Topic: Combating the Spread of Small Arms and Light Weapons
Country: Israel
Delegate Name: Zach Brodkey
School: Forest Hills Central High School
Topic page: background guide and all position papers All Israel position papers GLIMUN 2014 committees
If the civilized nations of the world want to ensure the safety of our people for generations to come, we must address one of the most pertinent problems of our era: the unwieldy trade of various illegal weapons that threatens the security of all nations. Throughout the free world, nations have worked very hard to implement strategies for having legal and transparent trade of weapons. Nevertheless, underneath the veil of the legal trade there is a world of black markets and corruption that threatens the safety of all of these nations’ inhabitants, which must be dealt with. In Israel, we see it more than many other nations do, as we are surrounded by it. Many of the Arab states that surround us lack control of their population and its militancy. In the Palestinian lands, Lebanon, and Syria we see (respectively) Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Islamic State wielding arms that they, by most standards of decency in trade, should not be able to gain access to in the first place. Especially with Hezbollah and Hamas, there is an extreme direct threat to the state of Israel, as arms smuggling, stockpiling, and usage around our borders and against our civilians is rampant and has been since these organizations’ creation.
Being such a prominent issue, the trade has been brought up in the United Nations as a large issue many times before, as goes without saying; however, Israel strives exceptionally to bring the issue to the forefront, as we are one of the nations that receives the most direct threat from it. There have been several UN resolutions pertaining to this matter, which Israel has upheld with conviction. However, it will take a stronger and broader effort and cooperation than just official statements of action to end a problem that is so widespread and prosperous in unchecked populations.
Israel will no longer support broad statements where nations that will not fully cooperate can simply sign on without stipulations: we suggest implementation on a large and strictly enforced scale. The only way to end the problem of illegal light arms trade is to force the nations that do not have a grasp on their populations’ illegal activities to cooperate thoroughly or else they will receive harsh consequences. Many of our neighbors, specifically, must be coerced into, or rewarded for cooperation, or else they have no incentive to actually coincide with the UN regulations. Therefore, Israel proposes that all nations receive a mandatory code for weapons checks at all borders in order to achieve complete eradication of smuggling, coupled with a crack-down on illegal weapons inside the nations. The domestic control of illegal weapons can be enforced by keeping complete track of weapons marking, tracing, and most of all: record-keeping. Through these processes, nations can rid themselves of illegal weapons and prevent no more from entering or exiting their nation; therefore rendering illegal weapons ideally unavailable. However, many nations will not care enough to cooperate with these systematic implementations, and therefore as a third part of the plan, we propose that the UN carry out strict and thorough sting operation investigations on nations who are suspected of not cooperating, and if nations are found to be un-cooperative, they shall receive a punishment which could include economic sanctions, monetary penalties, UN membership penalties, or if the offense is drastic enough: UN actions of force within the nation.
Being the manner of issue that it is, we expect that all good-natured and civilized peoples will join us in our cause. However, we are prepared and are expecting much pushback, namely from countries such as Syria, Iran, and Pakistan. However, these countries’ refusal to cooperate is complete conjecture, and they are by no means condemned; moreover, we view that even larger problems with this deal would come from Lebanon and with our own Palestinian territories, as they are run by organizations that are generally considered militant and therefore will not be pleased with the idea of weapon control and investigation.
