United Nations Report: From Palestine to Western Sahara, Double Standards and Hypocrisies


Washington - Arab Maghreb independent press service - the American Educational Trust has revealed a comparison, in its internet website, shows there is an essential similarity between the Israel's occupation in Palestinian and Morocco's occupation in Western Sahara.

There is indeed a point to be made about double standards, however. The Western Sahara issue remains bogged down in the sand, with France vigorously backing Morocco, and London and Washington in varying degrees going along with it. At the U.N. Decolonization Committee in New York, pro-Moroccan petitioners expressed their concern about the Polisario Front's lack of commitment to human rights. They rather had their case spoiled, however, by the Moroccan police assault on 20,000 encamped protesters near Layoune, the territory's capital. Former American diplomat Christopher Ross, the U.N.'s special representative, hosted talks in New York which ended in their customarily inconclusive way.

Although the local partners are different, the Palestinian and Western Sahara issues are essentially similar. There is a body of international law and resolutions which clearly state that the occupying power should stop occupying and allow self-determination in the territories in question.

In the case of Western Sahara, the U.N. set up under Security Council mandate an operation to hold a referendum of the Sahrawi population and Morocco refused to allow it to go ahead, even though it had originally agreed
Indeed, one could almost suspect that Israel's inspiration for its separation wall, ruled illegal by the International Court of Justice, was the great Sand Berm that Morocco built across Western Sahara There might well be arguments about the democratic credentials of Polisario, as indeed there are about Moroccan behavior in its own territory and the occupied territory. But the core of the issue is the referendum that Rabat refuses to allow. All else is, as they say, commentary—although the French-initiated refusal to countenance a human rights monitoring component of MINURSO, the U.N. mission, is as eloquent as it is shameful for France as it is for the U.S. and UK for their connivance In the end, neither Morocco nor Israel is going to move without significant external pressure—which, as we know all too well, has not been forthcoming.

Indeed, many of those countries so vigorous in defense of international law and U.N. resolutions against Israel are tacitly supporting Morocco, and thus giving moral support to cries of double standards by Israel supporters. Perhaps fortunately, since Israel and Morocco enjoy a long-standing relationship apart from the kingdom's occasional pan-Arab posturing, Israel's supporters do not exploit the analogy more

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