US Vetoes UNSC Gaza Peace Bids as Resolutions Would Give ‘Legitimacy’ to Actions Against Israel
© Ministry of Foreign Affairs of The Russian Federation
/ Subscribe
The US is continuing to oppose a UNSC resolution on Gaza because it would give legal sanction to action nations may take against Israel, such as that threatened by Ansarallah, the de facto government in Yemen, a journalist told Sputnik.
After a second resolution for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza was brought before the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) this week, the US has again moved to delay the vote after having vetoed the first resolution earlier this month.
American diplomats are reportedly engaging in high-level talks with Arab nations and US allies about changing parts of the text they dispute, ranging from references to a cessation of hostilities to a plan for the UN to take over security details for aid trucks entering the Gaza Strip.
After the US veto earlier this month, in which it was the sole nation to vote against the resolution, the General Assembly took up the question and passed a non-binding resolution calling for a humanitarian ceasefire. Since October 7, Israeli bombing and a ground invasion have killed more than 20,000 Palestinians in Gaza and left over 50,000 wounded. Almost the entire population of 2.3 million people have been uprooted, forced into a tiny corner of the territory where Israel says it will not bomb as it continues to hunt down Hamas forces.
Despite the veto and continued opposition to a ceasefire, there are signs the Biden administration’s patience is wearing thin: US President Joe Biden has publicly criticized his Israeli counterpart, Benjamin Netanyahu, for being uninterested in a two-state solution, the internationally accepted path to peace for Israel and the Palestinians. Netanyahu replied by confirming the accusation.
Editor of The Polemicist Jim Kavanagh told Radio Sputnik’s Political Misfits on Thursday that a UN resolution would give any nation the authority to act to relieve the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza - something neither Israel nor the US will allow.
“A Security Council resolution, at least theoretically, legally opens the door to enforcement, that’s the issue here. The United Nations, the United States, can say anything it wants, whatever United Nations resolutions are passed doesn’t mean anything if they’re not going to be enforced by someone. And as you said, the only ones that get enforced are the ones that allow the United States to go to war,” he said.
20 December 2023, 22:02 GMT
“In this case, you can’t be naive about it, the downside is for the United States. The United States is supporting Israel in its attack on Gaza. And the attack on Gaza has a main objective, which is to kill and expel Gazans, to create a situation where Gazans can no longer live in Gaza, which they have mostly created, to kill as many of them as they can, in front of the world, showing the world they will cruelly and gratuitously attack hospitals, kill doctors and their families, journalists and their families, poets and intellectuals and their families at home. They know what they’re targeting, they’re destroying the possibility of life in Gaza and they’re pushing the Gazans into a corner where they’re starving, there’s no medicine, there’s going to be diseases that even the Israelis are saying you’ve got to be careful about this because those diseases might come and infect us.”
“The purpose of the Israelis is to create a situation where the world is either going to have to take the Gazans out [of the Gaza Strip], which is really what Israel wants … Israel’s going to say ‘take them.’ They’re saying it, ‘take 25,000 to this country, 50,000 to that - oh, Canada, Germany, you like your immigrants? Take them.’ We want the Palestinians to have a nice life - just not in Gaza. They want the Palestinians out of Gaza and they’re creating a situation where the world is going to have to either watch the Palestinians get killed or take them out,” he said.
Kavanagh noted that despite the dire need for humanitarian aid in Gaza, Israel has jealously guarded its sole control over the aid that goes into Gaza, having for 15 years kept the Palestinians “on a diet,” only allowing in just enough to prevent starvation.
“So you have a situation now where somebody, some force in the world has to come in in defiance of Israel and the United States, which is going to support Israel, and force humanitarian aid in there and force the rebuilding of a country where the possibility of life doesn’t exist. It’s a very dangerous situation.”
“The United States is going to support Israel and is not going to vote for a resolution that Israel doesn’t give it the permission to vote for. And no resolution that degrades Israeli control of Gaza, that takes out of the hands of Israel the control of life in Gaza, is going to be okay with Israel.”
Calling the humanitarian situation “the most horrible thing since World War II,” Kavanagh said the situation is “deliberate” and has “got a purpose: to create misery and pain and starvation and horror until they leave or someone takes them.”
“Everybody is complaining about it: the Arab states, Turkiye, Russia, the Gulf states certainly, but what are they doing?” he asked. “Because to do something is going to require defying, with either military and/or economic force, and it must be backed by military force. Why don’t Turkiye and Russia say, ‘We’re having a flotilla of ships and we’re coming into Gaza without navies supporting them and we’re going to bring humanitarian aid in?’ That’s the only way it’s going to get in.”
20 December 2023, 17:40 GMT
“The only people who are doing anything are Ansarallah, the Houthis, who are saying, ‘We’re not going to let Israel have its merchant shipping unless they let humanitarian aid in.’ That’s the demand of Ansarallah: the demand is to let humanitarian aid into Gaza. Let food and medicine in. So those are the only people I see in the world who are actually doing something. It’s hard because they’ll threaten you, the Israelis will threaten you and the Americans will back them up,” he said.
“A UN Security Council resolution would allow some other country to say, ‘well we have the legitimacy of doing this now, we’re enforcing a UN Security Council resolution.’ But even then, I don’t know if anybody would do anything,” Kavanagh said.
“Israel doesn’t care if it is the most hated country in the world, it doesn’t care, it’s going to do what it wants to do unless it is forcibly stopped from doing it.”
