The shocking human cost that occupation has taken on Palestinian women is laid bare in research published today. Combining research, extensive surveys, and first-hand testimonies from over 40 Palestinian women, Palestinian Women: The Disproportionate Impact of The Israeli Occupation provides new insight into the gendered experience of occupation, looking into four issues in particular:

• women refugees
• the impact of residency revocation on Palestinian women in Jerusalem
• the experience of women prisoners
• Gazans’ access to health

Co-authored by four Palestinian NGOs – the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH), Palestinian Working Woman Society for Development (PWWSD), the Women’s Centre for Legal Aid and Counselling (WCLAC), and Women Media and Development (TAM), the report includes detailed findings that demonstrate how the oppression occupation has permeated women’s daily lives, and the particular impact is has had on women in Palestinian refugee camps, Palestinian women living in Jerusalem, women prisoners, and residents of Gaza who require health services.

The impact on refugee women

Researchers spoke to 500 Palestinian refugee women from 12 Palestinian camps (7 in the West Bank, 5 in Gaza). Their findings included the following:

• A third of women surveyed had been directly exposed to physical assault by Israeli Occupation Forces. 9% had been exposed to threats of being attacked by police dogs during Israeli night raids on their homes.
• Over a third (37%) of respondents had been exposed to detention or interrogation, while 38% said that they or members of their households had been exposed to verbal abuse during Israeli army raids, at checkpoints or while visiting religious places.
• Nearly a quarter (24%) were forced to live in shelters or with extended family. 22% were forced to live under unhealthy conditions. 13% stated that the female and male members of their families were separated as a result of having to live in shelters.
• More than one in five (21%) had been exposed to beatings or tear gas at Israeli checkpoints while they were pregnant. 4% reported that they aborted or gave birth at Israeli checkpoints.
• The majority (64%- 321 cases) had been unable to visit religious or recreational places because of Occupation restrictions.

Jerusalem: Residency Revocation and Family Reunification

According to official figures, 14,595 Palestinians from East Jerusalem had their residency status revoked between 1967 and the end of 2016.

Through residency revocations, Israel has separated husbands from wives, parents from children, and extended families from one another, causing traumatic complications for women attempting to remain with their families in both Jerusalem and the West Bank.

This leads to traumatic fears of separation from children for mothers and an entrenching of patriarchal practices across society. Palestinian women living in Jerusalem lose residency rights if they get divorced or their husbands remarry. Limiting their access to justice, female victims of domestic violence fear reporting abuse to authorities in case they are forcibly transferred away from their children.

Women prisoners

Since the beginning of the Israeli Occupation of Palestine in 1967, approximately 10,000 Palestinian women have been arrested and detained by Israeli military forces. According to the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs’ 2017 annual report, 1,467 children were arrested last year.

Our researchers spoke to prisoners who experienced physical and psychological torture at arrest and imprisonment, and traumatic, gendered treatment, including:

• Women denied access to menstrual products while detained
• A woman arrested while pregnant who gave birth while chained to a prison hospital bed
• Ex-prisoners who report being subjected to rape and death threats during interrogation, including a girl in of 15-years old threatened with rape
• Women who were subjected to frequent forced and violent strip searches
• A prisoner who reported toothache, only to have the wrong tooth removed

Access to Health in Gaza

Israel exercises strict control Gaza’s borders, a policy of ‘actual authority’, constituting continued occupation, despite the withdrawal of its permanent presence. This control in particular affects those who need medical treatment outside of Gaza’s struggling health system, who require permission to leave. The report shows that the rate of approval applications is falling year-by-year:

• 92.5% of applications were successful in 2012
• 88.7% in 2013
• 82.4% in 2014
• 77.5% in 2015
• 62.1% in 2016

Of the 26,282 permit applications submitted by patients aiming to exit through Erez in 2016, 8,242 (31.4%) were delayed. Many applicants received no response from border authorities, even after lawyers filed formal applications on their behalf. These delays regularly extend months and years beyond medical appointments, worsening already life-threatening diseases and in some cases resulting in death.

Read the full report here, or download it here:

Palestinian Women – The Disproportionate Impact of the Israeli Occupation

Women represent half of the Palestinian population

The qualitative base of the structure of the population in Palestine the sex ratio stood at 103.3, which means that there are 103 males for every 100 females

The percentage of female-headed households

The percentage of female-headed households in Palestine was 10.6% in 2017, 11.2% in the West Bank and 9.5% in Gaza Strip.

fifth of the persons in Palestine got married at an early age (less than 18 years) in 2016

Early marriage reached to 20.5% among females and 1.0% among males of the total married population in Palestine; the rate was 19.9% out of the total married population in West Bank and 21.6% out of the total married population in Gaza Strip end 2016.

The highest rate of female early marriage in the West Bank was in Hebron 36.8%, and the lowest was in Jericho and the Jordan Valley 1.2% out of the total number of women marriage below 18 years in the West Bank. In Gaza Strip, the highest rate of early female marriage was 42.1% in Gaza Governorate, while the lowest rate was in Dier Al-Balah 7.1% out of the total number of women marriage below 18 years in Gaza Strip.

A continued rise in literacy among women

Despite the rise in literacy rates among females over the last decade, the gap is still in favor of males by 3.0%, female literacy rates was 95.6% compared to 98.6% for male literacy in the year 2017.

Rise in enrollment rate of females in high schools compared to males

Data showed that male enrollment in high schools was 60.5%, compared to female enrollment which was 80.4% for the year 2016-2017.

A gap in the participation rate and average daily wages between men and women

The female participation rate in the labor force was 19.0% of the total female population at work age in 2017, compared to 10.3% in 2001, while the male participation rate was 71.2% in 2017. There was also a pay gap in the average daily wages between males and females; the average daily wage for females was NIS 84.6 compared to NIS 119.6 for males.

Around half of the women are unemployed

The unemployment rate among women participated in the labor force was 47.4% compared to 22.3% for participated males. 65.8% of youth females aged of (15-29 years) were unemployed. While the unemployment rate among women with 13 school years and above represents 53.8% of women in this group.

Palestinian Women in Public Life

In 2017; 21.2% of the members of the local councils are females in the West Bank while 78.8% were males.

In 2016, 82.7% of judges were male, compared to 17.3% female, while 66.6% of registered lawyers were male, compared to 33.4% female and 82.0% of members of the public prosecution staff were male, compared to 18.0% female. Furthermore, Palestinian female ambassadors represented 5.8% compared to 94.2% male. Females represented 32.3% of registered engineers with the Union of Engineers while male represented 67.7%. On the other hand, in 2016, 12.4% of members of student councils in West Bank universities were females, compared to 87.6% males.

In the public sector, females represented 42.7% of civil servants, compared to 57.3% male civil servant. In the public civil sector, female Director Generals represented 11.3% of the total director generals, compared to 88.7% males in the same post.

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Ten months ago Israel agreed to a U.S. request (Washington never demands) for a freeze in new settlement construction in the occupied West Bank. What they got wasn’t really a freeze, more a slight cooling. They called it a moratorium. And that moratorium expired Sunday night. The press coverage was breathless, reporting every phone call between the various parties. Pundits analyzed the significance of which leaders were talking from which cities, who flew home and who remained in Washington. One interviewer asked me if it was important that Secretary of State Clinton had called Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas just before the deadline. (It wasn’t.)

At the end of the day, the talks will almost certainly continue with or without a settlement freeze – but does that really matter?

Unfortunately, as long as these talks continue in their current framework – accepting as legitimate the vast disparity of power between Israel and the Palestinians, and acting as if the two sides, occupying power and occupied population, somehow come to the table as equals – the answer is no. As long as the U.S. defines its “honest broker” role as providing unlimited financial, military, diplomatic and political support for Israel while offering only face-saving to the Palestinian leaders, and as long as the talks are not based on the requirements of international law – the answer will be no.

It doesn’t matter whether this particular round of talks goes forward or not. (The last high-profile U.S.-brokered talks involving Prime Minister Netanyahu and leading to an agreement that was never implemented, were negotiated at Maryland’s Wye River in 1998 with PLO Chairman Yasir Arafat – and it wasn’t called the “Wye Bother” summit for nothing.)

The 10-month settlement moratorium that just ended was filled with loopholes: it only included new housing starts. It allowed continued building of many infrastructure projects, of housing that had already been approved, of anything that had already started – and it never applied to occupied Arab East Jerusalem. The “compromise” that will likely emerge in coming days will talk about putting off the question of settlements, and starting instead with borders – ostensibly an “easier” issue. It means that the first agreement will be on how much West Bank land – the 22 percent left of historic Palestine – the Palestinians must give up to official Israeli annexation before they can even talk about settlements. And it means that in the meantime, settlement expansion throughout Arab East Jerusalem and throughout the West Bank continues without restriction.

That’s the consequence of the U.S. approach to these peace talks: treat the two parties as if they were equals. Make both sides compromise. Make both sides recognize the legitimacy of the other’s position. All fine if the conflict is a border dispute between sovereign states. But when one side is an occupied people, dispossessed and divided, and the other side, the Occupying Power, is the strongest military force in the region and backed unqualifiedly by the most powerful country in the world, the call for “both sides” to “compromise” is a call for victory for the powerful, and defeat for the rights of the weaker side.

Ultimately, human rights and international law are at stake here. And the U.S. position has largely abandoned both.

As we have seen so many times before, if the talks are not grounded in international law and justice, there will be no peace. There may be the illusion of “the end of conflict” and a “Palestinian state” agreed to by leaders, but without real change on the ground. The “state” will be made up of non-contiguous Bantustan-like parcels of land, that taken together, amount to about 60 percent of the West Bank. The Apartheid Wall will become part of the de facto “border,” meaning that the vast majority of Palestinian water resources (and about 10 percent of the land) remain under Israeli control. Gaza will remain besieged with Israel controlling coastal water and the skies above as well as all borders and entry and exit of all people and goods. And Israel will still control West Bank border crossings, air space and any link to Gaza. Jerusalem will remain under Israel sovereignty, with small pockets of Arab East Jerusalem and parts of the Old City provided with special status, but without Palestinian sovereignty. Palestinian refugees will be denied their legal right to return and compensation, and Palestinian citizens of Israel will continue to live under an officially discriminatory political system.

In fact, as my colleague Nadia Hijab has described, “success” of the current approach to negotiations could be far more dangerous than failure. If the current talks did succeed, she wrote, “next year is likely to see a grand ceremony where Palestinian leaders will sign away the right of return and other Palestinian rights in an agreement that would change little on the ground. …If the rest of the world sees that the government of 'Palestine' is satisfied with international recognition and a U.N. seat, they will be happy to move on to other problems leaving the Palestinians at Israel’s mercy. Such a scenario could sound a death-knell for Palestinian human rights. …A ‘peace agreement’ would end the applicability of international law to the resolution of the conflict; permanently fragment the Palestinian people; and demobilize Arab and international solidarity.”

We continue to hear how hard U.S. officials are trying, how President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton and Special Envoy George Mitchell and their teams are working the phones and shuttling between the Israeli and Palestinian sides looking for a way out. I have no doubt they are working very hard – there is no doubt they are eager, perhaps even desperate – to accomplish something that can be called a foreign policy victory. And not only because of the midterm elections. At this moment of rising violence in still-occupied Iraq, growing recognition of the abject failure in Afghanistan, rising international anger at U.S. expanding military assaults in Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan and elsewhere…even an announcement that low-level talks may continue would be welcome.

But however desperate they are, there is one thing they haven’t tried. No one in the Obama administration has said the words “hold Israel accountable.” No one in the Obama administration has said to Prime Minister Netanyahu, “the settlements are illegal. All of them. And you need to stop building them and start removing them. All of them. And until you do, you can say goodbye to the $30 billion George Bush promised you that we agreed to pay. We’ll use that money instead to create 600,000 new green jobs here in the U.S. And until you do, you can say goodbye to our diplomatic protection in the UN, so your violations of international law will be sent to be heard in the International Criminal Court. And until you do, you can say goodbye to our defense of your undeclared nuclear weapons arsenal, so you will face a global demand that you sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty and get rid of your nukes.”

Bibi Netanyahu thinks his government could fall if he announces a settlement freeze. If he doesn’t hear President Obama telling him there will be consequences, that he will pay a price if he doesn’t freeze the settlements, why should he take that risk? If he heard the word accountability, if he believed Israel really could lose its military aid and its diplomatic protection, his calculations would be significantly different. His government – not to mention the Israeli people – would demand something very different. But if his Washington sponsor won’t take a political risk, why should anyone expect Netanyahu to do so?

Phyllis Bennis is a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C. She is the author of "Challenging Empire: How People, Governments, and the UN Defy U.S. Power" (Interlink Publishing, October 2005).

Olmert's high-profile visit to Washington succeeded in winning support for his version of the Sharon-initiated plan for a unilateral Israeli move in West Bank.

* Bush capped Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's visit to Washington with a cautious endorsement of Israel's plan for annexation of large swathes of Palestinian territory including major settlement blocs and about 80% of Israeli settlers in the West Bank.

* Bush hailed Olmert's "bold moves," but the visit still highlighted a potential divide between U.S. and Israeli approaches, as well as between the White House and Congressional Republicans.

* On the ground in the occupied territories, humanitarian conditions continue to deteriorate, and desperation and violence are on the rise.

* A new Palestinian initiative raises the possibility of a referendum on accepting a Palestinian state in territory occupied in 1967, implicitly recognizing Israel.

* Bush promised to defend Israel if it is attacked by Iran; Olmert pushed for international action against Iran, and said he and Bush see eye to eye on the Iran crisis.

Ehud Olmert's high-profile visit to Washington succeeded in winning support for his version of the Sharon-initiated plan for a unilateral Israeli move in the West Bank. The plan would remove about 60,000 settlers from dozens of scattered settlements, while annexing huge swathes of land including three major settlement blocs populated by about 160,000 settlers, to Israel. Despite Israeli claims, all the settlements -- the small scattered "outposts" and the huge city-sized suburban-style settlements outside of Jerusalem -- are equally illegal under international law, UN resolutions and the Geneva Conventions.

The plan includes imposing a unilaterally determined border between Israel (which currently has no acknowledged borders) and a putative Palestinian state. According to Israel's foreign minister, the border would largely follow the route of the Apartheid Wall Israel has built throughout the occupied West Bank. According to the United Nations, that border would mean Israeli annexation of about 15% of West Bank territory and the vast majority of its scarce water aquifers.

The plan is based on Sharon's 2002 model which called for an Israeli land grab in the West Bank in the form of legalizing major settlement blocs, and an end to the Palestinian right of return as a quid-pro-quo for Israel's settler pull-out and troop withdrawal from the streets of Gaza. However, since the 2005 Gaza "redeployment" Israel continues its occupation by controlling all of Gaza's entry and exit, airspace, coastal waters, economy, water and electricity, as well as by continual military attacks and "targeted assassinations" of Gazan military and political leaders with high numbers of accompanying civilian casualties. In a letter to Sharon in April 2004, Bush accepted that deal.

Olmert's plan is based on Sharon's vision. Former President Jimmy Carter, writing in USA Today about the plan, said "It is inconceivable that any Palestinian, Arab leader, or any objective member of the international community could accept this illegal action as a permanent solution to the continuing altercation in the Middle East. This confiscation of land is to be carried out without resorting to peace talks with the Palestinians, and in direct contravention of the 'road map for peace,' which President Bush helped to initiate and has strongly supported."

But because it envisions a pull-out from a part of the economically and strategically more valuable West Bank, rather than Sharon's Gaza pull-out, Olmert's plan is politically riskier within the fractious Israeli political scene. And Olmert, who was Sharon's deputy until the general's stroke in January 2006, does not have any of Sharon's military credentials. So the plan faces stronger challenges in Israel.

Bush was also not enthusiastic about all aspects of the plan, especially its reliance on unilateral Israeli action. During Olmert's visit, Bush praised the plan as "bold" and "creative." But Bush is concerned about his record low poll ratings and growing international isolation vis-à-vis Iraq, and is therefore more cautious in how he endorses Olmert's plan. Bush's acceptance of the plan was more conditional than his enthusiastic embrace of Sharon's Gaza pull-out, especially as he urged Olmert to at least go through the motions of diplomatic contacts with Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas. Trying to repair Iraq-frayed and Iran-threatened relations with European and key Arab allies, Bush pushed Israel to engage with the Palestinians before moving unilaterally. It is not evidence of a serious U.S. commitment to real Palestinian-Israeli negotiations (which have stalled for the last three years). But it does indicate U.S. concern about appearing to supporting Israeli unilateralism. The Washington Post described Bush telling Israel to "at least make the appearance of seeking a Palestinian partner before they can declare none exists." That might open the way for a small crack, in the U.S.-Israeli alliance.

Bush's domestic and international political concerns also are leading to his new willingness to split from his Republican allies in Congress, who hold some of the most ferociously hard-line pro-Israeli views dominating the House of Representatives. That was obvious in the administration's opposition to the overwhelming House vote for the radical Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Bill of 2006, that passed the House the day before Olmert's arrival. The bill would end all U.S. diplomatic contacts with any Palestinian officials, Hamas members or not; would prohibit almost all humanitarian assistance to Palestinians; would designate West Bank and Gaza territory under the Palestinian Authority as a "terrorist sanctuary;" would close the Palestinian information office and deny visas to all Palestinian officials, and more. Ironically, if it became law the bill would prohibit exactly the kind of "engagement" with Palestinian President Abbas that Bush was urging on the Israeli leader. Support for the bill, which was mobilized by AIPAC, the most powerful component of the pro-Israeli lobbies, was overwhelming, and crossed party lines. Despite AIPAC pressures however, (including an AIPAC staffer accusing Rep. Betty McCollum of "supporting terrorism" because of her no vote) there were 37 votes against the bill, as well as many "present" votes and non-voting Representatives. Rep. McCollum stood up to the lobby with an unprecedented open letter stating that AIPAC literature and staff would not be welcome in her office until they apologized. Many members who spoke against the bill referred to arguments put forward by the member organizations of the U.S. Campaign to End Israeli Occupation.

On the ground, the economic crisis caused by the cut-off of aid and the physical as well as political isolation of the Palestinians in the wake of the Hamas election, has exploded. A May 7 World Bank study reported that more than 50% of Palestinians in the occupied territories are now living under the international poverty line of $2 per day; in Gaza more than 70% are below the poverty line. Unemployment is officially 34% across the territories, in Gaza alone it is 44%, rising to 55% whenever the frequent Israeli closures of the border crossings are imposed. With the cut-off of funds from international donors, and especially with Israel's illegal withholding of tax revenues it owes to the PA, over 40% of all Palestinian Authority employees have not been paid for three months. That has particularly dangerous implications in Gaza, where more than half the entire workforce is employed by the PA; many of those now unpaid employees are the sole support of extended families of up to 15 people or even more.

During a high-level Israeli-Palestinian-U.S. conference in Washington several weeks ago, U.S. officials were asked what was their plan -- what did they think would be accomplished by cutting aid and isolating the Palestinians because they had elected Hamas? The State Department's top Middle East official answered "we don't have a plan. We don't need a plan." Israeli security officials themselves acknowledge that anti-Hamas sanctions won't end the crisis; the chief of staff of the Israeli military, Lt. General Dan Halutz, told the Knesset this week that economic sanctions would not topple Hamas nor diminish support for it.

Given the rising levels of impoverishment and isolation, it is hardly surprising that violence is rising throughout the occupied territories. Armed conflicts between feuding political factions have increased, along with a broader violence-producing a break-down of communal solidarity and the shredding of Palestine's already stressed social fabric. Further, Israel has escalated its military attacks on Palestinians, including the killing of at least four unarmed civilians and wounding over 50 more in a raid in Ramallah, as well as arresting a top Hamas militant on the day of Olmert's meeting with Bush.

The day after Olmert left Washington, Palestinian President Abbas announced a new political initiative, calling for a Palestinian referendum that would articulate a Palestinian understanding of a two-state solution and of recognition of Israel. The proposal was for a vote on the Hamas-Fatah agreement hammered out by leaders of both factions imprisoned together in an Israeli jail over the last two months. The text specifies establishment of a Palestinian state in the territories occupied by Israel in 1967, and refers to the Arab League's 2002 Beirut summit statement that calls for full Arab recognition of Israel when it ends its occupation of the 1967 territories. The statement is understood to implicitly recognize Israel. Some Hamas leaders have already agreed; others view it as a violation of the election's legitimacy. Palestinian pollsters believe it would pass with a strong majority. Certainly it would provide additional popular support to the beleaguered President Abbas, but it would also provide a democratically legitimate kind of political cover for Hamas and other leaders who may want to shift their rhetoric to reflect public opinion, but have been unwilling to violate their earlier commitments and principles.

Such a referendum could provide an important moment for asserting a new Palestinian consensus, with the possibility of opening new negotiations. But such a vote would have only partial legitimacy, involving only those Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza (maybe, or maybe not, including occupied Arab East Jerusalem). It would exclude Palestinian Israelis, as well as the millions of Palestinian refugees and exiles in the far-flung Diaspora. So while it could be an important indicator of collective opinion, or even consensus in the occupied territories, that would be an indicator of the opinion of only one sector of the Palestinian people.

During his Washington visit, Olmert also reasserted Israel's hard-line approach to Iran. Greeted with applause in Congress, he said that "a nuclear Iran means a terrorist state could achieve the primary mission for which terrorists live and die: the mass destruction of innocent human life....This challenge, which I believe is the test of our time, is the one the West cannot afford to fail." In language reminiscent of Bush's build-up for war in Iraq, Olmert said "history will judge our generation by the actions we take now ... the international community will be measured not by its intentions but by its results." Bush restated his pledge to defend Israel if it is attacked by Iran, which some analysts saw as a subtle warning to Israel not to take the military initiative against Iran. But Olmert also claimed that he and Bush saw "eye to eye" on Iran.

Whether or not that is true, Israel remains a major player in the Iran nuclear crisis: at times directly threatening a military strike on Iran, at other times cheerleading for a militarized U.S. response. And Israel's own unacknowledged but widely known nuclear arsenal remains a key provocation across the Middle East region. Immediate diplomacy -- including direct U.S.-Iran talks -- is urgently needed to resolve the current crisis. But in the longer term, only creation of a weapons of mass destruction-free zone throughout the Middle East -- with no exceptions -- has the potential for a permanent peace.

Establishment of such a zone is already part of U.S. law: UN Security Council Resolution 687, ending the 1991 U.S. war against Iraq, calls for "establishing in the Middle East a zone free from weapons of mass destruction and all missiles to deliver them." That resolution was drafted by U.S. diplomats, and its passage by the Council makes it part of international, as well as U.S. domestic law. It's time we held the U.S. accountable to its own commitments.

Phyllis Bennis's newest book is Challenging Empire: How People, Governments and the UN Defy U.S. Power available from IPS or from www.interlinkbooks.com.

The Bush administration has declared war on the world.

The 450 changes that Washington is demanding to the action agenda that will culminate at the September 2005 United Nations summit don’t represent U.N. reform. They are a clear onslaught against any move that could strengthen the United Nations or international law.

The upcoming summit was supposed to focus on strengthening and reforming the U.N. and address issues of aid and development, with a particular emphasis on implementing the U.N.'s five-year-old Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Most assumed this would be a forum for dialogue and debate, involving civil society activists from around the world challenging governments from the impoverished South and the wealthy North and the United Nations to create a viable global campaign against poverty and for internationalism.

But now, there’s a different and even greater challenge. This is a declaration of U.S. unilateralism, uncompromising and ascendant. The United States has issued an open threat to the 190 other U.N. member states, the social movements and peoples of the entire world, and the United Nations itself. And it will take a quick and unofficially collaborative effort between all three of those elements to challenge the Bush administration juggernaut.

The General Assembly's package of proposed reforms, emerging after nine months of negotiations ahead of the summit, begins with new commitments to implement the Millennium Development Goals—established in 2000 as a set of international commitments aimed at reducing poverty by 2015. They were always insufficient, yet as weak as they are, they have yet to be implemented. The 2005 Millennium Plus Five summit intended to shore up the unmet commitments to those goals. In his reform proposals of March 2005, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan called on governments north and south to see the implementation of the MDGs as a minimum requirement. Without at least that minimal level of poverty alleviation, he said, conflicts within and between states could spiral so far out of control that even a strengthened and reformed United Nations of the future would not be able to control the threats to international peace and security.

When John Bolton, Bush's hotly contested but newly appointed ambassador to the United Nations announced the U.S. proposed response, it was easy to assume this was just John Bolton running amok. After all, Bolton, a longtime U.N.-basher, has said: "There is no United Nations." He has written in The Wall Street Journal that the United States has no legal obligation to abide by international treaties, even when they are signed and ratified. So it was no surprise when Bolton showed up three weeks before the summit, demanding a package of 450 changes in the document that had been painstakingly negotiated for almost a year.

But, in fact, this isn't about Bolton. This Bush administration’s position was vetted and approved in what the U.S. Mission to the U.N. bragged was a "thorough interagency process"—meaning the White House, the State Department, the Pentagon and many more agencies all signed off. This is a clear statement of official U.S. policy—not the wish- ist of some marginalized extremist faction of neocon ideologues who will soon be reined in by the realists in charge. This time the extremist faction is in charge.

The U.S. proposal package is designed to force the world to accept as its own the U.S. strategy of abandoning impoverished nations and peoples, rejecting international law, privileging ruthless market forces over any attempted regulation, sidelining the role of international institutions except for the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO, and weakening, perhaps fatally, the United Nations itself.

It begins by systematically deleting every one of the 35 specific references to the Millennium Development Goals. Every reference to concrete obligations for implementation of commitments is deleted. Setting a target figure of just 0.7 percent of GNP for wealthy countries to spend on aid? Deleted. Increasing aid for agriculture and trade opportunities in poor countries? Deleted. Helping the poorest countries, especially those in Africa, to deal with the impact of climate change? Deleted.

The proposal puts at great risk treaties to which the United States is already a party, including the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The U.N. Summit draft referred to the NPT's "three pillars: disarmament, non-proliferation and the peaceful use of nuclear energy." That means that states without nukes would agree never to build or obtain them, but in return they would be guaranteed the right to produce nuclear energy for peaceful use. In return recognized nuclear weapons states—the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia—would commit, in Article VI of the NPT, to move toward "nuclear disarmament with the objective of eliminating all such weapons." The proposed U.S. changes deleted all references to the three pillars and to Article VI.

The U.S. deleted the statement that: "The use of force should be considered as an instrument of last resort." That’s also not surprising given the Bush administration's “invade first, choose your justifications later” mode of crisis resolution.

Throughout the document, the United States demands changes that redefine and narrow what should be universal and binding rights and obligations. In the clearest reference to Iraq and Palestine, Washington narrowed the definition of the "right of self-determination of peoples" to eliminate those who "remain under colonial domination and foreign occupation."

Much of the U.S. effort aims to undermine the power of the U.N. in favor of absolute national sovereignty. On migration, for instance, the original language focused on enhancing international cooperation, linking migrant worker issues and development, and the human rights of migrants. The U.S. wants to scrap it all, replacing it with "the sovereign right of states to formulate and enforce national migration policies," with international cooperation only to facilitate national laws. Human rights were deleted altogether.

In the document's section on strengthening the United Nations, the U.S. deleted all mention of enhancing the U.N.'s authority, focusing instead only on U.N. efficiency. Regarding the General Assembly the most democratic organ of the U.N. system—the United States deleted references to the Assembly's centrality, its role in codifying international law, and, ultimately its authority, relegating it to a toothless talking shop. It even deleted reference to the Assembly's role in Washington's own pet project—management oversight of the U.N. secretariat—leaving the U.S.-dominated and undemocratic Security Council, along with the U.S. itself (in the person of a State Department official recently appointed head of management in Kofi Annan's office) to play watchdog.

The Bush administration has given the United Nations what it believes to be a stark choice: adopt the U.S. changes and acquiesce to becoming an adjunct of Washington and a tool of empire, or reject the changes and be consigned to insignificance.

But the United Nations could choose a third option. It should not be forgotten that the U.N. itself has some practice in dealing with U.S. threats. President George W. Bush gave the U.N. these same two choices once before—in September 2002, when he threatened the global body with "irrelevance" if the U.N. did not embrace his call for war in Iraq. On that occasion, the United Nations made the third choice—the choice to grow a backbone, to reclaim its charter, and to join with people and governments around the world who were mobilized to say no to war. It was the beginning of eight months of triumph, in which governments and peoples and the U.N. stood together to defy the U.S. drive toward war and empire, and in doing so created what The New York Times called "the second super-power."

This time, as before, the United States has threatened and declared war on the United Nations and the world. As before, it's time for that three-part superpower to rise again, to defend the U.N., and to say no to empire.

Phyllis Bennis, a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies , is the author of the forthcoming Challenging Empire: How People, Governments, and the U.N. Defy U.S. Power (Interlink Publishing, Northampton MA, October 2005

The U.S. has put before the 15 members of the Security Council the latest version of their draft resolution on Iraq. The new version includes several small but significant concessions to French and Russian opposition. These include dropping the demand for UNMOVIC inspectors to be chosen primarily from the U.S. or other major military powers; eliminating the call for regional UNMOVIC bases to be set up throughout Iraq; , removing the use of national (including U.S.) troops to enforce exclusion zones and other aspects of the inspections.

Despite those shifts, the resolution still is designed to legitimate a unilateral U.S. war. It is clear, however, that the Bush administration is feeling the pressure of domestic opposition, military unease, and widespread international resistance. That resistance was most visible in the 50+ countries that spoke directly in opposition to a U.S. war, and in favor of inspections and UN decision-making at the special session of the Security Council on October 16 and 17th. Initiated by South Africa as head of the Non-Aligned group at the UN, the open Council debate provided an immediate and intense challenge to U.S. backroom warmaking.

Linking the growing domestic U.S. anti-war movement and the skyrocketing global mobilization against Bush's war, with the emerging UN-based opposition of countries led by South Africa and others of the global South remains an urgent task.

The Resolution:

1. DECIDES that Iraq is still, and has been for a number of years, in material breach of its obligations under relevant resolutions, including Resolutions 687 (1991), in particular through Iraq's failure to cooperate with United Nations inspectors and the I.A.E.A. (International Atomic Energy Agency), and to complete the actions required under Paragraphs 8 to 13 of Resolution 687 (1991);

This language is specifically designed to set the stage for a U.S. military attack. Being in "material breach" is the precursor to the Council authorizing military enforcement. The assertion that Iraq "is still, and has been" in material breach is part of the U.S. effort to claim a continuing authorization of the use of force. If the U.S. were serious about determining Iraqi compliance or non-compliance, it would ask the UN inspectors to return immediately to Iraq, and only after they finished their work and reported to the Security Council would the Council make a determination regarding compliance or breach. Washington's insistence on this term is a major part of the French and Russian opposition to the U.S. proposal.

2. RECALLS that the Council has repeatedly warned Iraq that it will face serious consequences as a result of its continued violations of its obligations;

The problem is how to define the consequences. Washington uses the term to refer explicitly to military force; for this reason, France and Russia have objected to the use of the term in the new Council resolution. In 1998, when the UN Security Council passed a resolution endorsing Kofi Annan's negotiated stand-down with Iraq, the resolution called for "severest consequences." At that time, every Council ambassador except that of the U.S. said explicitly that use of the term did NOT constitute an automatic authorization of the use of force for any country or group of countries. It did not, they said, include what the Russian ambassador called "automaticity." The U.S. ambassador, Bill Richardson, alone of all the Council, said, "we think it does" authorize immediate unilateral use of force.

3. DECIDES that in order to begin to comply with its disarmament obligations, in addition to submitting the required biannual declarations, the government of Iraq shall provide to Unmovic (the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission) and the Security Council prior to the beginning of inspections, and not later than 30 days from the date of this resolution, an acceptable and currently accurate, full and complete declaration of all aspects of its programs to develop chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles and other delivery systems, such as unmanned aerial vehicles and dispersal systems designed for use on aircraft, including any holdings and precise locations of such weapons, components, subcomponents, stocks of agents and related material and equipment, the locations and work of its research, development and production facilities, as well as all other chemical, biological and nuclear programs, including any which it claims are for purposes not related to weapon production or material;

This seems to be an effort to insure Iraq's inability -- regardless of intent -- to comply with these very stringent terms. This is asking Iraq to essentially do the initial work of the inspection team itself, cataloguing its entire WMD programs as well as programs never included in the earlier demands. The original inspections mandated in resolution 687 did not include, for example, "delivery systems, such as unmanned aerial vehicles and dispersal systems designed for use on aircraft, including any holdings and precise locations of such weapons" etc. Resolution 687 also included only long-range missiles, with a range over 150 km, not "all" ballistic missiles. The terms are significantly stricter here.

4. DECIDES that false statements or omissions in the declarations submitted by Iraq pursuant to this resolution and failure by Iraq at any time to comply with, and cooperate fully in the implementation of, this resolution shall constitute further material breach of Iraq's obligations;

This sets Iraq up with a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation. If they claim they have no WMD material to declare, Washington will find that evidence of the "continuing breach" based on the [unproved but functionally unchallenged] U.S. assertion that Iraq does have viable WMD programs. If Iraq actually declares viable WMD programs, it similarly proves the U.S. claim of continuing breach of resolution 687.

5. DECIDES that Iraq shall provide Unmovic and I.A.E.A. immediate, unimpeded, unconditional and unrestricted access to any and all, including underground, areas, facilities, buildings, equipment, records and means of transport which they wish to inspect, as well as immediate, unimpeded, unrestricted and private access to all officials and other persons whom Unmovic or I.A.E.A. wish to interview in the mode or location of Unmovic's or I.A.E.A.'s choice, pursuant to any aspect of their mandates; further decides that Unmovic and I.A.E.A. may at their discretion conduct interviews inside or outside of Iraq, may facilitate the travel of those interviewed and family members outside of Iraq, and that such interviews may occur without the presence of observers from the Iraqi government; and instructs Unmovic and requests the I.A.E.A. to resume inspections no later than 45 days following adoption of this resolution and to update the Council 60 days thereafter;

The effect of moving scientists and their families outside of Iraq would be to have UN arms inspectors acting as asylum officers. Certainly many, perhaps most scientists would jump at the opportunity right now to leave Iraq with their families and be granted asylum somewhere else. They are living, after all, in a country not only devastated by 12 years of crippling economic sanctions and the ravages of a repressive political regime, but also facing the likely possibility of imminent war. There are certainly legitimate reasons why many Iraqi scientists would want to live and work somewhere with greater safety and political freedom. There is also, however, the consequent and understandable likelihood of scientists exaggerating the level of Iraq's military or WMD programs as well as their own role in those programs, in the hope of persuading international immigration officials of their importance. And finally, another longer term result of such an effort, if carried out on a large scale, will be the stripping of a key component of Iraq's national intellectual and scientific base, with seriously deleterious effects on future efforts to rebuild a modern society.

6. ENDORSES the 8 October 2002 letter from the executive chairman of Unmovic and the director general of the I.A.E.A. to General (Amir) al-Saadi of the government of Iraq, which is annexed hereto, and decides that the letter shall be binding upon Iraq;

This letter asserts a set of arrangements allegedly agreed to by Iraq, without confirmation from Iraq that it did indeed accept those arrangements.

7. DECIDES that in view of the prolonged interruption by Iraq of the presence of Unmovic and I.A.E.A., and in order for them to accomplish the tasks set forth in Paragraph 3 above, the Security Council hereby establishes the following revised or additional procedures, which shall be binding upon Iraq notwithstanding prior understandings, to facilitate their work in Iraq:

In general, sidelining existing resolutions and agreements made between Iraq and the United Nations undermines the legitimacy, consistency and coherence of UN resolutions.

*Unmovic and I.A.E.A. shall determine the composition on their inspection teams, and all their personnel shall enjoy the privileges and immunities corresponding to those of experts on mission;

*Unmovic and I.A.E.A. shall have unrestricted rights of entry into and out of Iraq, the right to free, unrestricted, and immediate movement to and from inspection sites, and the right to inspect any sites and buildings, including immediate, unimpeded, unconditional and unrestricted access to Presidential sites equal to that at other sites, notwithstanding the provisions of Resolution 1154 (1998);
Sidelining the existing terms of 1154 (which set special arrangements, including diplomatic accompaniment, for inspection of the eight designated "presidential sites") undermines the legitimacy of UN decision-making.

*Unmovic and I.A.E.A. shall have the right to the names of all personnel associated with Iraq's chemical, biological, nuclear and ballistic missile programs and the associated research, development and production facilities;

*Security of Unmovic and I.A.E.A. facilities shall be ensured by sufficient U.N. security guards;

*Unmovic and I.A.E.A. shall have the right to declare, for the purposes of freezing a site to be inspected, no-fly/no-drive zones, exclusion zones and/or ground and air transit corridors;
These two together blur the distinction between inspection and occupation. If Washington gets its way in the Council, the resolution will require Iraq to accept unlimited numbers of UN military troops -- UN Blue Helmets -- to guard the inspectors' facilities. Since there is no mandate yet specified for the UN guards, that could mean armed forces prepared to use their weapons against any Iraqi -- official or otherwise -- who so much as blinks.

There is no history of UNSCOM inspectors at their bases or centers being threatened in the past; the need for armed guards there has no clear basis. There is no clarity here what "UN security guards" mean; will the U.S. be satisfied with normal UN blue helmet security personnel, perhaps seconded to Iraq from their positions as security guards at UN headquarters in New York? Or will Washington use this language to demand more heavily armed military personnel, perhaps seconded not from other UN posts but from member states, ostensibly operating under UN authority? Although the earlier draft's reference to "member states" providing troops to enforce the no-fly/no-drive zones was deleted from this most recent draft, it is not clear that the U.S. has completely given up on including national military forces -- presumably including U.S. troops.

Even without a direct authorization for national armies to participate, the resolution calls for what amounts to a functional occupation of Iraq by UN military forces. Authorizing the UN inspection agencies to declare "no-fly/no-drive" zones will allow them to control potentially huge swathes of Iraqi territory. Creation of "no-fly/no-drive" zones itself reflects the U.S. history of taking control of large parts of Iraqi air space, and consequently Iraqi land, through the unilateral creation of "no-fly" zones in northern and southern Iraq. These existing zones, imposed by the U.S. and the British (France briefly participated, then backed out) have no basis in international law; they are not authorized, or even mentioned, in any UN resolution. Inclusion in this new resolution would impose a UN imprimatur on a continuing violation of UN resolutions -- particularly the references to other countries respecting Iraq's territorial integrity.

*Unmovic and I.A.E.A. shall have the free and unrestricted use and landing of fixed and rotary winged aircraft, including unmanned reconnaissance vehicles;

*Unmovic and I.A.E.A. shall have the right, at their sole discretion, verifiably to remove, destroy or render harmless all prohibited weapons, subsystems, components, records, materials, and other related items, and the right to impound or close any facilities or equipment for the production thereof;

*Unmovic and I.A.E.A. shall have the right to free import and use of equipment or materials for inspections and to seize and export any equipment, materials, or documents taken during inspections without search of Unmovic or IAEA personnel or official or personal baggage; and
While some may believe it is implicit, this section does not identify "weapons material" or some such standard to judge what may be "taken" and "exported." The clear language, as written, would allow inspectors to seize and "export" anything they come across in the course of doing inspections -- trucks, computers, carpets -- whether or not it has anything to do with prohibited materials or prohibited WMD or missile programs.

Unmovic and I.A.E.A. shall have access to any information that any member state is willing to provide;
This implies that national intelligence agencies will provide information to Unmovic or IAEA without expecting reciprocity. If indeed information goes one way -- into Unmovic but not out of it -- there is no problem. But if ordinary exchange understandings take hold, UNMOVIC or IAEA inspectors may find themselves in the position of UNSCOM inspectors during the last round -- in which they are providing intelligence data back to national intelligence agencies which have no legitimate basis to receive such information. During the UNSCOM years intelligence information was provided to both U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies -- including data that had no relevance to disarming Iraq's WMD programs but had major relevance to stated U.S. goals of hostile "regime change" in Iraq.

It remains unclear whether any national intelligence agencies -- especially that of the U.S. -- would provide information to UNMOVIC inspectors without requiring reciprocal access to what UNMOVIC finds. Given the terms of Article 10 (below), it is highly unlikely that the U.S. in particular would not attempt to gain access to UNMOVIC's information.

8. DECIDES further that Iraq shall not take or threaten hostile acts directed against any representative or personnel of the United Nations or of any member state taking action to uphold any Security Council resolution;

This language is aimed at demanding Iraqi compliance with the U.S.-British air patrols and bombings going on in the so-called "no-fly" zones. Neither creation or military enforcement of those zones was ever authorized by the United Nations; no UN resolution before this one ever even mentioned "no-fly" zones. This section would serve to legitimize the eleven-year-long illegal U.S.-British imposition of "no-fly" zones, and the four-year-long illegal bombing raids carried out there. The U.S. claims that those bombing raids, and the imposition of the zones themselves, are to "enforce" UN resolutions -- specifically 688, which calls on Iraq to protect the human rights of various communities. But in fact the bombing is without any actual UN authorization. So far the Security Council has never called the U.S. and Britain to account for their illegal actions; this language serves to legalize those actions instead. While not specifying what would constitute "any member state taking action to uphold any Security Council resolution," it clearly demands that Iraq allow any action -- including illegal military actions -- that the U.S. or another country CLAIM is designed to enforce a resolution.

It also denies the reality that not all Council resolutions may be enforced with military force at all, even if the Council itself makes the decision. Only resolutions specifically passed under the terms of Chapter VII can lead to the use of force. Resolution 688 was not passed under Chapter VII; quite the contrary, it reaffirms " the commitment of all Member States to the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of Iraq."

9. REQUESTS the secretary general immediately to notify Iraq of this resolution and decides that within seven days following such notification, Iraq shall state its acceptance;

Because there is no specified consequence here for a potential Iraqi delay, it is likely the U.S. will interpret this section as authorizing immediate and unilateral military force. No such force would be appropriate, but there is a history of usurpation of such language.

10. REQUESTS all member states to give full support to Unmovic and the I.A.E.A. in the discharge of their mandates, including by providing any information on Iraqi attempts since 1998 to acquire prohibited items, and by recommending sites to be inspected, persons to be interviewed, conditions of such interviews and data to be collected, the results of which shall be reported to the Council by Unmovic and the I.A.E.A.;

This implies that UNMOVIC must share its actual findings and raw data with "the Council," meaning intelligence operatives from Council member states, including those pledged to overthrow the Iraqi regime (such as the U.S.). When UNMOVIC was created, its director made clear that his view of intelligence sharing was that it could only be "one way" -- meaning member states could provide UNMOVIC with information to assist their inspection work, but UNMOVIC would not provide reciprocity to national intelligence agencies. That would, he rightly recognized, repeat the disaster of UNSCOM's unauthorized sharing of intelligence material with U.S. intelligence agencies. Calling here for UNMOVIC to report "the results" of its interviews and data to the Council indicates a clear U.S. intention to gain access to UNMOVIC and IAEA data.

11. DIRECTS the executive chairman of Unmovic and the director general of the I.A.E.A. to report immediately to the Council any interference by Iraq with inspection activities, as well as any failure by Iraq to comply with its disarmament obligations, including its obligations regarding inspections under this resolution;

12. DECIDES to convene immediately upon receipt of a report in accordance with Paragraph 11 above, in order to consider the situation and the need for full compliance with all of the relevant Security Council resolutions, in order to restore international peace and security;

This clear language should prohibit any country -- including the United States -- from acting unilaterally in response to any perceived Iraqi obstruction. However, given Bush administration officials' consistent claim that they need "no further" UN resolutions to authorize the use of force "to enforce" UN resolutions, it is highly doubtful that Washington intends to adhere to this language.

The inclusion of the reference "in order to restore international peace and security" is a code for proceeding immediately to using force, whether or not authorized by a new "consideration of the situation". It is certain the Bush administration will point to this reference if they choose to go to war without actual Council consent. The fact that they specifically do not call for an actual formal meeting of the Council, and do not call for a new resolution or new decision, but only the informal call "to convene" implies a lack of seriousness about the right of the Council alone to determine sufficiency of compliance and possible consequences.

13. DECIDES to remain seized of the matter.

This is a fundamental point of principal -- it means that the issue of Iraqi requirements and Iraqi compliance remains on the Security Council's agenda, and only the Council itself can make decisions as to future interpretation or enforcement.