UNSC meeting and Israel-Palestine

  • India’s permanent representative to the United Nations, T S Tirumurti, made a carefully crafted statement at the UN Security Council “open debate” on the escalating Israel-Palestine violence.
  • He strived to maintain balance between India’s historic ties with Palestine and its blossoming relations with Israel.
BALANCING
  • The statement, the first India has made on the issue, appears to implicitly hold Israel responsible for triggering the current cycle of violence by locating its beginnings in East Jerusalem, referring to the clashes in the Al-­Aqsa compound and East Jerusalem’s neighborhood, rather than from Gaza. 
  • This means, India doesn’t see Hamas’s rocket firing on May 10 as the trigger of the conflict.
  • The request that both sides refrain from “attempts to unilaterally change the existing status quo including in East Jerusalem and its neighbourhoods” seems to be a message to Israel about its settler policy. 
  • The balancing was evident in the pointed condemnation of the “indiscriminate rocket firings from Gaza” on civilian targets in Israel, but not of the Israeli strikes inside Gaza.
  • Tirumurti reiterated India’s strong support to the just Palestinian cause and its unwavering commitment to the two-State solution.

INDIA'S STAND IN RECENT TIMES

  • India’s policy on the longest running conflict in the world has gone from being unequivocally pro-Palestine for the first four decades, to a tense balancing act with its three-decade-old friendly ties with Israel. 
  • The crucial point that was missing in Trimurti's statement was that East Jerusalem should be the capital [of a future Palestinian state].
  • Earlier, this used to be the mantra from India regarding the two-­state solution. 
  • Until 2017, India’s position was that it supported “the Palestinian cause and called for a negotiated solution resulting in a sovereign, independent, viable and united State of Palestine, with East Jerusalem as its capital.
  • India dropped the references to East Jerusalem and the borders in 2017 when Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas visited Delhi.

UNSC

  • The Security Council was established by the UN Charter in 1945. 
  • Its primary responsibility is to work to maintain international peace and security. 
  • The council has 15 members: the five permanent members and 10 non-permanent members elected for two-year terms. 
  • The five permanent members are the United States, the Russian Federation, France, China and the United Kingdom. 
  • The council's presidency is a capacity that rotates every month among its 15 members. 
  • The council is headquartered at New York. 

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