US to Council Members: Abstain on Palestine Bid

 The United States is pushing hard to avoid a showdown next Friday in New York, where the Security Council is scheduled to announce a decision on Palestine’s application for full UN membership.

Although the United States has repeatedly said it would block any attempt to pass the resolution, the Obama administration wants to avoid using its veto and is asking other Council members to abstain from voting. A US veto of the Palestinian bid would be a significant blow to US standing in the Arab world.

Obama reportedly sent Bosnia Herzegovina leaders a letter this week asking them not to support the Palestinian request.

Palestinian leaders would need at least 9 votes in favor of the resolution from the Council’s 15 members to force a US veto. China, Russia, Lebanon, Brazil, India and South Africa have all said they would support Palestinian membership.

A UN diplomat has told the BBC that France, Colombia and the United Kingdom have already let the Security Council know they would abstain from voting, while Germany has indicated it would not support the Palestinian request, without saying if it would abstain or vote no.

The US would need two of the remaining four members; Bosnia,Portugal, Nigeria and Gabon, to abstain or vote no in order to avoid having to use its veto.

On Monday UN member states overwhelmingly voted to accept Palestine into UNESCO, forcing the US to cut off all of its funding to the organization. Current American law calls for the defunding of any UN organization that  accepts Palestine in its membership.

 Israel has responded to Palestine ascension to UNESCO by announcing it would speed up settlement construction in the West Bank and Jerusalem and stop payment of of the tax revenue it collects on behalf of the Palestinian Authority.

The Palestinian  envoy at the United Nations Riyad Mansour condemned Israel’s response and said he would ask the Security Council to intervene. UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon and officials at the US state department have both said they are concerned by Israel’s decisions.

The Obama administration used its first and so far only veto at the Security Council in February, when it was the lone Council member to oppose a resolution condemning Israeli settlement construction.

The criminal underground's aid in the Siege of Sarajevo

Have United Nations workers and other NGO volunteers always maintained peace, or have they been the central piece to a war economy?

Scholar and author Peter Andreas of “Blue Helmets and Black Markets: The Business of Survival in the Siege of Sarajevo” portrays in his new book the double-sided affects of the international involvement during the Siege of Sarajevo. Andreas stressed that the Unites Nations was a main player in the siege’s peacekeeping, but it also allowed an underground criminal economy to facilitate positive and negative forces in Sarajevo.

Andreas said, “criminality involved looting the city, but also saving it. It involved perpetuating the siege, but also ending the war. And it involved state deformation and formation at the same time”. Andreas said the criminal underground emerged in the absence of an organized army in Sarajevo, and became “overnight patriotic heroes.” In a secret tunnel beneath the Sarajevo Airport, these criminals served as profiteers---selling cigarettes, alcohol, and arms---as well as a lifeline, providing money, medical supplies and an escape for civilians.

The UN controlled the airport during the siege. It was through the airport that civilians and criminal leaders ran their market of aid and corruption. Although he recognized that NATO air strikes were significant in the siege’s conclusion, he says most of the war’s conclusion was due to the shifting military balance in the arms embargo under the UN controlled airport. International aid was significant in publicizing and aiding the siege, but Andreas’ “backstage” conclusions may be the reason there is now a new criminalized elite in Sarajevo and elsewhere in Bosnia.