One of the most interesting exchanges from George Mitchell’s Charlie Rose appearance earlier this month (to which I linked earlier in the week) is this one:
George Mitchell: Israel annexed Jerusalem in 1980.
Charlie Rose: Annexed is an important word.
George Mitchell: Annexed is a very important word. No other country and including the United States recognizes that annexation. And neither do the Palestinians or the Arabs of course but for the Israelis, what they’re building in, is in part of Israel. Now, the others don’t see it that way. So you have these widely divergent perspectives on the subject. Our view is, let’s get into negotiations, let’s deal with the issues and come up with a solution to all of them including Jerusalem which will be exceedingly difficult, but in my judgment, possible. The Israelis are not going to stop settlements in or construction in East Jerusalem. They don’t regard that as a settlement because they think it’s part of Israel.
[talking simultaneously]
Charlie Rose: How many people recognize the annexation, how many countries?
George Mitchell: To the best of my knowledge there aren’t any. Immediately after the annexation, the United Nations —
[talking simultaneously]
Charlie Rose: So you’re going to let them go ahead even though no one recognized the annexation.
George Mitchell: When you say let them go ahead, it’s what they regard as their country. They don’t regard — they don’t say they’re letting us go ahead when we build in Manhattan or in the Bronx or —
[talking simultaneously]
Charlie Rose: But don’t the international rules have something to do with what somebody can do to define as their country?
George Mitchell: There are disputed legal issues. Of that there can be no doubt. And we could spend the next 14 years arguing over disputed legal issues or we can try to get a negotiation to resolve them in a manner that meets the aspirations of both societies. Keep this in mind, the Israelis have a state, a very successful state. They want security, which they ought to have.
(full transcript here)
It is interesting to contrast this issue with another issue I wrote about earlier this week: North Korean denuclearization. Like the Middle East peace, a Korean denuclearization deal cannot occur unless North Korean security needs are met. This is why a U.S. guarantee of non-invasion was a component of the 1994 Agreed Framework, of which Article III-1 stated that “The U.S. will provide formal assurances to the DPRK, against the threat or use of nuclear weapons by the U.S.,” and the 2005 six-party deal, which stated, “The United States affirmed that it has no weapons on the Korean Peninsula and has no intention to attack or invade the DPRK with nuclear or conventional weapons,” and “The DPRK and the United States undertook to respect each other’s sovereignty, exist peacefully together and take steps to normalise their relations subject to their respective bilateral policies.”
But while the United States is willing to let Israel violate international law, recognizing that Israel seemingly believes it must do so to ensure its security, the United States does not afford North Korea the same luxury. Thus, when North Korea tested a missile in 2009, in violation of UN Security Council resolution 1718, which prohibits North Korean ballistic missile tests, the U.S. led the Security Council in condemning North Korea and ordering the international community to seize any ships entering or leaving North Korea suspected of carrying military cargo.
The Israel example is the anomaly. Typically countries paint their own actions and those of their allies as legal, and the actions of their adversaries as illegal. Or, if countries can’t claim legality, they will attack the legitimacy of the laws being violated. The United States can’t quite do either of these with Israel because, as George Mitchell noted, Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem is universally viewed as illegal outside of Israel. Instead of the usual “lawfare,” in which countries justify actions with claims of legality, the U.S. is engaging in “securityfare,” in which security needs justify illegalities.
