Security Council resolutions won’t matter much

By Raphael Aren, TOI

[After discussing the various resolution which are coming up in the UNSC]

Even if an anti-settlement resolution passed, what difference would it make?

In the internal Israeli debate over what could happen at the Security Council in Obama’s last days, very little attention has been given to the question of how much impact an approved resolution would actually have. The answer is quite simple: Not much.

“It won’t change anything immediately,” said Aeyal Gross, a professor of international law at Tel Aviv University, even though — as opposed to decisions taken by the General Assembly — countries are obligated to act according to Security Council resolutions. It is possible that a first resolution might pave the way for another one, which at some point could lead to additional resolutions under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, which deals with “threat[s] to the peace, breach of the peace, or act[s] of aggression.”

Hypothetically, an anti-settlement resolution passed under this chapter could legitimize sanctions against Israel or even military force, “but this is very unlikely at this point,” Gross said. “Currently, it would amount only to a diplomatic embarrassment.”

According to Baker, the Foreign Ministry’s legal adviser, any text that could possibly pass would merely serve as “another point that the Palestinians will try to use in their PR fight against Israel.”

Even previous resolutions on the conflict, such as 242 and 338, were “non-mandatory declarations,” he noted. So it is safe to assume that any possible resolution on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict “will just be added to the long list of other UN resolutions that nobody but the Israeli public and the Israeli media takes very seriously.”