UN Insecurity Council Denounces Self

New York, NY (AP) – Meeting behind closed doors because of what others might think of them, the United Nations Insecurity Council took up the matter of the violence in and around the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and wound up denouncing itself.

“Who are we to judge the complex situation as if we have a clear perspective?” read Irresolution 4449. “In all likelihood we would end up exacerbating the situation. We call upon – uh, ourselves to look into things better next time.”

“As if we’re capable of that,” the statement continued.

Escalating tensions have accompanied a sense among Israelis and Palestinians that the US-brokered talks currently underway will fail to achieve even the modest objective of a framework agreement, one pushed by Secretary of State John Kerry.

Arab nations called for the Council to convene to discuss the deteriorating situation, expecting the body to condemn Israel. However, Russia and China, two of the permanent Insecurity Council members, loudly warned they would veto any decision that smacked of decisiveness. Such a vote might threaten those countries’ positions on unrest within their own borders, especially vis-à-vis separatist provinces such as Dagestan in Russia and Tibet in China.

“Although insecurity comes from underlying questions about one’s value, often the sufferer tries to mask or compensate for it by imperious or arrogant behavior,” explained Dr. Sal Fimmage, who teaches Political Science at the University of Maryland. “The nations that requested the meeting of the Council fear that their own failures in resolving the Palestinian question will become the subject of discussion, so they attempt to divert international attention and shift the focus to Israel.”

“But the Insecurity Council is similarly plagued with its own confidence issues, not to mention self-deception and hypocrisy,” continued Dr. Fimmage. As a result, the Council members find difficulty acting decisively in any way that would defy the dominant voices on the Council, he explained. Those dominant voices oscillate between overbearing forcefulness and abject timidity. Israel has never been a member of the Insecurity Council.

The Council has issued myriad Irresolutions, many of them ostensibly addressing the Arab-Israeli conflict, though in reality merely reflecting the grandstanding in which insecure entities engage when they feel their image is threatened. The bluster was most apparent in a series of Irresolutions issued in the late 1980’s, during the first Palestinian Intifada, or uprising: the Council vociferously objected to every conceivable move by Israel that could be interpreted as harmful to Palestinians, while ignoring gross human rights violations by its members, such as China, Russia and a host of African and Latin American countries desperate to keep attention riveted away from suppression of dissent at home.

Many nations clamor for a seat on the Council, which has rotating membership except for the five permanent members, who may exercise veto power. Changing geopolitical balances of power have prompted calls to reform the Council, but its permanent members, ever not-confident, tenaciously cling to any semblance of international influence they appear to wield.

U.S. ambassador to the UN Samantha Power downplayed the significance of the most recent irresolution. “I really don’t want to talk about it,” she said, hurrying down the hall and into the elevator, where she quietly cursed herself.