Complementing or Undermining Peace: Impact of U.S. Actions on U.N. Conflict Resolution in Israel-Palestine

This study examines the extent to which United States actions have undermined or complemented United Nations efforts to resolve the Israel-Palestine conflict. Drawing on liberal institutionalism and a qualitative design combining in-depth interviews with systematic documentary analysis, the article identifies four structural mechanisms through which American engagement shapes the institutional landscape of conflict resolution: systematic veto deployment across successive administrations; financial leverage over UN humanitarian agencies, most critically UNRWA; bilateral diplomatic dominance that has persistently displaced multilateral frameworks; and episodic moments of constructive alignment that, while genuine, have proven structurally fragile.
The empirical foundation integrates interview data from United Nations staff, Palestinian diplomatic officials, conflict resolution scholars, and policy analysts with a documentary corpus covering Security Council veto records, US funding patterns, bilateral military assistance to Israel, and official statements from UN Secretaries-General and international judicial bodies. This study also integrates relevant quotes from key Israeli officials, Palestinian officials, and UN Secretaries-Generals.
The central argument is that the paradox of American engagement is not episodic but a durable feature of its foreign policy architecture that reproduces itself regardless of which administration holds office in Washington, recent trends in the conflict is however putting the trajectory of this durable foreign policy into more scrutiny. The United States has, through these mechanisms, simultaneously acted as the conflict's most indispensable external actor and its most consequential institutional constraint. Concrete implications for UN institutional reform, including veto restraint, genuine multilateralisation of mediation, and the protection of humanitarian operations from political conditionality.

Conflict Resolution; Israel-Palestine Conflict; United Nations; Security Council Veto; Multilateralism

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