Last weekend, the news was that the United Nations Security Council would vote Monday on a cease-fire. Monday saw the vote postponed to Tuesday. Tuesday came and it was kicked to Wednesday. You can guess that happened Wednesday and the same thing took place Thursday.
The U.N. Security Council adopted a watered-down resolution Friday
calling for immediately speeding aid deliveries to hungry and desperate
civilians in Gaza but without the original plea for an “urgent
suspension of hostilities” between Israel and Hamas.
The
long-delayed vote in the 15-member council was 13-0 with the United
States and Russia abstaining. The U.S. abstention avoided a third
American veto of a Gaza resolution following Hamas’ surprise Oct. 7
attacks inside Israel. Russia wanted the stronger language restored; the
U.S. did not.
Amna Nawaz (PBS NEWSHOUR) notes, "The U.S. abstained from the vote, which did not demand a cease-fire." ARAB NEWS adds, "The failure of the UN Security Council to agree on a permanent ceasefire
in Gaza is equivalent to providing Israel with a 'license to kill,' Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul Gheit has said." BBC NEWS recounts:
Friday's resolution was introduced by the United Arab Emirates.
Minutes
before the vote, Russia - one of the five permanent members of the
council - introduced an amendment to revert to an earlier draft calling
for an immediate ceasefire. It argued the text gave Israel freedom of
movement to further clear the Gaza Strip.
The
Russian amendment was defeated and both Russia and the US went on to
abstain, while the other 13 members of the council backed the text that
now calls for creating conditions "for a sustainable cessation of
hostilities".
Mallory Moench (TIME magazine) notes, "Global organizations have criticized the U.N. Security Council resolution
that called for more humanitarian aid without demanding an immediate
ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war to facilitate its delivery." CNN adds, "The Security Council's call for pauses will be 'nearly meaningless' to the lives of civilians in Gaza, Doctors Without Borders said in a statement slamming the compromise resolution." Australia's ABC notes that Linda Thomas-Greenfield, US Ambassador to the UN, disagrees that the resolution was "watered-down" and insists instead that it is "strong,"; however, the network concludes, "But
it was stripped of its key provision with teeth -- a call for 'the
urgent suspension of hostilities to allow safe and unhindered
humanitarian access, and for urgent steps towards a sustainable
cessation of hostilities'." Phyllis Bennis (COMMON DREAMS) explains:
The bottom line of the just-passed resolution at the UN Security Council
is that it is NOT a cease-fire resolution. It is not even a “suspension
of hostilities” resolution, which reflected the first major concession
to Washington’s demands. That would have turned the resolution into a
repeat of last month’s temporary pause – potentially useful for allowing
in some additional humanitarian aid, perhaps another
hostages-for-illegally-held-prisoners swap, and a few days respite for
the millions of people in Gaza dying under Israeli bombardment before
Israel’s full-scale war started again. But this resolution does not even
do that. Despite misleading headlines in way too much of the mainstream
media, the only mention even of “humanitarian pauses” appears in a
reference to the Council’s November resolution that did call for such
temporary halts to the fighting – and only mentioned in the preamble,
not anywhere in the operative paragraphs of the new resolution.
The operative paragraphs do not call for pausing, suspending, ending,
easing or ceasing hostilities – meaning Israel can continue its deadly
assaults by air and land without violating the Security Council’s
fought-over resolution. The vote was 13 in favor, with the U.S. and
Russia abstaining. (Moscow had proposed an amendment returning to the
“suspension of hostilities” language, but despite 10 votes in favor and 4
abstentions, the amendment was rejected by a U.S. veto.)
Instead the final text “calls for urgent steps to immediately allow
safe, unhindered, and expanded humanitarian access” without defining
those steps, and without any acknowledgement that the crucial “step”
would require Israel to stop its bombing campaign and end its ground
assaults. That means Israel, the overwhelmingly stronger party
responsible for the deaths of 20,000+ Palestinians, overwhelmingly
children and women, can decide when or if its bombs, drones, tank
assaults decimating the Gaza Strip and its people should be paused or
stopped or suspended.
"Genocide Joe" has been a common chant at rallies, and a trending tag on social media. The White House says it's inappropriate. But for many, the moniker has stuck.
And so, as he battles to counter that perception, the way Biden talks about Israel has been changing.
[. . .]
Biden's complaint about
indiscriminate bombing is his strongest public criticism of Israel since
October 7. Indiscriminate attacks are prohibited by international
humanitarian law.
But his comments were generous, too — particularly his insistence that Israel enjoyed most of the world's support.
Within
hours of that comment, 153 nations had demanded an immediate ceasefire
via a UN vote. The resolution expressed "grave concern over the
catastrophic humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip". Just 10
countries — including the US and Israel — voted against it, and 23
abstained.
[. . .]
The US gives $US3.8 billion ($5.6
billion) in military aid to Israel every year. After October 7, Biden
asked congress to approve an extra $US14.3 billion ($21 billion).
Its
approval has been held up, but only because it's become tangled with
unrelated political fights over Ukraine funding and domestic spending.
It has broad support from both parties in both houses.
And the State Department's move to bypass congress resulted in a fast-tracked sale of 13,000 rounds of tank ammunition.
On Friday, the New York Times and CNN
both reported the US has now also sent Israel more than 5,000 MK-84
munitions — 900-kilogram bombs whose impact is so devastating, they're
rarely used by Western militaries in populated areas. Satellite images
suggest bombs of that size have been dropped in densely populated Gaza
hundreds of times.
AP reported today, "More than 90 Palestinians, including dozens from an extended family,
were killed in Israeli airstrikes on two homes, rescuers and hospital
officials said Saturday, a day after the U.N. chief warned again that
nowhere is safe in Gaza and that Israel’s offensive is creating 'massive
obstacles” to distribution of humanitarian aid'." Yes, Gaza remains under assault. Binoy Kampmark (DISSIDENT VOICE) points out, "Bloodletting as form; murder as fashion. The ongoing campaign in Gaza
by Israel’s Defence Forces continues without stalling and restriction.
But the burgeoning number of corpses is starting to become a challenge
for the propaganda outlets: How to justify it? Fortunately for Israel,
the United States, its unqualified defender, is happy to provide cover
for murder covered in the sheath of self-defence." CNN has explained, "The Gaza Strip is 'the most dangerous place' in the world to be a child, according to the executive director of the United Nations Children's Fund." ABC NEWS quotes UNICEF's December 9th statement, ""The Gaza Strip is the most dangerous place in the world to be a child.
Scores of children are reportedly being killed and injured on a daily
basis. Entire neighborhoods, where children used to play and go to
school have been turned into stacks of rubble, with no life in them." NBC NEWS notes, "Strong majorities of all voters in the U.S. disapprove of President Joe
Biden’s handling of foreign policy and the Israel-Hamas war, according to the latest national NBC News poll.
The erosion is most pronounced among Democrats, a majority of whom
believe Israel has gone too far in its military action in Gaza." The
slaughter continues. It has displaced over 1 million people per the US
Congressional Research Service. Jessica Corbett (COMMON DREAMS) points out, "Academics and legal experts around the world, including Holocaust scholars, have condemned
the six-week Israeli assault of Gaza as genocide." The death toll of
Palestinians in Gaza is now well over 18,000. NBC NEWS notes, "The vast
majority of its 2.2 million people are displaced, and an estimated half
face starvation amid an unfolding humanitarian crisis." ALJAZEERA notes, "On Friday, the Ministry of Health in Gaza said that 20,057 Palestinians
have been killed and 53,320 wounded in Israeli attacks since October 7,
when the current conflict broke out." In addition to the dead
and
the injured, there are the missing. AP notes, "About 4,000 people are reported missing." And the area itself? Isabele Debre (AP) reveals, "Israel’s military offensive
has turned much of northern Gaza into an uninhabitable moonscape. Whole
neighborhoods have been erased. Homes, schools and hospitals have been
blasted by airstrikes and scorched by tank fire. Some buildings are
still standing, but most are battered shells." Kieron Monks (I NEWS) reports, "More than 40 per cent of the buildings in northern Gaza have been damaged or destroyed, according to a new study of satellite imagery
by US researchers Jamon Van Den Hoek from Oregon State University and
Corey Scher at the City University of New York. The UN gave a figure of 45 per cent of housing
destroyed or damaged across the strip in less than six weeks. The rate
of destruction is among the highest of any conflict since the Second
World War." Max Butterworth (NBC NEWS) adds, "Satellite images captured by Maxar Technologies on Sunday reveal three
of the main hospitals in Gaza from above, surrounded by the rubble of
destroyed buildings after weeks of intense bombing in the region by
Israeli forces."
Authorities
in Gaza have announced the killing of Ahmad Jamal Al Madhoun, the
deputy director of the Al Rai Agency, in an Israeli air attack.
His death brings the total number of journalists killed in Gaza since
October 7 to 101, according to the Gaza government’s media office,
while more than 50 media offices have been completely or partially
destroyed by Israeli attacks. Al Jazeera Arabic’s cameraman Samer Abudaqa is among the dead.
Tim Dawson, the deputy general secretary at the International Federation of Journalists, told Al Jazeera
of the “extraordinarily high number” of journalists killed in Gaza. He
said that we haven’t “seen a death toll of journalists to this
concentration in any conflict that I can think of”.
[. . .]
The killing of Ahmad Jamal al-Madhoun brings the total number of
journalists killed in Gaza to 101, says the Gaza Government Media
Office.
