Time is ticking and no one is stopping the clock, not even the crimes in Gaza. The US position represents an obstacle to peace and a blank check for Israel whatever it does. That's what it teaches us We need to focus on actions and not wordsalso in reporting from journalism: In comparison to the statements of supposedly serious leaders, it is worth adding what their actions are.
These are the facts Two million people are currently suffering from a lack of gas and electricity supplies, blockages in humanitarian aid, lack of drinking water and food, indiscriminate attacks, massacres, hunger, disease and forced displacement increasingly towards the south. These are the facts The US still doesn't want to avoid it. And Europe doesn't go beyond words either.
The resolution adopted last Friday in the United Nations Security Council regarding Israel and Gaza represents Washington's efforts to prevent an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip. The threat of another US veto simmered for days, to the point that the final text, adopted after several closed-door negotiations, It is a diluted and decaffeinated text, without a request for an immediate ceasefire.
The United States has spent all week postponing the vote – it has been postponed up to seven times – buying time for Israel and demanding changes to the draft a sentence that was eventually omitted: “The urgent cessation of hostilities to allow safe and unhindered humanitarian accessand the adoption of urgent measures for a sustainable cessation of hostilities.”
There is no immediate demand or timetable for a ceasefire that would allow Israel to continue bombing Gaza
The final adopted text calls for “urgent measures to immediately enable safe and unhindered humanitarian access and also to create the conditions for a sustainable cessation of hostilities.” There is no immediate demand for a ceasefire and not even a calendar could allow Israel to continue bombing Gazaby inflicting its collective punishment on the civilian population and maintaining the forced displacement of more than one and a half million people.
There is also no concrete information about what help the Gazans urgently need. Only “necessary measures” are mentioned and the appointment of a “coordinator” for their distribution is specified. Israel thanked the US for its position at the United Nationsin a week in which Prime Minister Netanyahu insisted that “we will continue the war to the end.”
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres remarked on the new resolution: “Much more is needed immediately“. The Director-General of the World Health Organization echoed the same sentiments, reiterating that “the most urgent demand of the people of Gaza is an immediate ceasefire.”
The UN Secretary General agreed to the new resolution: “Much more is needed immediately.”
The twists and turns to prevent the ceasefire
With this resolution Washington wanted to save its image and avoid another photo of his UN ambassador with his hand raised, vetoing a ceasefire alone in front of the world. With diplomatic skill he did not need to raise his hand this time, but his veto is maintained, albeit in a different way, by calls for textual changes that displace the original main objective and replace it with one vague and diffuse text. The decision taken is self-justifying a new US veto on the ceasefire in Gaza.
Washington shows once again that it has done this great difficulty in resisting the massacre in Gazaand in fact it acts by allowing it to continue. They claim to be calling on Israel to respect international law and stop attacks on civilians, but in reality it is sending a new package of weapons to Tel Aviv – 14,000 tank shells – vetoed a ceasefire twice in the United Nations Security Council and, the third time, managed to ensure that the resolution to be passed did not even contain a demand for an immediate ceasefire.
A country's security depends on massacring civilians, forcing their displacement, or restricting their access to food and medicine, except for this matter There is a gigantic propaganda disguised as respectability ready to convince us otherwise.
Carter said there are “powerful forces in the United States that prevent any objective analysis of the problem in the Holy Land.”
From the second US veto to the December 8 ceasefire, at least two thousand people have died in Gaza to date, including the three Israeli hostages held by the Israeli army itself, several doctors and journalists, and hundreds of children. These are deaths that could have been avoided.
U.S. Deputy Ambassador to the United Nations Robert Wood raised his hand on December 8 to again veto a ceasefire in Gaza. U.N.
Three exceptions to rights in Palestine
This is not the first time that Washington has blocked UN resolutions calling for Israel to respect international humanitarian law. In the last thirty years, only three times have the United Nations Security Council passed resolutions condemning any behavior by Israel.
This is despite the fact that these three decades saw thousands of Palestinian deaths, the development of an apartheid system, the construction of the more than 700 kilometer long wall and the expansion of the illegal occupation of Palestinian territories, demolition of houses, annexation of Land and construction of settlements. In 1993 there were 247,000 Israeli settlers; There are currently 700,000.
1/ Of the three resolutions adopted in the last thirty years, Resolution 1322 of 2000 condemned “acts of violence and excessive use of force against Palestinians” – 80 Palestinians were killed – and called on Israel to respect the Fourth Geneva Convention. It limited itself to condemning and recalling international law without pushing for concrete changes on the ground with regard to the illegal Israeli occupation.
2/ In 2003, the United States decided not to veto Resolution 1515, submitted by Russia, which laid out a roadmap for peace that included a two-state solution with security for Israel and Palestine and recognition of borders. He also recalled the validity of all previous resolutions on the area, including Resolution 242 (1967), which deemed the illegal Israeli occupation of 1967 covering the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem as “inadmissible.”
Despite his approval, the measures implemented went in the opposite direction to the possibility of a Palestinian state, facilitating the expansion of illegal Israeli occupation and thus fragmenting the continuity of Palestinian territory.
Israel attacks those who seek to stop its violations of international law, including the United Nations
3/ The Security Council's third anti-Israel resolution in the last 30 years is 2334, adopted almost unexpectedly in 2016, when Barack Obama's presidency was in its aftermath and Trump had already been elected president. It is not that Obama has pursued a particularly human rights-friendly policy on the Israeli-Palestinian issue. In fact, under his leadership, the United States used its veto power to block several resolutions critical of Israel, including one in 2011 that condemned Israel's colonization policies in the Palestinian territories.
However, the truth is that in 2016 the US Ambassador to the UN did not veto but abstained from voting, so 2334 was passed in a gesture that was interpreted as a symbolic farewell to Obama. Some White House officials consulted by the press stated that the outgoing president “did not have to run for office again; “I had nothing to lose.” After the vote, Israel lashed out at Obama and immediately retaliated against two of the countries that had supported the resolution.
The UN Special Rapporteur on Palestine to the US Secretary of State: “Hegemony is not leadership, Mr. Blinken”
A story of vetoes against the possibilities of peace
Since the organization's founding in 1945, at least thirty-six resolutions critical of Israel over Palestine have been rejected in the UN Security Council. Thirty-four of them were rejected by the United States, one by Russia and one by China.
Only the permanent members of the Council have veto power: France, the United Kingdom, Russia, China and the United States. The Council's resolutions are binding, that is, obligatory, although Israel systematically does not comply with those that prevent its illegal occupation of territories.
Most of these resolutions, vetoed by Washington, were written to provide a framework for lasting peace, including calling on Israel to respect international law, calling for the self-determination of a Palestinian state, or condemning Israel for the forced relocation of Palestinians for the construction of settlements in the occupied territories.
The last two bans occurred on October 18th and December 8th last. in them the US veto It was striking and the photo of the American ambassador's raised hand preventing the call for an immediate ceasefire went around the world.
Vote for a ceasefire in Gaza at the UN General Assembly on December 12th. Only ten votes against.
Hegemony versus leadership
The votes in the UN General Assembly also provided a historical snapshot. Unlike the UN Security Council resolutions, the Assembly resolutions are not binding, only indicative, but serve to preserve the majority position on the planet. On December 12, 153 countries voted for an immediate ceasefire. There were 23 abstentions and only ten votes against: USA, Israel, Czech Republic, Austria, Guatemala, Liberia, Nauru, Paraguay, Micronesia and Papua New Guinea.
Days later, another resolution on the Palestinian people's right to self-determination was passed in the General Assembly only four votes againstincluding that of the United States, although the Biden administration states that it advocates “the right of the Palestinian people to dignity and self-determination.” The contradiction between Washington's words and actions is often common on this issue.
Israel and the United States are largely alone in rejecting an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. The successive votes in the United Nations reflect this. The Israeli government generates anger and tantrums by attacking all defenders of international law who try to stop its human rights violations, including the United Nations. The UN humanitarian coordinator was forced to leave Palestinian territory after Israel failed to renew her visa, attributing her decision to “UN bias.”
The US is also losing credibility with Western societies because it defends a country that kills civilians
The United States also loses credibility in the eyes of Western societies when it defends a country that kills civilians, that illegally occupies territory, and that imposes an apartheid regime on the Palestinian population.
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken boasted about it a few days ago “World leadership” from Washington: “In a year of intense scrutiny, the world looked to the United States for leadership. And that’s exactly what we did.” Given these statements the United Nations rapporteur For the Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese reminded him: “Hegemony is not leadership, Mr. Blinken.”
Hegemony is the dominance or supremacy that one state exercises over others. Leadership requires coherence, respect between states and a democratic dynamic to produce allies. Hegemony is imminent. Leadership is convincing.
As former US President Jimmy Carter noted in 2006 and 2007, “there are powerful political forces in the United States that prevent any objective analysis of the problem in the Holy Land.” I think it is correct to say that not a single member of the Congress that I am familiar with would have spoken out and called for Israel to withdraw to its legal borders, or to publicize the plight of the Palestinians, or even just to issue a public and repeated statement calling for peace talks in good faith. “This is a taboo topic.”
Little has changed since then.