U.S. Resolution Demanding Quick End to Gaza Violence Vetoed by Russia and China
U.S. resolution demanding quick end to Gaza violence vetoed by Russia and China
The United Nations resolution that the United States had pushed for “an immediate and sustained cease-fire” in the Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza was rejected by Russia and China on Friday. They said that the resolution was too vague and did not constitute the clear demand to end the violence that many countries are seeking.
As a result of the United States’s alleged softness toward its ally Israel—the country whose continuous military offensive has triggered a catastrophic humanitarian catastrophe for the 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza—the vote in the Security Council descended into yet another confrontation between global powers embroiled in contentious disputes elsewhere.
That the Security Council “determines the imperative of an immediate and sustained cease-fire” was peculiar terminology and a major problem. There was no simple “demand” or “call” to end the fighting.
As even Israel’s friends call for an immediate and unconditional cessation of hostilities, the United States has been increasingly isolated, and this resolution represented a change in its stance.
Calls for a ceasefire and demands for the release of Israeli hostages in Gaza have been intricately interwoven in previous resolutions by the United States. This settlement maintained, albeit weakly, the connection between the two issues by employing language that is open to several interpretations.
Russian U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said before the vote that Moscow backs an immediate cease-fire, but he panned the proposal’s watered-down language, calling it philosophical jargon that has no place in a UN resolution.
He said that American Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield and Secretary Antony Blinken were “deliberately misleading the international community.”
“This was just a hollow rhetorical exercise,” Nebenzia remarked. A cease-fire in Gaza is thrown to the voters as a carrot by an extremely politicized American product whose only function is to help with voter outreach. and to guarantee that Israel will remain unpunished for its alleged crimes committed during the draft.
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