This afternoon at the UN General Assembly in New York, the 193 nation body voted 120-14, with 45 abstentions, in favor of a resolution calling for a humanitarian truce, toward a ceasefire in Gaza-Israel. The vote and resolution, though non-binding, expresses the assertion by the world’s Global Majority of a desire for compassion and reason, and love of humanity, to supplant the compulsive evil now involved in warmaking in multiple theaters. The vote is a clear rejection of the position of the Global Minority—the U.S., the Anglosphere and Global NATO. The resolution calls for an “immediate, durable and sustained humanitarian truce,” the release of the hostages, and work towards a ceasefire. The resolution condemns “all acts of violence aimed at Palestinian and Israeli civilians.”
The vote came on the second of a two-day emergency session called by the UNGA, after the UN Security Council has been blocked on taking any such action. The United States in particular vetoed a UNSC resolution for a humanitarian truce. Today’s UNGA successful resolution was introduced yesterday by Jordan, done in the name of 22 Arab countries. It came to have over 50 co-sponsors.
There were dozens of nations whose UN Mission leaders spoke out over the past two days, calling for stopping the bloodshed, and for working for peace. For example, the Ghana Ambassador and Deputy Permanent Representative Carolyn Oppong-Ntir said, “We have a responsibility as an international community to help end the heart-breaking tragedies … we must find the fierce agency to support the two parties to resume and conclude a peace agreement,” and advance the two-state solution.
The U.S., along with Israel, led the action against the resolution, and in the end, 11 other nations voted alongside the U.S. and Israel. These were: from Europe—Austria, Croatia, Czechia, Hungary; from the Americas: Guatemala, Paraguay; from the Asia Pacific: Fiji, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, and Tonga. None from Africa. Among the 45 nations abstaining were the U.K., Ukraine, Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, and India.
The carnage in Gaza is horrifying. The report as of this morning, already outdated, was that there are 7,362 dead, not counting 1,950 missing in the rubble. Of the dead are 3,038 children. There is next to no fuel to run generators or vehicles. Close to half the entire population is now, as politely termed, “internally displaced.”
President Biden’s sneering comment on this suffering, made Oct. 25 in response to a reporter’s question about what the death toll in Gaza “says to him,” was to accuse Palestinians of lying about the numbers of deaths. He said, “What they say to me is I have no notion that the Palestinians are telling the truth about how many people are killed. I’m sure innocents have been killed, and it’s the price of waging a war…. I have no confidence in the number that the Palestinians are using.”
Around the world, there are now protests to stop the mass killing and destruction. In the U.S. there is a wave of student demonstrations against government lies, and against the U.S./NATO warfare. In attempted counteraction, the info-wars mainstream media are working overtime to attribute any and all demonstrations to “anti-Semitism,” but that isn’t working. This evening, for example, the group, “Jewish Voice for Peace,” has staged an action during rush hour at Grand Central Station in New York City.
Now is the time for all to make efforts to lead the way out of the path to doom.
The danger of world conflagration is escalating. There is a drumbeat for the U.S. to strike out at Iran, and a move was made in the night of Oct. 26, when U.S. fighter jets hit two sites in eastern Syria, said to be Iranian-associated. U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin issued a statement, saying Biden ordered the strikes on the facilities, which were allegedly being “used by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and affiliated groups.” Austin claimed “Iranian-backed militia groups” are hitting U.S. forces in Syria and Iraq, and the U.S. acted militarily “to make clear that the United States will not tolerate such attacks and will defend itself, its personnel, and its interests.”
This is one more instance which shows that the mission of the two U.S. aircraft carrier battle groups in the region, and what some report to be 30,000 U.S. military personnel there, is not to “aid” Israel, but to conduct war. This is insanity.
Today the International Peace Coalition, at its weekly meeting, reviewed the situation, and conferred on expanded action. Schiller Institute leader Helga Zepp-LaRouche, a founder of the international collaborative group over five months ago, made the point at the beginning of the deliberations, “I’m asking people to keep cool nerves and heads, because we have to act as a force of reason in this whole situation, while trying to present an alternative….
“We are right now circulating worldwide this petition that we want to have an immediate peace conference; we are backing the Chinese proposal that we have to have an immediate ceasefire. There have to be negotiations, and there are signs that there may be such things happening already. But we absolutely need a paradigm shift; we have proposed the old idea of Lyndon LaRouche to have an Oasis Plan for economic development as the basis for a durable peace in Southwest Asia. We have to have the recognition of UN Resolution 242, and try to come to an agreement.”
