At the initiative of China, the United Nations Security Council convened this morning what became an intense, public four-hour debate on the Palestinian crisis. Updated presentations on the depth of the “carnage” inflicted on Gaza by Israel were given by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Tor Wessenland, and many of the other 20-some foreign ministers, diplomats and UN officials who spoke. The facts were plain.
The majority of those speakers insisted that the UNSC must agree on unified, enforceable action to stop the immediate slaughter underway in Gaza, and thereby open the way for the long-overdue establishment of a Palestinian state, living side-by-side with Israel in peace. Most called for the “humanitarian pause” to be transformed into a lasting ceasefire, and a vast increase in humanitarian aid to Gaza through multiple crossing points. Ahmed Aboul Gheit, Secretary General of the Arab League summarized the situation as the last speaker in the briefing: it is the responsibility of the UNSC to secure peace in the region, if there is to be an end to the scenes of death by starvation, disease, and bombardment.
Two delegations, however, had very different agendas. Israel’s arrogant Ambassador Gilad Menhashe Erdan threatened that anyone calling for a ceasefire is calling for a continuation of Hamas’s “Hitlerite” ideology. Moving food, water and fuel supplies into Gaza will not end Hamas terror, he insisted; these discussions about humanitarian aid will lead to the continuation of Hamas.
Dismissive of UNSC action, the U.S. Ambassador who has vetoed all but the toothless UNSC Resolution 2712 which calls only for humanitarian pauses, Linda Thomas-Greenfield made a laughingstock of the United States by claiming that only the “direct personal, presidential diplomacy” of President Biden works; he had achieved the current humanitarian pause which the UNSC had not. Never mentioning the word “ceasefire,” she only said that the “humanitarian pauses” should be extended as long as needed to get all the hostages free.
But as the world knows, after that, Netanyahu has stated repeatedly that Israel will go back to war against the people of Gaza.
