Oldenburg Model United Nations 2011

Security Council guide

Written by: Adam Marton Rez

Personal Introduction:
Hi, I’m Adam Rez and I’m really honoured to have the
opportunity to be the president of the Security Council in OLMUN
2011. I study in Eötvös József High School of Budapest and also live
in Budapest, Hungary. I am 16 years old, I have one little sister,
who’s three. I do athletics, I like to play football, volleyball, table
tennis and any sports. I also like to listen to music and I play as well
the piano and flute. My favourite subjects are history, physics and
maths. I like to spend my free time with my friends and have as
much fun as I can also by parties and others like it.
OLMUN will be my fourth MUN, but I hope I will be able to
match the requirements of this committee as a chair as well. This
year’s topic is quite intresting and exciting because we can finally
act in a serious, easily understandable but still complicate question
on which our world’s fate depends.
See you in June!

Yours sincerely:
Adam Marton Rez

1. A historical overview:
The situation in the Middle-East never been peaceful, despite the Holy Land, the Land
of God and peace is in this area.

a. Ancient history:
In about 3500 BC people begun to civilizate and form states and they built Babylon and an
Empire around it. This land was rich in agricurtural goods and the rivers made easy for the
population to operate their agriculture and food production with an irrigation system. And
because this area had good attributes many people begun to claim it and so it was conquered
by the Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians, Assyrians and many other.
From the 6th century BC onwards, several empires dominated the region, beginning
with the Persian Empire of the Achaemenids, followed by the Macedonian Empire founded
by Alexander the Great, and successor kingdoms such as Ptolemaic Egypt and the Seleucid
state in Syria.
The Persian Empire was later revived by the Parthians in the 2nd century BC then partially
captured by the Romans ( provinces: Iudaea, Arabia Petraea, Syria, Mesopotamia, Assyria,
Armenia ) and continued by the Sassanids from the 2nd - 5th century AD. This empire would
dominate part of what is now considered the Middle East and continue to influence the rest of
the Middle East region until the Islamic conquest of Persia in the 7th century.

b. The crusades:
After the Western-Roman Empire collapsed many islamic sultanates dominated area until
1099 when Godfrey of Bouillon in the lead of the crusader army captured Jerusalem and in
10-20 years other strongholds such as but not limited to: Antioch, Acre, Edessa had fallen.
In 1187 Sultan Salahaddin of Egypt and Syria
defeated the christian forces in the Battle of
Hattin and after that he managed to took
Jerusalem. There had been many attempts by the
crusaders to take back the Holy Land from the
infidel, some had succeeded, but they couldn’t
keep the city for long and in 1268, 1289 and
finally 1291 the christians lost the remaining
three key settlements, Anticoch, Tripoli and
Acre. The last christian power was defeated on
26 September 1302 when the Order of the
Templars suffered a crushing defeat in the siege
of Ruad.

c. The colonization:
After this the Middle-East was occupied by
many Islamic forces, mainly the Turks and for
some time the Mongols and the Timurids.
It remained as such until the end of the 19th
century, when mainly British and French
colonizers occupied these territories and
declared them colonies, part of their empires.
After the first world war the Turks was finally
driven out from the greatest part of the Middle-
East.
Then the second world war came which ended
with the crushing defeat of the Nazi Germany
and its allies but in consequence of the anti-jew
propaganda and later the establishment of labour
and death camps forced the jew population from
all over Europe to move to another land where
peace can be found and so they did arrived in
the a part of the land which now we know as
Israel.

d. Basic history of the modern era Israel

With UN ( mainly American ) support in 14
May 1948 the State of Israel wew declared as a
free and independent nation. 2 Days after that
Egypt, Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, Syria,
Transjordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and
Yemen declared war on the State of Israel with
a goal to destroy the newly formed state and
retake the land which is rightfully theirs.
The source of conflict was obvious: the land
which had been declared as a new nation with a
new state religion was actually part of a
different, islamic, arabic cultural region which
ruled this land for over 700 years, but basically
the Middle East was influenced by Islam from 622 AD. The Arab-Israeli wars always ended
with a draw or an Israeli victory which could only be achieved by serious American and
British support.

e. The basic consequences of the Arab - Israeli wars:

- Territorial expansion of the State of Israel despite the UN decision towards
its borders.
- The division of the peole both religiously and by nationality followed and
mostly caused by the jewish strategic settling strategy of Israel.
- Constant civil wars

f. Brief history facts about the current situation and modern history of modern era Iran,
Saudi Arabia and Iraq:
- Iran: refounded in 1947 under the rule of Sah Reza Pahlavi, who was a
ruler who constdered the west as an ally but after he died, Khomeini
Ajatollah took his place establishing an Islamic dictatorship which still
exists.
- Saudi Arabia: Kingdom, which is driven by islamic ideology strongy
opposing the west. There had been many assasinations of monarchs during
the past 60 years.
- Iraq: ocuupied by the United States from 2003.

2. Religion overview and brief explonation of the issue:

1. until 327 BC: paganism, judaism, religion of the Assyrian, Babylonian, Akkadian
and other ruling empires.
2. 327 BC – 69 AD: mostly judaism, greek and roman religion and paganism
3. 70 AD – 621 AD: mostly christianity, roman religion and paganism
4. 622 AD – 1941 AD: mostly islam and christianity
5. 1941 AD – present day: mostly islam and judaism

This chart shows the origin of the problem. When the jews wanted to reclaim their land in
which they never formed a formittable state, which they never occupied or dominated they
faced the massive islamic arabian majority of this area, but with American help they managed
to infiltrate the territory to a level when they became the majority. This act clearly offended
the population.
The problem basically is:
a. Israel exists despite the fact that it has no historical right to do so in addition a
religion cannot form a state and as history has proven it always leads to bad
consequences ( see: Papal States – crusades, massacre; Islamic Radicalist
goverments – terrorism )
b. The Islamic government cannot realize that they are not in possession of power
capable of wiping this counrty out and therefore trying to take it constantaniously
c. Israel wishes to expand and did despite the UN resolutions stating its borders
d. Many of Israel’s opponents are ruled and lead by radicalists not capable for
reasonable debates and diplomacy
e. Israel, Pakistan and Iran are in possession or very close to get nuclear weapons
f. Usage of WMDs are not terminated in this area
3. The path to solve the problem
To assemble and make the soulutions for the problem is not my duty but I would like
to give some points for help to set a place – where to start from. To solve this problem the
cooperation of all Middle-Eastern states is needed so try reaching that on a debate. Also, it is a
goal to disarm the are from WMDs and to stabilize the governments. To stabilize the
governments no military intervention can be made because it would oppose the UN charter,
but spreading democracy and educate the people to see more widely could be the long range
solution to not just terminate these wars but to prevent others from starting because the goal is
for both parties in this conflict are to achieve peace and harmony in this area.`

4. What kind of preparation is needed?

In the Security Council delegates should:
- Know the history of the country they represent and possess a basic
historical knowledge about the neighboring states as well.
- Have a basic knowledge about the represented countries in the SC
especially his own such as but clearly not limited to: form of state, history,
political interests, recent political activity, economy, geography, military power.
- Know the issue waiting to be solved.
- Prepare a policy statement which the delegates shall present in a form of
both a speech and written at the beginning of the session.
- Prepare a committee opening speech.
- Prepare amandments about the issue which they will present during the
debate or while forming the resolutions.
- Possess a knowledge about the dominating religions in connection with the
issue: Islam, christianity and judaism, and the history, basic brinciple and
teachings of the religions as well.

5. How and where can the delegate find the necessary information to prepare?
I suggest using:
- Wikipedia
- Maps
- Google
- Enciclopedias
- History Books
- The Bible, Koran and Tora
- Teachers and experts

6. Additional information to the guide

Preface and introduction

The topic was proposed as a topic for this year’s Security Council because of the recent
events in south-western Israel and the Gaza Strip. The tensions between the Hamas and the
Israeli army (IDF) are growing, due to rocket attacks on Israel fired by warriors of the Hamas.
The so called Kazam rockets destroyed houses in Beer Sheva and killed one man. More
Kazam rockets were fired to the city of Ashkelon which had not been hit by the rockets.

Furthermore the bomb attack on a bus station in the heart of Jerusalem on March 23rd showed
how easy terror can come back after a longer peaceful period, even if no organization yet
stated his responsibility for that attack.
The recent events are showing that the peace had only been held in a unstable status quo.
There are various topics which can be discussed within the council about this particular form
of issue, I’ll write about the first 2-3 and in that the others will be revealed too:

1. Dismantling the blockade of the Gaza Strip

2. The situation in the lebaneese border zone and the UNIFIL mission
3. The situation in the Gaza Strip
4. The disputes between HAMAS and FATAH

` 1 Dismantling the blockade of the Gaza Strip

The Israeli Defence Forces established the blockade of the Gaza Strip in 2007. Since then
various attacks by rockets causing damage to civilian houses and death of civilians. The
reaction by the IDF was not far away. They attacked the Gaza Strip by air which caused also
deaths in the civilian population.

During the operation “cast lead” the IDF attacked also civilian buildings where rocket and/or
Hamas positions were
expected. The operation
itself made the public more
aware of the situation in the
Gaza Strip. Israel lost
reliability and respect. The
UN Human Rights Council
commisioned a report about
human rights violations
during the operation. The
report lead to massive
diplomatic tensions.

In 2009 the “Marvi

Marmara” a ship by the
IHH a islamic relief
organization from turkey
moved to the Gaza Strip. The Israeli diplomacy tried to convince the responsible people to
decide legality instead of illegality since this behaviour causes any effort split and be
destroyed. The ship was entered by IDF special forces in international water. Some people on
the Marvi Marmara were injured during fights. But also the people on the ship attacked the
Special Forces with knifes and Chairs.

The IDF stated that the action against the Marvi Marmara was not illegal according to
international naval war law. The so called “trace law” allows a nation to enter a ship if it
wants to brake through a see blockade. The point is, that the Gaza strip is no acknowledged
nation and this “war” is - relying on the definition - a armed conflict.

2 The situation in the Lebanese border zone and the UNIFIL mission

The United Nations Interims Force in Lebanon (short: UNIFIL). Is a official observer mission
of the United Nations. The mission started in 1978 with the task to watch the withdrawal of
israeli troops in Lebanon. Since then the mandatory was expanded on several other task like it
is stated in one resolution:
“Reaffirming its commitment to the full implementation of all provisions of
resolution 1701 (2006), and aware of its responsibilities to help secure a permanent
ceasefire and a long-term solution as envisioned in the resolution,”

The uprising of the Hesbollah in southern Lebanon lead to serious problems at the Israeli –
Lebanese border zone. The Security Council established an arms free zone in the South-
Lebanon in order to achieve peace. The UN
Security Council resolution no.1832 mentiones
that:

“Determining that the situation in

Lebanon continues to constitute a threat to
international peace and security,”

Israel itself installed a heavy guarded defense line

to have a full control of this border.

Neverthenless the UNIFIL seems to lack with

their supervision on the the area behind the blue
line. The IDF revealed a map which shows that
the Hesbollah possess several buildings and bases
and a widespread infrastructure. (See in addition
the PDF file “Hesbollah underground
infrstructure.pdf” )

This topic contains a further possibility for a crisis, since the protests in Syria can also enfold
on Lebanon. Furthermore the Hesbollah is relying on the ongoing conflict between Syria and
Israel since both states never signed a peace treaty and Syria participates in a smuggling route
for weapons from Iran into Libanon. Beside this problem there is a direct threat of the Yasmin
revolution. It is possible that Syria owns nerve gas a bio-chemical weapon. If a severe
instability hits Syria, terrorist groups can acquire such weapons and use them against cities in
northern Israel.

3 The situation in the Gaza Strip

In 2005 the IDF withdrawed from the Gaza Strip and all Isreali settlements in the Gaza Strip
were left.

1. The disputes between HAMAS and FATAH

The Conflict of Brothers, an armed dispute between the Fatah and Hamas parties which
erupted after the 2006 Palestinian election, eventually brought up a Hamas controlled Gaza
strip. The rise of this party, widely regarded as extremist of kind, triggered an international
isolation of the Gaza strip and its administration as well as a blockade upheld by the Israel
Defence Forces (IDF), the armed forces of the State of Israel. This renders humanitarian relief
close to impossible. While there is a legitimate question to be raised about security threats for
the State of Israel arising from a Hamas controlled Gaza strip, today’s situation sees mostly
one victim: The 1.5 million inhabitants of this densely populated land. The economy of Gaza
has been on the brink of collapse for many years now and leaves the population greatly
dependent on foreign aid. The efficient provision of the much needed aid to the civil
population bears various challenges: How to organize and coordinate the transportation of aid
into the region? How to distribute it without distorting the political process? Furthermore, the
large inflow of food and goods needed to sustain and assist the population in the Gaza strip
raises the possibility of smuggling of weapons and materials for the military branch of the
Hamas, which is of great concern to the Israeli Government. So how to cater for those
security needs?
The Security Council of OLMUN 2011 will need to carefully evaluate the situation and
establish a basis for cooperation for the various actors.

7. Epilogue

For the additional information I owe thanks to Nicolai Beerheide, chair of the Special
Conference in OLMUN 2011 and Jan Thomas Hager, the other president of the Security
Council at OLMUN 2011.

I hope you will enjoy this MUN in the Security Council and working productive in it.
Awaiting you and looking forward to meet you:

Adam Marton Rez

Persident of the Security Council