If the decision to create two states – Israeli and Palestinian – is supported by the majority of UN member states, why do we still not see its implementation? The short answer would be that the parties involved and the neighboring states directly affected by the complex situation in the Middle East, as well as the international community, continue to fail to agree on the implementation of this idea. Public meeting (Town hall), which took place this year at the Munich Security Conference (MSC2024) – Piecemeal Peace: The Future of Israeli-Palestinian Relations – to look under a microscope at all the contradictions that characterize the relationship between Palestinians and Israelis. From the Israeli side, the former leader of the opposition in the parliament and former foreign minister Tzipi Livni, the foreign ministers of Jordan, Spain and Canada took part in the discussion.

It is significant that the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the State of Palestine, as he is called in the conference program, was interviewed separately. The Jordanian foreign minister called for an end to the Israeli “occupation”, the Spanish minister stressed that Spain is concerned about the fate of Palestinian citizens in the Gaza Strip, and the Canadian foreign minister, Melanie Jolie, supported the idea of ​​returning Israeli hostages. . The gesture, Jolie argued, could lead to a new cease-fire followed by the opening of borders for humanitarian aid, which Palestinians in Gaza desperately need. But the discussion once again demonstrated the fact that, despite the common goal of ending the conflict, political actors treat the conflict itself in different ways. For Jordan’s foreign minister, the problem is a long-standing one, and the October 7 massacre is just the latest “crisis” in a long line. For the Canadian and Spanish ministers, the conflict has a legal and humanitarian dimension. For Tzipi Livni, who openly stated that she supports the Israeli military operation in Gaza, it is about the very survival of the state of Israel. Therefore, it will be difficult to implement a solution that has different meanings for the participants involved in the negotiations.

But there is another, perhaps more complicated answer to this question. Because the trust and superiority of classical methods of diplomacy – negotiations – have run out. In addition, consensus on global principles and values ​​is under attack from those who believe, rightly or wrongly, that the current world order is disadvantaged. International security should be about managing global armed conflicts. This must be because the UN has demonstrated a glaring inefficiency in fulfilling its mandate over the past three decades: in the 1990s, there was the genocide in Rwanda, the war in the former Yugoslavia and the genocide in Srebrenica, and in the early 2000s, terrorist attacks proliferated, causing two other wars: Afghanistan (2001) and Iraq (2003). In addition, conflicts waged by non-state actors, such as African paramilitary groups or organizations designated as terrorists, have increasingly demonstrated incredible brutality against non-military populations, i.e. civilians. Mass murder, recruitment of child soldiers, rape as a weapon of war, modern slavery are some of the “measures” used in post-1989 wars. Ironically, one of these entities, the “Islamic State” (2013-2019), even clearly sought to acquire another status – that of a state.

Another red line of the Charter was violated by the war in Ukraine and the Israeli military operation in Gaza. Article 2(4) of the UN Charter expressly states that: “All members of the Organization shall refrain in their international relations from the use of force or the threat of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state or any other state. in any other way incompatible with the purposes of the United Nations”. The provisions of the founding document of the United Nations Organization, which unites 193 states of the world and which tried to turn a classic war into illegal behavior from the point of view of international law, are being deliberately violated.

Given the evidence, several questions must be asked: Even though our technology is advancing more and more and we are on the verge of seeing an artificial life form created for the first time on Earth, are we as a species becoming more violent than ever? When? Is it a resurgence of atavistic instincts that demonstrate, as Thomas Hobbes did, that life in politically ungoverned societies will always be “nasty, brutish, short”? Or, as neorealists argue, is the multipolar world we live in structurally much more unstable than the bipolar one that was the international system during the Cold War? In the first case, it is an argument that identifies the root cause of war in human nature. There is little that can be done here by classical management methods. The second point of view interprets the war as a consequence of the action of some systemic factors. Even if solving such “causes” is very difficult, this vision is more optimistic. We already have global initiatives and academic literature on “war and peace”. All of them can give us some answers.

However, we must first understand that international security measures are always governed by the limitations imposed on members by the Charter of the United Nations. The responses of the UN, which involve the use of force – for example, peacekeeping missions, but not only – can be carried out exclusively within the framework of the provisions of Chapter VII of this Charter – “Actions in case of threats to the peace, breaches of the peace and acts of aggression”. The Security Council (SC) is and , which “finds” (Article 39) the existence of such situations, takes “temporary measures” (Article 40), applies sanctions, but without the use of armed force (Article 41), or mobilizes the air forces, armies and navies of states -members (Art. 42) for the purpose of a military response. However, the SC can only act if the 5 permanent members agree unanimously to its resolutions. The current political impasse is caused by the Security Council, which, although the main forum of the UN, remains too politically divided. Regarding the war in Ukraine and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Security Council does not meet the criteria for passing a resolution, i.e. 5 votes in favor from permanent members France, Great Britain, China, Russia and the United States. Unfortunately, it seems that the international organization created specifically to protect future generations from the “scourge of war”, no longer protects us. It may never have protected us, but at least it maintained the illusion of a manageable international order.

Quo vadis so the international community? The key word in the new international context seems to be “reform”. However, it is worth saying that this blocking of political decisions is not new. Even in the past, the Security Council has not acted firmly and decisively in conflicts involving one or more permanent members. Nevertheless, the UN and the SC continue to function. At the then largest meeting of member states in the history of the UN – the Global Meeting of 2005 (UN World Summit 2005) – Secretary General Kofi Annan stated in his report: Broader Freedom: Towards Development, Security andhuman rights for all (“For greater freedom: towards development, security and human rights for all”), that the reform of the UN is impossible without the reform of the Security Council. Then Annan said that the Republic of Belarus should become more representative of the balance of power in the modern world and more democratic in its decisions. The new Radovy Committee will have 24 seats, and the new permanent or semi-permanent seats will be distributed by region. In 2024, i.e. 19 years later, MSC2024 participants, invited to discuss the future reform of the SC, came to a positive conclusion that by 2030 such a reform, albeit gradual, will become possible. What it would include: increasing the number of seats in the Council and removing the veto power of permanent members.

But is reforming the Security Council enough to restore peace? The answer can only be ambiguous: both yes and no. The current situation is one of the most difficult in the history of the UN. However, the difficulties do not necessarily lie in the number or even the intensity of conflicts. They have been as bloody and explosive as it gets in our recent past. The multipolarity of the international system and the lack of consensus on international norms are currently exacerbating all armed confrontations. The UN must be reformed and become a reliable institution of the 21st century. The current Security Council represents an anachronistic separation of powers, where permanent members use their veto power not to maintain peace – the ultimate goal of the Charter – but to advance their own interests. _Read the entire article and comment on Contributors.ro