, had nuclear weapons stationed on South Korean soil for several years, has nuclear-armed warships docking in South Korea, has nuclear-armed warplanes and nuclear-armed submarines stationed in nearby Japan. Yet North Korea, in stark contrast to Israel, is singled out for the severest vitriol from the US and its western allies. The UN bends to the US through its Security Council imposing sanctions on North Korea although it has attacked no other country. It has pursued nuclear weapons and ICBM capability as has the US, Israel and the seemingly hypocritical China and Russia, the latter two nuclear states having voted for sanctions against North Korea.
A simple analogy should suffice: If a bully — much larger than you and who has used unrestrained violence against you in the past — threatens you with a gun, would you want to face the bully without a gun?
Is there a moral principle that would posit that North Korea should face the mightily armed US, a US which rejects peace with North Korea, without a deterrent to attack against it?
Unless one can reasonably answer yes to the preceding two questions, then the punitive actions targeting North Korea should cease immediately. If actions targeting any entity are required, then how about targeting the entity/entities that caused North Korea to seek a nuclear deterrent?
