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Jerusalem – Almost from the beginning of the current round of hostilities between Israelis and Palestinians, Palestinian Authority leader Yasser Arafat has demanded that United Nations forces be sent to the region «to protect» Palestinians from Israeli «aggression.» With about 200 Palestinians killed so far and a few thousand wounded, Arafat’s claim would seem logical.
Upon closer examination, however, it is difficult to find genuine humanitarian concern in this Palestinian demand. After all, is one to believe that Arafat – who on Aug. 6, 1995, at al-Azhar University in Gaza said that “the Palestinian people is prepared to sacrifice its last boy and girl in order to wave the Palestinian flag» who uses children as human shields to protect the Palestinian snipers, who remunerates families with $2,000 per «martyr» and who initiated the present confrontation in the first place – really cares about the physical integrity of his people?

No, there is more. Arafat is in fact pursuing multiple goals through his initiative, first and foremost to internationalize the conflict. By involving the United Nations (including Russia and the European Union), Arafat would block the chances of solving the conflict with Israel; for the participation of these parties, each with its own domestic and global interests, would mean that negotiations would be lost amid endless talks. This is what happened at the Madrid Conference inaugurated 10 years ago: the high level of international involvement combined with   excessive media exposure obstructed progress. The Oslo secret channel was created as an alternative to this failed initiative.

Arafat is trying to emulate the situation Israel is currently facing on its border with Lebanon. Into the theater of this conflict, the multinational United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon was positioned, a force that at best can be defined as useless.

To wit: For years, Hezbollah habitually launched Katyusha rockets against Israel over the heads of UNIFIL troops. Since Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from South Lebanon, dozens of Lebanese daily throw stones and metallic objects at Israeli soldiers on the other side of the border without UNIFIL taking action. Nor did the presence of the U.N. contingent prevent Hezbollah from crossing the international border and kidnapping three Israeli soldiers almost two months ago. In practice, the U.N. presence not only failed to deter a terrorist group from attacking Israel but also limited Israel’s ability to defend itself.

The United Nations is an essentially pro-PLO organization. The Security Council and the General Assembly already have condemned Israel for the current wave of violence, while the Geneva-based U.N: Human Rights Committee sent a delegation to the area, in the face of Israeli objections. The PLO has enjoyed preferential treatment in U.N. corridors. Even before Arafat was invited to speak before the General Assembly in 1974, the PLO already had acquired observer status in many U.N. agencies, among them, the International Association of   Civil Aviation — this, when the PLO was considered the No. 1 hijacking organization. Also in 1974, the PLO was granted «permanent observer status,» an honor until then reserved only for nonmember states such as the Vatican and Switzerland.

During the last 20 years, the United Nations religiously has commemorated the annual International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. In 1982, U.N. flags waved over the ships transporting the defeated PLO from Beirut to Tunis. No other separatist group or movement of national liberation has been accorded this level of U.N. attention — not the Basques, the Irish, Armenians, Tibetans, Biafrans or Kurds.

With these precedents in mind, one does not need a Ph.D. in political science to predict that any kind of U.N.-sponsored observer group will condemn Israel in this violent set of confrontations with the PLO-led Palestinian Authority.   

That in a group of 188 member states, 30 percent of General Assembly condemnations and 40 percent of mandated investigations of human-rights violations have fallen on just one nation, Israel — and never on the Palestinian side — is not very reassuring. Arafat knows it. That’s why he wants the United Nations here.

Julián Schvindlerman is a political analyst and journalist in Jerusalem.