Once again this year, on 21 September, the world is celebrating the International Day of Peace. Also known as World Peace Day, this annual event that was declared by the UN General Assembly in 1981, in a resolution sponsored by the United Kingdom and Costa Rica, is dedicated to peace. As an ideal, it is specifically dedicated to the absence of war.

As part of the evolving traditions of the 31-year old World Peace Day, we know that at least three things will happen. First, it is probable that the day will be marked by Ban ki-Moon, the UN Secretary General, wearing a White Peace Dove, produced by a not-for-profit organisation in Canada.

Second, we know that Mr. Moon will ring the Peace Bell, which was cast from coins donated by children from all parts of the globe and donated by the UN Association of Japan. As he rings the bell for the second time during his tenure, Mr. Moon and the rest of the international community will remind all humanity of the ‘…human cost of war’.

But, third, we also know that the ringing of the bell will not bring the world closer to the ideal of ‘long live absolute world peace’ that is inscribed on the side of the bell.

In general, the day could be a powerful idea and a mechanism to draw attention to the devastating impact of conflict on humanity and society. Although some nations, political/military groups and peoples may choose to observe the day with temporary ceasefires, the ideal of the absence of war is a highly impracticable one.

The world is rife with diverse conflicts, political, ideological, economic, social, ethnic and military, and maybe even a clash of civilisations, all of which serve as an explosive cocktail to ignite violence and insecurity around the globe.

Member states and the international community find it easier to proclaim such high-sounding ideals and commemorative days, but do not demonstrate sufficient will, commitment and consensus towards common causes that can rid the world of instability.

In a sense, it may be easier for Somali factions to establish daily temporary truces to receive their flights of ‘chat’—the intoxicating leafy drug of abuse—from Kenya. It is harder for the UN to achieve this globally. Metaphorically, the day on which guns stop firing may be the day on which our civilisation, founded cultures of war and conflict, comes to an end.

The Palestinian issue is a good example of this dichotomy. For more than 60 years the UN has perhaps carried out the longest experiment in the field of the theory of international relations and the twin issues of global peace and security, driven by the dynamics of liberal internationalism and other contending isms.

The initiation of the experiment of peacekeeping started by default of perhaps three key factors: 1) the failure of the UN Security Council to put together an ‘international’ force the world body’s collective security framework, including disarmament; 2) the rapid onset of the Cold War by 1947 and its dominant impact on the international landscape; and the emergence of disputes and conflicts over borders, self determination and territory that threatened world peace and security.

Initially, the UN experimented with civilian, consular investigative, arbitrative or observation commissions to deal with the Greece-Albania border violence (1946-51) and Indonesia’s declaration of independence that brought it into conflict with the Netherlands (1945-47). The latter involved the unprecedented use of up to 63 military observers to carry out such tasks as establishment of cease-fire lines and the supervision of troop withdrawals.

In practice, though, the real experiment of peacekeeping was precipitated in 1947 by the question of Palestine and the League of Nation’s mandate. The proposed plan was for the partition of Palestine, providing for a two-state formula: an Arab State, a Jewish State and an international Jerusalem zone.

As history would have it, while the General Assembly endorsed the plan, Palestinians and Arab States rejected the partition. In the absence of a political outcome of the process at that stage, the territory was engulfed in mounting violence claiming 2,778 Arab, Jewish and British lives in only two months, December 1947 and January 1948.

With incessant ceasefire calls unheeded the Security Council established a Truce Commission for Palestine on April, on 23 April 1948, to be composed by representatives of Belgium, France and the United States, to supervise the requested cease-fire.

Tragically, the General Assembly terminated the Palestine Commission and, on 14 May 1948, appointed a UN Mediator, Count Bernadotte, to be assassinated after only four months in office, on 17 September, by the militant Lehi, or the Stern Gang​.

The relinquishment of the United Kingdom’s mandate over Palestine on 15 May triggered the proclamation of the state of Israel the same day and the invasion of Palestine by Arabs, in the wake of the withdrawal of British forces.

It was only then that Security Council first called for a ceasefire to be effective within 36 hours, compliance reported by the truce commission and supervision of the ceasefire by military observers. Of course a group of 572 military observers proved incapable of stopping the violence, yet the Security Council redesignated the truce commission as the United Nations Truce Supervision Organisation (UNTSO).

No wonder then the fighting erupted on 9 July when the 4-week truce expired and Arab governments refused to have it extended. The parties only complied with another Security Council order for a ceasefire and the threat of a Chapter VII action—non-consensual coercive use of force, probably by a lead-nation coalition, such as the United States, which was to undertake such a mandate in the Korean war (1950-53).

It is a historical record that after the armistice ordered by the Security Council on 16 November—agreed by all except Egypt, which accepted it in January—the portioning only came about in July 1949 when Israel made separate bilateral agreements with Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria. The fragile peace that followed also came about because the area of the partition that was to be Palestine was divided between Israel and Jordan, which got the West Bank, while Egypt gained the Gaza strip.

Eventually, Israel was admitted into the UN on 11 May 1949 and, against many odds, UNTSO has continued to operate in the five host states of Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria later. Subsequently, UNTSO has kept the fragile peace with the new peacekeeping missions of the UN Disengagement Force (UNDOF, 1974) and the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL, 1978), as well as, perhaps, the UN Emergency Force (UNEF) that operated initially operated in the Suez Canal Sector and later in the Sinai Peninsula from 1973-79.

As the diplomatic wars gather storm clouds this year around the admission of Palestine to the UN, perhaps on the one hand, we should be reminded that a negotiated settlement would provide the best comparative durable peace, no matter how fragile. But we should also be reminded that the path of diplomacy might be a thorny one that needs to be pruned with other measures and approaches, such as the very threat of Palestinian membership.

If it succeeds, it would not necessarily resolve the nearly 70-year dispute, but it that may allow a Palestinian state to use other avenues within international law to catalyse the process of the 2-state solution.

Written by Festus B. Aboagye, Senior Research Fellow, Peace Missions Programme, ISS Pretoria Office