Foreign Policy In Focus

This past week I traveled up to New York City to begin looking through the UN Archives for information on the wartime activities of the United Nations Information Organization. The UN Archives are housed in a nondescript building about a block and a half from the iconic UN Plaza. I entered through an innocuous side door that looked more like a service entrance than a gateway to knowledge. However, once inside I was greeted by the familiar sights and sounds of a library: small tables set up in a quiet reading room, other researchers hunched over stacks of documents, the archivists conducting their business in hushed tones. Unlike a library, however, there were few materials that I could get for myself. Rather, I had to request materials from the archivist on duty.

I had been in contact with one of the archivists prior to my arrival and he ensured that my first foray into the archival wilderness in search of information would be successful. He provided me with a detailed index of the UNIO files – which proved invaluable – and showed me how to make my requests and turned me loose.

Going in, I had been told that it was very likely that I would be the first person to look at and handle these documents since they were committed to the UN Archives over 60 years ago. Judging from how haphazardly documents had been arranged in seemingly arbitrary boxes, I quickly realized that this was likely the case. Many of the pages were faded and I had to be careful not to rip the flimsy onionskin paper.

Sifting through the contents of the UNIO files I came across the original draft of the resolution that formally created the UNIO offices in New York and London, along with a memorandum that amounted to a mission statement for the new organization. I was exhilarated at this find. Not only because they were particularly important documents that would help with my work, but also because I knew that I held in my hands documents whose existence had changed the history of the entire world.

The creation of the UNIO was the first step the Allied powers took towards turning back and defeating the Axis. It served stark warnings to the Axis powers that their crimes would not go unpunished. It helped galvanize the American people into action as the defenders of liberty. It encouraged those straining against the fascist yoke to not give up the fight, that help was on the way.

Reading through these founding documents, the vision of a world united behind a single banner fighting against oppression came into clear focus. The creation of the UNIO was not merely the first step on the long journey towards victory in World War II; it was the first step towards securing a lasting peace when the guns fell silent. I held history in my hands. And it is a history that preciously too few are aware of.

Greg Chaffin is a research assistant for the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy at the University of London.

“The United Nations Information Organization (UNIO) was the first international agency of the Allied powers participating in World War II and was also the first Organization to incorporate in its title the 'United Nations' name." It was constituted in September 1940, nearly two years before the Declaration by United Nations, as the Inter-Allied Information Committee, a clearinghouse for disseminating information and propaganda about the war effort. Indeed, from a very early stage, the Allied powers realized the role information would play in their fight against the Axis.

The importance of information to the successful prosecution of the war is encapsulated in an early inter-organization memorandum entitled, “A Suggested Information Technique for the United Nations.” Indeed, the memorandum is a succinct statement of intent and purpose for the newly formed UNIO.

The memorandum highlights several key aspects in which the successful dissemination of information by the Allied powers will assist in the war effort.

The first is to raise the morale of those peoples under attack or suffering under Axis occupation and assure them that help is on the way.  With the United Nations in its infancy and the likelihood that a significant period of time will elapse before the Allied powers are able to turn the tide against the Axis, it becomes imperative that those suffering not become disillusioned over their struggle and believe that the UN will be the agent of their deliverance.

Second is the need to counter the strong isolationist sentiments in the United States and engage the populace in the international struggle against totalitarianism. Indeed, in the years leading up to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, politicians engaged in fervent debate over America’s role in the war. Many argued against entangling the United States in a European conflict. President Roosevelt, among others, realized that the current conflict was rooted in the failure to secure a lasting postwar peace following World War I. In order to prevent future conflict, Roosevelt recognized the need to develop a stable international structure, a structure in which the United States would play an integral role. To galvanize the American people into action, they must realize that the American values of freedom and liberty are, in fact, universal, and in extraordinary times, require a strong and resolute protector.

Finally, the knowledge that an implacable international force has gathered to oppose and fight them will demoralize the Axis powers, and further encourage resistance. Indeed, when members of the Axis see and comprehend the full extent of the powers arrayed against them, they will realize that theirs is a doomed struggle.

From a very early stage, the Allies realized that winning the information war would be essential to their eventual success. It would galvanize support at home, while encouraging those abroad not to give up the fight; that help was on the way. As the first international organization convened under the newly formed United Nations, the UNIO would prove to be invaluable to the Allied war effort.

Greg Chaffin is a research assistant for the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy at the University of London.

This project builds on the recently published book, America, Hitler and the UN: How the Allies Won World II and Forged a Peace, by Dan Plesch, the Director of the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy. The project intends to show how the United Nations was born in 1942, defeated the Axis Powers led by Germany, Italy and Japan, created today's UN system and gave rise to a stable and peaceful post-war international system. America, Britain and the Soviet Union led a coalition of states organised as the United Nations to respond to the greatest crisis in human history. Contrary to the commonly held origin story of the United Nations, Bretton Woods and San Francisco were United Nations conferences, convened by interim United Nations organisations, which preceded the Charter.

Understanding the wartime United Nations reframes our understanding of the second half of the last century and of our own. From UNESCO to the World Bank the primary purpose of the multilateral system is conflict prevention; a system  bequeathed to us by its wartime architects as a realist necessity, vital in times of trial, not as a liberal accessory to be discarded when the going gets rough.

The project leaders are interested in developing partnerships with other researchers and organizations on the implications of the wartime United Nations (WUN) for contemporary international policy and U.S. politics in particular and in its relationship to IR theory, the archaeology, genealogy and historiography of the study of international politics since 1945, and the impact of the WUN on the campaigns and politics of the Second World War.

Please see the CISD website for more details on the project, its members and its activities.

Greg Chaffin is a research assistant for the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy at the University of London.

Just "weeks after the International Atomic Energy Agency referred it [to the] U.N. Security Council," reports George Jahn for the Associated Press, the Council plans to "discuss what to do about Syria's refusal to cooperate with an investigation of its alleged secret nuclear activities."

The IAEA has tried in vain since 2008 to follow up on strong evidence that a site in the Syrian desert, bombed in 2007 by Israeli warplanes, was a nearly finished reactor built with North Korea's help. [It] expressed "serious concern" over "Syria's lack of cooperation with the IAEA Director General's repeated requests for access to additional information and locations."

The Syrian government is scarcely deserving of sympathy. Just yesterday, it killed at least 14 protesters in Hama, adding more insult to injury in that city of infamy where, in 1982, President Bashir al-Assad's father, then-President Hafez al-Assad, killed10,000 of its residents. But, whether or not Syria was seeking to develop nuclear weapons, it's pretty cold, not to mention unrealistic, to ask a country that's been bombed to cooperate with forces implicated in its bombing.

Of course, Syria was investigated before it was bombed, but obviously insufficiently if the West knows little about its alleged program. Not only that, but the bombing played havoc with evidence of said program.

Once again: bombing beget bombs begets bombing begets bombs.

The same day Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's received his “wildly receptive” welcome from the U.S. Congress Financial Times Associate Editor Philip Stephens wrote that “Elsewhere, Britain has been frustrated by Washington’s refusal to back publication by the international community of the essential parameters of an Israeli-Palestine peace agreement.” Translation: It is the U.S. that is preventing the major world powers from expressing the international consensus on the way forward in “peace process.” Stephens continued, “The president’s willingness to offend Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s obdurate prime minister, is a necessary but not sufficient condition for progress in the region.”

British Prime Minister David Cameron’s government has already said it might support the Palestinians when they go before the United Nations, as expected in September, and ask for a resolution affirming Palestinian statehood in the Israeli occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza. If you rely on the major U.S. media you would never sense it but what Obama likely heard in Europe last week is that the rest of the world is even more certain than the British to back the UN move. Evidently in his meeting with European leaders, Obama tried to talk the others out of supporting Palestinian statehood when the matter comes up for a vote in the UN.

“The march to isolate Israel internationally -- and the impulse of the Palestinians to abandon negotiations -- will continue to gain momentum in the absence of a credible peace process and alternative,” Obama told the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a group that has become little more than a lobbying mechanism supporting the policies of Netanyahu’s governing rightwing coalition. “So in advance of a five-day trip to Europe, in which the Middle East will be a topic of acute interest, I chose to speak about what peace will require.”

President Obama didn’t exactly launch any “initiative” and his endorsement of a Middle East settlement based on the 1967 Armistice borders wasn’t nearly as bold as it is being portrayed. It is the consensus position of the vast overwhelming majority of the people and governments of the world. It has been for a long time, and everybody knows it.

The effect of the media reporting on Netanyahu’s visit to the U.S., his talk with Obama, his rapturous reception at the annual AIPAC powwow and his over the top reception by the U.S. Congress has created a delusion here in the U.S. The verbal sparring between the two leaders, the haughty lecturing tone of Netanyahu’s response to the President, and the 28 or so standing ovations the Congress gave to him are only part of the story and have to be viewed in the context of the opinion of the rest of the world. It doesn’t even adequately reflect the views of the members of Congress. Their repeated standing ovations are more a testimony to the political power of the Israeli lobby than to their private convictions. Even some of Israel’s most adamant supporters amongst them are gravely concerned over Israel’s growing international isolation.

The cable news commentators that referred to the Israeli leader’s seeming political conquest of official Washington as “political theater” got it right: members of Congress, some of whom are otherwise knowledgeable and reasonable people, falling all over themselves to applaud what most of the rest of the world – including our most trusted allies—reject.

The dynamic on display this week in Washington between the two leaders has actually left the Palestinian leadership little choice but to appeal to the international community.

"The world will blame Israel as the main culprit if violence escalates again should the Palestinians unilaterally declare their independence this autumn,” said The Financial Times Deutschland in Germany. “Whether this blame would be correct or not, a government leader must act in such a situation. The Arab revolutions have made the situation even more urgent and increased the Palestinians' impatience.

"But even before his speech yesterday, Netanyahu willfully squandered this chance … despite his promises and declarations; he apparently wanted to play the blocker and the hardliner. And it served him well -- at least domestically."

"But it's a catastrophe for Israel's foreign policy,” said the paper. “Sure, Netanyahu was applauded in Congress, and he thanked Obama repeatedly for his support of Israel. But the audience for his speech and visit weren't just US politicians, who would stand by him anyhow. Instead of an Israeli vision of a peaceful Middle East, once again only the memory of Netanyahu's many refusals will remain in the mind of the global audience."

All hands appear to be on deck to try and head off a UN resolution. “Having the U.N. General Assembly pass a resolution recognizing an independent Palestinian state will only rally Israelis around Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, giving him another excuse not to talk,” wrote New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman May 25. That’s just silly talk. Bibi doesn’t need another rationale for intransigence. He opposes any settlement based on any borderlines that doesn’t ratify the colonial conquest of Palestinian land.

That a new UN resolution will not produce a Palestinian state is so obvious that it’s curious that Obama bothered to say so, but as Retired Brigadier General Michael Herzog, a veteran Israeli negotiator has noted, “it is likely to isolate Israel and escalate Israeli-Palestinian tensions.”

While in Europe Obama was no doubt told again what he already knew: that the European Union fully backs the position that will be laid out in a General Assembly resolution. The Congressional applause had hardly died down when the EU’s foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, backed Obama’s stance.

“Netanyahu's rejection of peace based on the 1967 borders is self-important and arrogant…especially given that Obama explicitly stated that a variation from the 1967 borders would be possible under a mutual land swap,” Luxembourg’s Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn told Spiegel last week. “Netanyahu is suppressing the political reality and betting on a stalemate instead. For the peace process, that is deadly.

“We need to make an attempt to draw Hamas into a democratic process and bring it on to the path of freedom -- just as we succeeded in doing with Fatah during the 1990s. That would also include informal talks with Hamas.

“And that's a position we Europeans are going to maintain,” continued Asselborn. “Still, you can't just put conditions on the Palestinian side, as they're not the only source of the violence. Israel has turned the Gaza Strip into a prison. There, 1.7 million people live in an area one-seventh the size of Luxembourg. To shut its borders and to only allow certain goods into the country and hardly any out -- this is also a form of violence. In the West Bank, Israelis continue to build settlements on expropriated land. It is a constant provocation.”

One might think that it would shore up political support for the rightwing politician at home but that would be a mistake. “American Jews have been dragged over the past few days into the controversy between their government and Israel's government, and that is neither to their benefit nor to the benefit of the State of Israel,” was the editorial comment of Haaretz, considered by some to be Israel's most influential daily newspaper.

“Unlike the many American politicians who turn Jewish organizational conferences into election rallies, Obama did not make do with rousing declarations about America's commitment to Israel's security and to the unity of Jerusalem, said the newspaper. “Though he is already thinking about his upcoming presidential election campaign, Obama looked the Jewish community in the eye and told the truth.

“The refusal by Netanyahu and his political allies to recognize the 1967 borders as a starting point leads permanent-status negotiations into a dead end. From there, the road is short to violent confrontation with the Palestinians, diplomatic isolation and perhaps even economic sanctions,’ said Haaretz.

“The large Jewish peace camp in the United States must support the president and reject political activists who have turned Israel's fate into a ball on America's domestic political court. The time has come for the Jews of New York and Illinois to stand beside their worried brethren in Jerusalem and Sderot, who have welcomed Obama's message and are hoping for it to become reality. Between loyalty to Obama's way and loyalty to Netanyahu's way, they must choose loyalty to the future of the State of Israel.”

Obama “knows that, given Netanyahu's political constraints and his worldview, chances for productive negotiations with the Palestinians are practically zero,” says Carlo Strenger, Tel Aviv University philosopher and psychoanalyst and member of the Permanent Monitoring Panel on Terrorism of the World Federation of Scientists. “He also knows that the Palestinians' bid for recognition by the UN general assembly, where the US does not have veto power, is likely to receive more than two-thirds of the vote, probably including Britain and France.

“So Netanyahu is losing,” says Strenger. “But the real victims of his rightwing government's disastrous policies are the people of Israel. The specter of Israel's ever-growing isolation and increasing international pressure on it looms large. As Israeli prize-winning historian and political scientist Zeev Sternhell writes in Haaretz, ‘Israel is on the way to becoming a pariah state’.”

“The clear losers in Netanyahu’s shortsightedness, wrapped into grandiose verbal pyrotechnics, are the citizens of Israel. Once the dust of the media storm settles down, we will be faced with the stark truth: the specter of Israel’s ever-growing isolation and of increasing international pressure looms large. Once the Palestinians succeed in their bid for statehood, the Netanyahu government will be facing international criticism of its settlement policies unprecedented in force and intensity.

“The tragedy is that Israel's growing isolation and the Palestinians' unilateral move could be avoided. Instead of fighting Palestinians' bid for recognition, Israel should support it.”

Fareed Zakaria wrote May 25 in the Washington Post: “The problem is that Netanyahu has never believed in land for peace. His strategy has been to put up obstacles, create confusion and wait it out. But one day there will be peace, along the lines that people have talked about for 20 years. And Netanyahu will be remembered only as a person before the person who made peace, a comma in history.

“It was a tactical triumph for the Israeli premier,’ said the Financial Times. “But it is Israeli citizens, not the US Congress, who will have to live with the consequences of a leader who will not make the compromises needed for peace with the Palestinians – and with an Arab world reinvigorated by the wave of revolution against tyrants Israel has come to rely on.”

“History has been in the making all over the southern bank of the Mediterranean, and it won’t skip the Palestinian territory,” commented the French newspaper Le Monde. Everywhere, the ‘Arab spring’ is bringing together people with the same demands for dignity, democracy and freedom, and there is no reason why it should not reach the Palestinians, too.’

On May 28, at Group of Eight summit in the French seaside resort of Deauville, leaders of world's richest countries gave “strong support" to President Barack Obama's stance on pre-1967 borders. In a draft statement at the G8 summit in they urged Israelis and Palestinians "to return to substantive talks with a view to concluding a framework agreement on all final status issues.

"To that effect, we express our strong support for the vision of Israeli-Palestinian peace outlined by President Obama on May 19, 2011."

On the same day, over a dozen Israeli intellectuals and public figures sent a letter to European governments urging them to ”officially recognize a Palestinian State,” noting that "the peace process has reached its end,"

The letter, initiated by Sheikh Jarrah Solidarity Movement, said in part, "Peace has fallen hostage to the peace process. As Israeli citizens, we announce that if and when the Palestinian people declare independence of a sovereign state that will exist next to Israel in peace and security, we will support such the announcement of the Palestinian State with borders based on the 1967 lines, with needed land swaps on a 1:1 basis."

The letter was signed by former Knesset Speaker Avraham Burg, former Foreign Ministry Director General Alon Liel, and former Ambassador to South Africa Ilan Baruch, Nobel laureate Professor Daniel Kahneman, and Israel Prize Winner Professor Avishai Margalit.

"We urge the countries of the world to declare their willingness to recognize a sovereign Palestinian State according to these principles," the letter read, adding "the Palestinian appeal to the United Nations to recognize a Palestinian State does not harm the Israeli interest and is not at odds with the peace process."

Carl Bloice, a member of the National Coordinating Committee of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, is a columnist for the Black Commentator. He also serves on its editorial board.