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Spotlight: UN has key role to play in solving Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Xinhua, September 30, 2015 Adjust font size:

The United Nations should play a more active role in reviving the long-stalled peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, Dr. Alon Liel, former director-general of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, told Xinhua in an interview.

The 193-state world body, celebrating this week its 70th anniversary, has all along made hard and unremmitting efforts in resolving the turmoil and various conflicts in war-torn and poverty-stricken areas around the globe.

But Dr. Liel, who was also former Israeli ambassador to South Africa and is now a lecturer on international relations at the Tel Aviv University, has high hopes for the multilateral institutions's role in resolving the long-running Israeli-Palestinian conflict, widely believed to be the core issue in the Middle East.

"The UN could be the most influential player in resolving the conflict," said Dr. Liel, a frequent commentator in Israeli media on the issue and a staunch supporter of international recognition of a Palestinian state.

"It has no ability to directly affect the circumstances on the ground, but its ability in building consensus and shaping positions of the international community is tremendous," said Liel.

Since Israel and Egypt signed the 1979 peace treaty in Washington, the peace talks in the region have been under the monopoly of the United States, Israel's closest ally. The Middle East Quartet, the Arab League, and other key players have been sidelined.

But the U.S. efforts have so far been fruitless, with the last round of peace talks collapsing last year, despite relentless efforts by the U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.

The negotiations reached and impasse primarily over the continuation of the construction in the Jewish settlements in the West Bank, on lands that the Palestinians consider as their future state, and the declaration of a unity government between Fatah and Hamas.

Israel occupied the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, home to more than 4.7 million Palestinians, in the 1967 Middle East War.

It later annexed East Jerusalem and claimed it as part of its capital, in a move never recognized by the international community. Building settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories is illegal under international law.

Liel believed that no single state should take upon itself the lead of the negotiations, as in this unbalanced conflict -- with Israeli being the stronger party -- states would always be inclined to take sides with the interests of the Jewish state.

But Israel has a history of stormy relations with the UN as anti-Israeli, particularly with bodies such as the Human Rights Council.

Over the past five years, it cut ties with the Council for a period of a year, boycotted its sessions, barred several UN rights envoys from entering the Palestinian territories, and in 2014 it refused to cooperate with an inquiry committee on possible war crimes during last summer's Gaza war.

On Wednesday, the Palestinian flag will be raised for the first time outside the UN Headquarters in New York, after the assembly approved the move earlier this month in an 119-8 vote.

Beyond this symbolic gesture, Liel said, such resolutions send an important message to the Israelis and Palestinians on how the international community believes the conflict should be resolved, bolstering the two-state solution.

The United Nations, the European Union, and Arab countries are now considering a bigger role in reviving the peace talks.

On the margins of this week's General Assembly, diplomats with the UN, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, the head of the Arab League and the Middle East Quartet will reportedly meet for talks on restarting the peace process.

"It remains to be seen whether the UN will increase its role in bringing peace to the region," Liel said. But he believes that now, after the nuclear negotiations with Iran were concluded, the Security Council, the UN's most powerful body, could turn back its attention to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, maybe even as soon as November or December.

Fresh endorsement of past resolutions by the Council, which might include even timetables and sanctions, could have a great impact on the parties, he said. Endit