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UN Security Council Demands Immediate Gaza Ceasefire

The United States abstained but did not exercise its veto power.

James Joyner
24

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BBC (“UN Security Council passes resolution calling for Gaza ceasefire“):

The UN Security Council has called for an “immediate ceasefire” in Gaza, after the US did not veto the measure in a shift from its previous position.

It also demanded the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages.

It is the first time the council has called for a ceasefire since the war began in October after several failed attempts.

The move by the US signals growing divergence between it and its ally Israel over Israel’s offensive in Gaza.

In an unusually strong rebuke, a statement from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the US had “retreated” from its original position which had clearly linked a ceasefire to a hostage release.

It said this harmed efforts to release hostages by giving Hamas hope it could use international pressure on Israel to achieve a ceasefire without freeing the captives.

It also said Mr Netanyahu had decided to cancel meetings between an Israeli delegation and US officials in Washington that were scheduled for this week.

Israel’s defence minister said Israel would not stop the war in Gaza while hostages were still being held there.

Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist group which governs Gaza and which triggered the war with an unprecedented attack on Israel on 7 October, welcomed the resolution. It said it was ready “to engage in an immediate prisoner exchange process that leads to the release of prisoners on both sides”.

The group has made any hostage release conditional on the release by Israel of Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.

I must admit to being baffled by this. The United States has a veto power, yet neither exercised it nor voted in the affirmative. So, we’ve simultaneously allowed the measure to go through and provided no leadership.

So: Now What?

UN Secretary-General António Guterres rightly observed that, having passed, the resolution must be implemented and that failure to do so “would be unforgivable.” But who the hell is going to make Israel comply? It’s damned sure not going to be the United States military. Not only is that politically inconceivable, we surely wouldn’t have taken the feckless step of abstaining if we were.

The other four Permanent Members voted in the affirmative and are issuing various statements. But I guarantee you that they’re not going to do anything if we don’t.

So, again: Now What?

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24 responses to “UN Security Council Demands Immediate Gaza Ceasefire”

  1. Tony W Avatar
    Tony W

    I mean, Alex Jones has now said that Israel has gone too far and lost worldwide support.

    When even that stopped clock is correct, it’s time to rethink strategy.

    3
  2. DK Avatar
    DK

    So, again: Now What?

    Palestinians and Israelis spent another 80+ years killing each other over their religious extremism, while allies on either side look on with increasing apathy.

    12
  3. drj Avatar
    drj

    The United States has a veto power, yet neither exercised it nor voted in the affirmative. So, we’ve simultaneously allowed the measure to go through and provided no leadership.

    The US abstained (among other reasons) because the resolution did not sufficiently condemn Hamas.

    There is absolutely nothing unusual about abstaining in order to signal partial disagreement. It is perfectly normal diplomatic practice. There is nothing “feckless” about it.

    Moreover, a US-sponsored resolution that would have including the kind of condemnation of Hamas that the Biden administration is seeking would have been vetoed by China and Russia.

    Of course, the US could have nonetheless proposed its own competing resolution, but the fact that it hasn’t done so is also a signal directed at Israel.

    Again, perfectly normal diplomatic signalling.

    5
  4. MarkedMan Avatar
    MarkedMan

    James, how is this any different than UN resolutions regarding, say, the Sudan/South Sudan conflict? Now, if what you are asking is what is the purpose of the UN given that they can’t enforce their mandates, that’s a very good question but it’s in no way unique to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.

    2
  5. Beth Avatar
    Beth

    I must admit to being baffled by this. The United States has a veto power, yet neither exercised it nor voted in the affirmative. So, we’ve simultaneously allowed the measure to go through and provided no leadership.

    The Russians and the Chinese exercised their veto over the last attempt, I think last wednesday/thursday-ish. The U.S. brought that one and it sounds like the Russians/Chinese veto’d it only to stick it to the Americans (eyeroll). My guess is that in between that vote and this one, Netanyahu did something to piss off the administration enough that they chose to let this one through.

    I’m stuck listening to a bunch of lefty children (in their 20’s) argue that Joe Biden is directly responsible for dead Palestinians. As if he was shooting them himself. What I find so frustrating about that is it ignores things like this non-veto. Has the U.S. ever not bent over backwards to protect Israel at the UN? I find things like this to be earth shakingly huge. The kids don’t and that annoys me to no end.

    9
  6. Gustopher Avatar
    Gustopher

    I must admit to being baffled by this. The United States has a veto power, yet neither exercised it nor voted in the affirmative. So, we’ve simultaneously allowed the measure to go through and provided no leadership.

    Somehow, you have the belief that anyone believes the UN resolution will directly amount to anything at all.

    I’m pretty sure that even UN Secretary-General António Guterres knows this, and it just going through the motions.

    The vote is a message to the Israeli government, not a practical declaration that the administration doesn’t have any particular feelings about the whole situation. It’s obviously meant to show to the rest of the Israeli government that Netanyahu is putting the country’s relationship with the US in danger. This should scare the shit out of the rest of the cabinet. Will it? No idea.

    It’s a diplomatic gambit, using the leverage that the US has. It’s the right move.

    I’d prefer us to cut all aid to Israel, but I also know that this isn’t going to happen. I don’t think Biden wants to, and it would have a big domestic backlash even if he did.

    4
  7. Andy Avatar
    Andy

    UN Secretary-General António Guterres rightly observed that, having passed, the resolution must be implemented and that failure to do so “would be unforgivable.” But who the hell is going to make Israel comply?

    Wow, you are missing a few things here.

    First of all, the ceasefire applies to all parties, not just Israel. Secondly, you mentioned and then skipped over the other half, which is the unconditional release of hostages.

    Who the hell is going to make Hamas comply with a ceasefire and hostage release?

    So it’s clear how this will play out, as the asymmetry has to this point, and as your post does as well – the narrative will only focus on Israeli compliance and enforcement and not Hamas’ compliance and enforcement.

    So, again: Now What?

    My understanding is this gives countries more legal authority to sanction Israel (and theoretically Hamas, but let’s be real here) if they want to. Politically, it will allow governments to take a harder line on Israel because it points to the supposed legitimacy of a UN resolution. How that will actually play out is anyone’s guess.

    So I think in the end, Israel will probably have to relent and make a deal with Hamas (Hamas will never unconditionally release hostages), who now will have a much stronger hand. Hamas will return to be the governing authority of the Gaza strip, and the “rebuilding” will begin for Hamas to prepare for another try sometime in the future.

    @drj:

    Of course, the US could have nonetheless proposed its own competing resolution, but the fact that it hasn’t done so is also a signal directed at Israel.

    On the contrary, the US has put forward resolutions, but they have been vetoed or voted down, including one two days ago.

    This is a small victory only to the extent that the US months-long effort to tie a ceasefire with a hostage release demand finally succeeded, not that anyone cares or will pay attention to the hostage release demand.

    5
  8. Beth Avatar
    Beth

    @Gustopher:

    I’d prefer us to cut all aid to Israel, but I also know that this isn’t going to happen. I don’t think Biden wants to, and it would have a big domestic backlash even if he did.

    Maybe I’m reading you wrong, but I think this current move is huge in the grand scheme of things. It’s tepid and insufficient, but it’s something real. A real warning to Israel. I don’t think they will care, that’s the nature of these things.

    What interests me, and I don’t know the answer, is what is the interim step between this and cutting aid. Ancillary to this question, is what is going to happen that gets us all there. I suspect it will be bad.

    I also suspect it will have something to do with Israel deciding to start approving settlements in Gaza. That’s something that a whole lotta people are going to feign being shocked over, but that is definitely coming.

    4
  9. Gustopher Avatar
    Gustopher

    @Beth:

    Maybe I’m reading you wrong, but I think this current move is huge in the grand scheme of things. It’s tepid and insufficient, but it’s something real.

    I thought “this should scare the shit out of the rest of the [Israeli] cabinet” was pretty clear, but I guess not.

    I would like us to go further — at the very least cut all aid to Israel while Israel is blocking UN relief convoys — but this is probably as far as the administration can go right now. This is a step that should have happened months ago though.

    2
  10. James Joyner Avatar
    James Joyner

    @drj: @MarkedMan: @Gustopher: In my view, the United States is simply different than any other UNSC actor. It has historically been the chief enforcer of UNSCRs, so I find it weird to let one go through that 1) it won’t enforce and 2) won’t put its name on.

    @Andy: That’s a perfectly fair point but that’s certainly not how this is going to be read. It’s clearly a condemnation of Israel’s offensive. And, as the Israeli government rightly notes, there has been no UNSCR condemning the October 7 Hamas massacre.

    3
  11. Gustopher Avatar
    Gustopher

    On Ye Olde Open Thread @Michael Reynolds opines:

    We never had the influence over Israel that the Left imagined we did. The notion that we could force Israel to kneel by cutting off our aid – which amounted to ~1% of Israel’s GDP – was ignorant and naive

    1% of the GDP is not nothing.

    US GDP grows by about 4% year over year, and when it’s lower, people feel it and it affects elections.

    And that’s without the shock of it suddenly going away with money and products you were expecting to have delivered not showing up.

    Plus, why should we be subsidizing an apartheid state at all? Let alone an apartheid state that has killed 30,000+ of its residents, and is cutting off food aid to about 2,000,000?

    5
  12. Kathy Avatar
    Kathy

    @MarkedMan:

    There was that time in 1991, when Bush the elder enforced the hell out of a UN Security Council Resolution.

    But that was a rather unique moment in time, unlikely to ever be repeated.

    2
  13. MarkedMan Avatar
    MarkedMan

    I find it weird to let one go through that 1) it won’t enforce and

    My recollection is that this happens all the time. The UN is always condemning atrocities and wars and only rarely does the US enforce anything.

    3
  14. DK Avatar
    DK

    @James Joyner: Enforcing how? The US has no power to make Hamas release hostages and Israel stop bombing Gaza. The UN has long since adopted resolutions condemning Putin and demanding withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine. Nobody’s enforcing that.

    Is there something else to do besides sternly worded letters?

    5
  15. Michael Reynolds Avatar
    Michael Reynolds

    @Beth:

    It’s tepid and insufficient, but it’s something real. A real warning to Israel. I don’t think they will care, that’s the nature of these things.

    Not really a warning if the response is indifference. The UN has passed, or tried to pass, a million resolutions against Israel. Of course they’ll ignore it. Just as we would have ignored a UN resolution on 9-12-2001.

    @Gustopher:
    Yeah, that 1% would have broken them. An infuriated and terrified country reminded of the Holocaust, whose unofficial motto is, “never again,” would absolutely have caved if only we threatened to stop sending them weapons – weapons which, incidentally, mean American jobs and an opportunity for us to upgrade. Someone rapes, mutilates and murders your spouse or child, you’d be mad, but hey, not if someone cut your income by 1%.

    Has your life been so sheltered you don’t understand how humans behave when threatened? Your calls for ‘cutting them off,’ are not about saving Gazans, it would have had the opposite effect, just about keeping your skirts clean. Virtue signaling, which, I gather, is your foreign policy.

    3
  16. Michael Reynolds Avatar
    Michael Reynolds

    Oh, look, it’s exactly what I said would happen:

    For the increasingly tense U.S.-Israel relationship, the fallout from passage of the U.N. cease-fire resolution was immediate, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that he would not send a planned high-level delegation to Washington for meetings with U.S. officials.

    It’s not 1973, Israel can do just fine without us.

    2
  17. DK Avatar
    DK

    @Gustopher:

    Plus, why should we be subsidizing an apartheid state at all?

    To keep your frenemies close?

    Benny Gantz visited the US for White House meetings at the beginning of March. The Israeli cabinet has known for a month or more Biden is fed up with Netanyahu. It has changed nothing except — as predicted here and elsewhere — the Israeli government is tacking more brazenly towards Zionist extremism, like the West Bank annexations announced this weekend.

    This indicates again that Netanyahu, Ben-Gvir, et al maybe view US aid as a handcuff they’d not be sorry to lose.

    I believe Israel aid should be cut off because they don’t need it and because Israel’s actions in the West Bank have made the US a state sponsor of terror. We don’t need Israel’s overrated intelligence apparatus. So why not cut them off, especially as we struggle to improve our global reputation.

    Conversely, the realplotik argument for Israel aid, if increasingly immoral, is also not irrational. There is little to no benefit for the US, Biden or a future US president to invite the political headache of imploring Congress to defund Israel, knowing it won’t happen.

    Nations around the globe who hate America have or would find other reasons besides Israel. Ditto domestic “pro-Palestinian” leftists determined to hate bothsides. They will always move the goalposts and find reasons; this cohort went Never Hillary because she gave speeches to her New York constituents who work in finance, and abandoned Gore because ???.

    The anti-Israel, anti-aid right is so small and fringe many don’t even know it exists.

    In the rest of the electorate, cutting Israel aid is not a determinative issue. So any political benefit would be swamped by backlash from the larger majority of Americans still supportive of Israel, however warily.

    Then practically, what’s the benefit? Israel already has decades of American weapons stockpiled. Gaza was littered with American shells long before more Biden-approved explosives started arriving in Israel this year. Since 7 Oct, Israel aid has been stalled in Congress. The paltry, symbolic amount in last week’s omibus may reach Israel in upcoming months, but it’s pretty clear they don’t need it now. Like Russia has done, they can tease out economic and arms support from sources not US-allied.

    So, yeah, cut off Israel aid because Netanyahu’s violent and anti-democratic government doesn’t deserve it. But subtract middling political benefit, add outsized political pain, and subtract any pragmatic effect — what US president will pick this fight with Congress?

    3
  18. Gustopher Avatar
    Gustopher

    @DK, @Michael Reynolds:
    The “they’ll just be worse if we aren’t nice to them” argument is pretty much what battered spouses use to justify staying.

    It’s not 1973, Israel can do just fine without us.

    So there’s no reason to support them at all.

    5
  19. DK Avatar
    DK

    @Gustopher: We are most definitely in a coercive and codependent unhealthy relationship with Israel, true.

    The difference is, we are not the target of the abuse. Israel is not bombing Miami. Hamas didn’t overrun Des Moines on 7 Oct.

    The better is analogy is being the nice neighbor of a mutually-abusive couple. You can be friendly to one or the other for self-serving reasons, and later stop being nice for reasons. But your niceties or lack thereof are not going to stop them from abusing each other.

    3
  20. Gustopher Avatar
    Gustopher

    @DK: My niceties to my neighbor do not account for 1% of their Household Domestic Product. And certainly not for the “neighbors” who live across town.

    Attempting to appease the Israeli government has failed. We should at least walk away.

    If we wanted more influence, I suppose we could start bombing. That’s what we eventually did with the Serbs when they were killing civilian populations in Bosnia and then Kosovo.

    2
  21. DK Avatar
    DK

    @Gustopher:

    We should at least walk away.

    We should have 2/3 of Congress or 2/3 of states agree to amend the Constitution to abolish the Electoral College and require the number of Supreme Court justices match the number of circuit courts.

    Now, back to reality, where we can’t even get convince Americans to consistently vote to maximize good outcomes in the flawed but workable system we have.

    If we wanted more influence, I suppose we could start bombing.

    I suppose we could’ve not been been weak and stupid, providing real long-rang weapons and fighter jets to Ukraine two years ago, rather than send them into a counteroffensive with no air cover.
    I suppose the Senate and courts could not block sensible gun laws.

    I suppose we could buy everyone a puppy and a rainbow.
    I suppose a lot of things.

    Now, back to reality, where most Americans are apathetic, narrow, and selfish. How do we advance the ball forward in the real world?

    5
  22. Kathy Avatar
    Kathy

    The main US and regional interest in Israel, is as a counterbalance to Iran. That’s why some countries in and around the region have recognized Israel, and even the Saudis are playing nice.

    2
  23. Andy Avatar
    Andy

    @James Joyner:

    That’s a perfectly fair point but that’s certainly not how this is going to be read. It’s clearly a condemnation of Israel’s offensive. And, as the Israeli government rightly notes, there has been no UNSCR condemning the October 7 Hamas massacre.

    Yes to all of that. That’s the asymmetry I’ve been bringing up since this war started. And now there is no leverage for any kind of condemnation of Hamas, so that will certainly not happen, not that the chances of that were ever very great.

    And already we see the Israel-haters dropping pretenses. It’s all about forcing Israel to do what they want, the responsibilities of other parties to the conflict, include Hamas, are seemingly not relevant.

    4
  24. JKB Avatar
    JKB

    Pew Research issued the results on a survey on American opinions of the war on the 21st

    Bit of a tight rope for the Biden admin even among Democrats and Dem leaning independents

    1

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