David in Goliath’s citadel: Mobilizing the Security Council’s normative power for Palestine
| Author | Jonathan Graubart,Arturo Jimenez-Bacardi |
| DOI | 10.1177/1354066115571762 |
| Date | 01 March 2016 |
| Published date | 01 March 2016 |
European Journal of
International Relations
2016, Vol. 22(1) 24 –48
© The Author(s) 2015
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DOI: 10.1177/1354066115571762
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David in Goliath’s citadel:
Mobilizing the Security
Council’s normative power
for Palestine
Jonathan Graubart
San Diego State University, USA
Arturo Jimenez-Bacardi
University of California Irvine, USA
Abstract
This article reviews the remarkable success of the Palestinian Liberation Organization
in alliance with the Non-Aligned Movement in appropriating the Security Council’s
normative power to transform the global understanding of the Israel–Arab conflict.
We feature the alliance’s submission of multiple declaratory resolutions from late 1967
through 1980, which condemned Israel’s occupation policies, declared all of the territories
conquered in the 1967 war as occupied, and endorsed a Palestinian state. Collectively,
these resolutions, including the vetoed ones, legitimized a new consensus whereby
Palestinian statehood became regarded as indispensable for a just resolution, while
Israel’s continued control over the occupied territories became viewed as the primary
obstacle, with full withdrawal expected. This consensus endures despite concerted
Israeli–US efforts to undermine it. Besides its appeal to scholars of Israel–Palestine, the
study contributes fresh insights into the Security Council’s normative authority and the
influence of non-powerful, non-Western actors. We explain the dynamics by which these
actors appropriate the Security Council’s normative influence, through its declaratory
resolutions, to boost broader advocacy campaigns. Specifically, we highlight anti-colonial
normative framing — featuring self-determination and territorial integrity — coalition
building, and trapping. The first two dynamics generate powerful political and normative
pressure, which, in turn, traps uncommitted states into supporting the cause so as to
avoid isolation and the appearance of normative hypocrisy. By featuring the Non-Aligned
Corresponding author:
Jonathan Graubart, San Diego State University, College of Arts and Letters, 5500 Campanile Drive, San
Diego, CA 92182-4427, USA.
Email: graubart@mail.sdsu.edu
571762EJT0010.1177/1354066115571762European Journal of International RelationsGraubart and Jimenez-Bacardi
research-article2015
Article
Graubart and Jimenez-Bacardi 25
Movement and the Palestinian Liberation Organization as the primary agents and anti-
colonial values as the defining norms, we present a rarely examined counter-trajectory
of norm dissemination in what is thought to be the least receptive international forum.
Keywords
Discourse, norms, Security Council, self-determination, Third World, United Nations
Introduction
Following Israel’s resounding military victory in 1967, the idea that the Palestinian
Liberation Organization (PLO) could enlist the United Nations (UN) Security Council’s
support would have seemed fanciful. To begin with, Palestinian nationalism had faded
from the global agenda, a casualty of the 1948 war and the subsequent subsuming of
Palestinian nationalism under Arab nationalism (Gresh, 1985: 17–33). Hence, the iconic
Resolution 242 of November 1967, which quickly became the benchmark diplomatic
blueprint, reduced Palestinians to an unnamed “refugee problem.”1 Moreover, the PLO
had few material resources and did not govern a state, depriving it of standing at the
UN. Yet, in just over a decade, the PLO assumed a prominent role in the Security
Council’s Middle East activities and, in alliance with the Non-Aligned Movement
(NAM), appropriated the Security Council’s prestige on behalf of a broader global nor-
mative offensive to transform the accepted framework for addressing the Israel–Arab
conflict. By 1980, there existed an overwhelming global consensus that a comprehen-
sive resolution required complete Israeli withdrawal from the territories captured in the
1967 war and an independent Palestinian state on the Gaza Strip and all of the West
Bank, including East Jerusalem. To Israel’s dismay, the framework established in
Resolution 242 had been reconstituted.
The PLO–NAM’s Security Council strategy consisted of mobilizing supermajorities
for declaratory resolutions that affirmed the inadmissibility of acquiring territory by
force, condemned Israel’s settlements and annexation of Jerusalem, and endorsed a
Palestinian state. To be sure, these resolutions did not compel concrete changes and the
ones endorsing Palestinian statehood were vetoed by the US. Nevertheless, as discussed
later, they collectively provided crucial legitimization for a pro-Palestinian global frame-
work whereby Palestinian statehood became regarded as indispensable for resolving the
Israeli–Arab conflict, while Israel’s continued control over the occupied territories was
viewed as the primary obstacle. In particular, Security Council interjections prodded
significant policy shifts from individual states and regional organizations. By 1980,
Palestinian statehood and full Israeli withdrawal had become the new global consensus
and endures to the present. The PLO–NAM coalition even managed to blunt the effect of
the US vetoes by eliciting statements of support for Palestinian self-determination from
all other Security Council members. By forcing a lone US veto, such resolutions promi-
nently exposed US isolation from the international consensus.
Surprisingly, this impressive success has garnered no scholarly attention. There are
only a few historical studies of the Security Council and the Israel–Arab conflict, and
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