David in Goliath’s citadel: Mobilizing the Security Council’s normative power for Palestine

Abstract

This article reviews the remarkable success of the Palestinian Liberation Organization in alliance with the Non-Aligned Movement in appropriating the Security Council's normative power to transform the global understanding of the Israel-Arab conflict. We feature the alliance's submission of multiple declaratory resolutions from late 1967 through 1980, which condemned Israel's occupation policies, declared all of the territories conquered in the 1967 war as occupied, and endorsed a Palestinian state. Collectively, these resolutions, including the vetoed ones, legitimized a new consensus whereby Palestinian statehood became regarded as indispensable for a just resolution, while Israel's continued control over the occupied territories became viewed as the primary obstacle, with full withdrawal expected. This consensus endures despite concerted Israeli-US efforts to undermine it. Besides its appeal to scholars of Israel-Palestine, the study contributes fresh insights into the Security Council's normative authority and the influence of non-powerful, non-Western actors. We explain the dynamics by which these actors appropriate the Security Council's normative influence, through its declaratory resolutions, to boost broader advocacy campaigns. Specifically, we highlight anti-colonial normative framing -featuring self-determination and territorial integrity -coalition building, and trapping. The first two dynamics generate powerful political and normative pressure, which, in turn, traps uncommitted states into supporting the cause so as to avoid isolation and the appearance of normative hypocrisy. By featuring the Non-Aligned

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“…Libya in 2011 provided a rare—and ultimately ephemeral—moment of great power agreement on MENA security issues (Bergen et al, 2022). In the Arab-Israeli conflict, the United States has used its veto power on the Security Council to protect Israel from international censure for its occupation of Palestinian territories (Graubart & Jimenez-Bacardi, 2016). The most extreme illustration of the futility of the UN mediation elements in MENA occurred during the Syrian civil war, when Russia was an active belligerent but blocked any Security Council measures that might apply pressure to reduce the conflict harm (Asseburg et al, 2018).…”

Controlling International Institutions: How the US Engineered UNSC Non‐permanent Members in the Early Cold War

“…The elections of UNSC non‐permanent members during the early Cold War period not only shows how the US was in perpetual struggle to ensure its privileged position in the Council but also documents the counter‐struggle of weak states in elevating independent states to the Council. It was this counter‐struggle that weakened the institutional inequalities of the Council in favor of Third World countries in the 1960s and 1970s (Graubart, & Jimenez‐Bacardi, 2016). Therefore, a study of the struggle over the composition of Council's non‐permanent members during the early Cold War period can empirically uncover the constant struggle of the US in ensuring its institutional privilege in the Council and the limits of the US power in controlling the Council.…”