CAIRO -

Once again, Egypt returns to the hall of the UN Security Council, and its diplomats are making strenuous efforts to convince the delegates of the major countries with the right of veto and the non-permanent members of the Council of the justice of their case, hoping to extract a fair decision from the Security Council on the crisis of the Renaissance Dam, which has reached a dead end. .

But history reveals that the Security Council did not get much preoccupied with the Egyptian issue except when the situation flared up and threatened peace and security in the Middle East since the catastrophe of 1948 and the subsequent wars between the Arabs and Israel, as this Council did not play an effective role in resolving the crisis of the Suez War or the Triple Aggression. Even Israel did not comply with his decision after its aggression against the Arab countries in 1967.

Ahmed Khattab, a researcher in international relations at Georgetown University, says that the Security Council plays a direct moral role in achieving one of the principles of the United Nations, especially defusing crises before they erupt and reducing the chance of wars and armed conflicts, when disputes arise between countries.

Speaking to Al-Jazeera Net, Khattab adds that Egypt has historically dealt with the Council in the midst of the Cold War, and the Security Council's decisions towards Egypt have been linked to the nature of its relations with major powers every period, and in general, the Council is not expected to resolve a conflict considering what it will be, especially if the conflicting countries are average The forces and the conflict are self-limiting, and there is no danger of it spreading to other countries or clashing with other already existing crises.

In this report, we monitor the most important crises in which Egypt resorted to the Security Council.

Egypt asks for the evacuation of the British

In July 1947, about a year and a half after the first session of the Security Council, Egypt requested that the Council call for the complete and immediate evacuation of British forces from the country, the termination of British administration of Sudan, and the termination of the international operation of the Suez Canal.

The Security Council discussed the Egyptian request in August and September 1947, and the British delegate rejected the request, claiming that the matter did not constitute a threat to international peace, and a number of members, including the delegates of Brazil, China and Colombia, submitted drafts of draft resolutions calling on the different parties to negotiate, but they were not passed. which one.

1948 حرب war

After the outbreak of the Palestine war, Security Council Resolution No. 50, on May 29, 1948, called on all governments and authorities concerned with the conflict in Palestine - led by Egypt - to stop all acts of armed force for 4 weeks, and to refrain from entering any individuals to fight in Palestine during the ceasefire Fire, and refrain from importing or exporting war materials during the same period.

Suez war

In September 1956, the Security Council addressed the precarious situation in Egypt after it announced the nationalization of the Suez Canal in July 1956, on the basis of complaints from the United Kingdom and France, and a counter-complaint from Egypt.

On October 13, 1956, Security Council Resolution No. 118 was issued that any settlement of the Suez issue must meet the following conditions: there must be free and open passage through the canal without discrimination, and the sovereignty of Egypt must be respected, and the operation of the canal must be insulated from the policies of any State, and determining the method of charging fees by agreement between Egypt and the users, in addition to settling the outstanding affairs between the Suez Canal Company and the Egyptian government through arbitration with appropriate terms of reference and appropriate provisions for the payment of the amounts due.

The Security Council resolution did not succeed in stopping the tripartite aggression by France, England and Israel against Egypt, and the situation flared up in Sinai and Port Said.

Similarly, Egypt submitted a complaint against the aggressor countries to the Security Council at the end of October 1956, and Security Council Resolution No. 119 was issued, which requested an emergency session of the United Nations General Assembly to discuss the crisis.

Under Soviet, American and other pressures, as well as the objection of British public opinion, and violent popular resistance from the Egyptians, the aggressor countries were forced to stop their aggression.

June setback

On November 22, 1967, the Security Council issued its famous Resolution No. 242, which came months after the June War, forming the core of the historic negotiations to end the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The resolution stipulated ending the state of war and implicitly recognizing Israel, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the lands it occupied in the recent conflict (in the English text: from lands it occupied), respect for the sovereignty of the countries of the region over their lands, freedom of navigation in international corridors, the establishment of demilitarized zones, the adoption of principles A just and lasting peace in the Middle East.

But as usual, Israel did not implement the Security Council resolution.

October War

On October 22, 1973, the Security Council issued its Resolution No. 338 calling for a ceasefire between Egypt and Israel, and called on all parties involved in the ongoing fighting to “completely cease fire, and end all military actions immediately within a period not exceeding 12 hours from the moment Take this decision, and in the positions it now occupies.” He also called for the implementation of Resolution 242 in all its parts.

Egypt and Israel officially agreed to the decision, but the battles continued between Israeli armored vehicles and tanks and the people of Suez until October 24, which became a national holiday for the city.

The Security Council also issued Resolutions 339 and 340 to confirm the ceasefire and to establish an international emergency force to monitor its implementation.

This was followed by a number of Security Council resolutions, such as Resolution 346 of April 8, 1974, to separate the Egyptian and Israeli forces.

Mubarak assassination attempt

Egypt waged another diplomatic battle in the corridors of the Security Council after the attempted assassination of President (the late) Hosni Mubarak in Addis Ababa in June 1995, to demand the extradition of the accused who harbored the Sudanese government. Security Council Resolution No. 1044 issued at the end of January 1996 demanded that the government comply Sudan to requests from the Organization of African Unity to extradite the three suspects to Ethiopia, and to stop supporting terrorist activities.

After Sudan refused to comply with the resolution, it was punished under Security Council Resolutions 1054 and 1070 by imposing sanctions on it.

Is the solution at the Security Council?

More than 7 decades after the establishment of the Security Council, and Egypt resorting to it repeatedly in various crises, the question remains among the Egyptians: Is this UN council expected to intervene to put an end to a crisis that threatens their lives, or is it just an inevitable step in the diplomatic path and the selection of peaceful solutions that threaten their lives? Egypt took it for about a decade in the face of the danger of the Ethiopian dam?