United States as the mediator between Israel and Hamas, brings to question what is the role of the mediator, and the basic norms to be adhered to when being the mediator.
According to United Nations, International law and US law there are certain common basic elements for being a mediator, it may be useful to briefly address the same. Basic definition is stated to be “Mediation in a voluntary, binding process in which an impartial and neutral mediator facilitates disputing parties in reaching a settlement.”
Basic requirements:
According to United Nations Guidance for Effective Mediation, Impartiality is the corner stone of mediation, a mediator should be able to run a balanced process that treats all actors fairly and “Should not have a material interest in the outcome”.
While UN document does indicate impartiality does not mean neutrality, as a UN mediator he/she is mandated to uphold certain universal principles and values and may need to make them explicitly known to the parties. Consistency with international law and norms constitute to reinforcing the legitimacy of process and durability of peace agreement.
According to US law, “The mediator, as a neutral third party, can view the dispute objectively and assist the parties in considering alternatives and options, they might not have considered.
The mediator is neutral in that, does not stand to personally benefit from the terms of the settlement and is important in that mediator does not have preconceived bias about how the conflict should be resolved.
The ground reality during past ten months plus in Gaza:
a) United States is the main supplier of arms and ammunition to Israel, through its military aid to Israel, 69 percent of Israel’s military import is from US.
b) Israel and United States have collaborative links for “Research, Development, Test and Evaluation (RDT &E) and some of the equipment's such as Jet F35 and F 15 or F 15Ex are being documented to access accuracy, set back and goal achievement. The process documentation happens on real times basis, this will be surely beneficial for US as the Jets are manufactured by American companies.
c) United States was the only country to veto, calls for ceasefire eight times, and at times the sole country to veto.
d) Even after ICC indicated that Israel is not adhering to international law, is carrying out war crimes and is plausible that genocide being carried out, United States has continued to arm Israel in spite of protest against the same by US domestic population.
e) The President of United States has declared to the world that he is a Zionist and would stand by Israel with all his might. The documents that sanction military aid to Israel are Presidential executive orders and is not overseen by other governing structure of United Sates, United States Supreme Court or by the Constitution
f) In spite of frequent war crimes by Israel, US has refused to condemn or question the same but rather sanctioned Israel’s attacks on Gaza as by when it states to the world Israel has the right to self defence. Never explaining how that constitute self-defence, when residential homes bombed with women and children.
There are logical fallacies, when bombed from above, there is no way women and children can protect you, especially Israel has proved it does not bother if civilians are around or not; as per International Humanitarian Law a not active combatant can not be killed when he or she part of civilian, the kind of bombs used indicated target destruction not the goal but scale of destruction is.
g) United States official have participated or been part of War Cabinet meetings of Israel.
h) In one of the Massacres, Sea Pier Massacre, US indicated providing soft intelligence but state there was no other involvement.
i) US sees nothing wrong with conditions put forward by Israel that are highly questionable, recently Israel has demanded it have permanent control over Philadelphi crossing in Gaza, though it has no legal right for the same. US did not raise queries regarding it being a criminal or war crime and nor did it indicate such control over the border means the Palestinian will be for ever the slaves of Israel and Palestine Sovereignty made an irrelevant reality.
Hence, I come back to my query with regard to Gaza-Israel, What is the role of United States, is it that of a Mediator or an Interested Party.
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