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42/684
November 2011/Cheshvan 5772
A JOURNAL OF JEWISH RESPONSIBILITY
the United Nations
Karen Naimer
International Law and
the Emergence of a
New World Order . . . . . . . 1
Steven Bayme
Ronald W. Zweig
Recognizing Israel, Recognizing
Palestine: Legitimate or False
Parallels?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Steve Sheffey
President Obama and
the United Nations . . . . . . 5
Stephen Zunes
Netanyahu’s Policies
Do Not Help Israel. . . . . . . 6
Matthew RJ Brodsky
Reviewing Obama’s
U.N. Record ........... 7
Should Israel Care? Three
Reflections on a Question
Daniel Gordis
David Ben-Gurion’s
Prescience. . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Bradley Burston
Israel’s Interest in
Engaging the World . . . . . 10
Marc Gopin
The Mirror of Humanity
in the East 40s. . . . . . . . . 11
Yuda Braun, Rina
Castelnuovo, Shai
Kremer, & Roi Kuper
NiSh’ma . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Daniel Kurtzer
Giving Multilateral
Diplomacy a Chance . . . . 14
Jill Jacobs
Justice and Human Rights . 15
Nathaniel Berman
‘Hysteria’: Reading the
Palestinian Application. . . 16
Samuel Moyn
The Vertical Alliance
Today. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Discussion Guide. . . . . . . 19
Gil Troy
The United Nations’ War
against the Jews: Destructive
and Self-Destructive. . . . . 19
Harriet Mandel
Working with the
United Nations . . . . . . . . 20
Harry Reicher
Theater of the Absurd. . . . 21
Owen Gottlieb
Sh’maEthics . . . . . . . . . 24
elations between Jews and the United Nations have been complex — sometimes very
close, sometimes, especially in recent years, with mounting world criticism leveled at
Israel, hostile. This issue of Sh’ma examines what it has meant for Jews since the end
of the First World War to be scrutinized, protected, criticized, and prodded by representatives of
the world’s nations. We include several perspectives on these questions: Given its history with
the U.N., should Israel care about what happens in this international body? Is there a legitimate
parallel between the U.N.’s recognition of Israel and its potential recognition of Palestine? What
is the relationship between a people’s desire for statehood and independence and their longing
for international recognition — and what are the ensuing obligations and responsibilities?
We decided to devote an issue to Jews and the United Nations months ago and began
soliciting essays for the issue in early July — long before the current fervor outside the U.N.
halls heated up. We believed that with the question of Palestinian statehood pending before the
international body, an issue examining the history, context, and variations of the Jewish (and
Israeli) relationship to the U.N. would be instructive. As we go to press with this issue, neither
the Security Council nor the General Assembly has voted on recognizing a Palestinian state.
Whatever happens, this issue of Sh’ma provides a primer and a critical tool for a more thorough
understanding of the matter. It allows for a deeper delving into the topic, and for an awareness
that not much about the Jewish relationship to the U.N. is as it initially appears.
—Susan Berrin, Editor-in-Chief
R
International Law and the Emergence
of a New World Order
KAREN NAIMER
In March of this year, as fighting advanced toward Benghazi, Libyan leader Col. Muammar Qaddafi warned protestors that
he would show them “no mercy and no pity.”
Anticipating a possible massacre if no preven-
tative steps were taken, the United
Nations Security Council invoked
the “responsibility to protect” and
authorized military action. The de-
velopment of this 21st-century
doctrine — which mandates that
each state protect its populations
from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing,
and crimes against humanity, or risk interven-
tion by the international community when it
fails to do so — represents the significant ero-
sion of the principle of state sovereignty. States,
in other words, can no longer slaughter large
portions of their own populations without con-
sequences under international law. This is a far
cry from Nuremberg, where not a single defen-
dant in the dock was charged for any offenses
committed prior to the start of the Second
World War because no law existed governing
how states should treat their own citizens in a
Hersch Lauterpacht challenged the idea of the state
as a metaphysical entity with independent agency,
arguing that states do not commit heinous crimes,
individuals do, and when those individuals violate
the law, they must be held accountable.
time of peace. Credit for the seismic shift in the
legal landscape since 1945 is due in large part
to Hersch Lauterpacht (1897-1960) and Raphael
Lemkin (1900-1959), arguably two of the most
influential international lawyers of the last century. Though their paths differed, their contributions — to prioritize the rights of the
individual over the power of the state and to
