You might be excused for not knowing that the United Nations Security Council finally passed a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza on March 26 after the United States abstained from voting.
Wendell Griffen
Almost six months have passed since Hamas fighters invaded Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. More than 32,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli Defense Forces in retaliation for that attack. Nations across the world have called for a ceasefire for months, but the United States vetoed ceasefire resolutions until March 26.
You might be excused for not knowing that the Security Council passed such a resolution on March 26. After all, the Biden administration shipped more bombs and other war tools to Israel since then. President Joe Biden signed legislation that defunds UNRWA, the U.N. agency that provides humanitarian relief and assistance to Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem the day after the resolution was adopted.
The ceasefire resolution came too late for thousands of Palestinians, including more than 100 courageous journalists killed by IDF forces because they were covering the carnage and other inhumane conduct of the Israeli war machine. The resolution is not making a difference to cold, unhoused, starving and war-sickened Palestinian refugees in Rafah.
“The resolution is not making a difference to cold, unhoused, starving and war-sickened Palestinian refugees in Rafah.”
Judging from how Israel and its allies (led by the United States, Britain and France) are behaving, it is foreseeable that the Israeli war machine will ramp up its genocidal campaign in Gaza when Ramadan ends. Thousands more Palestinian men, women and children will be killed. Those who survive will not be allowed to return to their homes unless and until they agree to the same military occupation that Israel conducts in the Occupied West Bank.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his war cabinet do not care what the Security Council or anyone else in the world thinks or says about its genocide in Gaza, ethnic cleansing, land theft and apartheid in the West Bank, and flagrant support for settler violence against Palestinians in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. No matter what Biden says about Israel shelling humanitarian aid vehicles and slaughtering workers delivering food to starving Palestinians in Gaza — days after the Security Council’s ceasefire resolution — Netanyahu knows that Biden’s “outrage” is worthless.
What matters is that the U.S. and Israel have thumbed their noses at the ceasefire resolution — and the Security Council itself — unless the Security Council allows them to do as they please, for whatever reasons they choose, to anyone besides the other permanent members of the Security Council (China, France, the Russian Federation and the United Kingdom). Politicians and diplomats in Israel and the United States know the Security Council will not sanction Israel for violating the ceasefire resolution. Nor will it sanction the United States for flaunting the resolution by sending Israel additional weapons to kill and defunding UNRWA to starve defenseless, unhoused, sickened and starving Palestinians.
“The United Nations always has been a stage for diplomatic showboating by privileged nations, not a forum for global diplomacy, justice and peace.”
The harsh truth is that the United Nations always has been a stage for diplomatic showboating by privileged nations, not a forum for global diplomacy, justice and peace. People in nations marginalized by imperial capitalism, materialism, white supremacy, fascism and hypocrisy know this is the case. They know the U.N. never has been ashamed of promoting tyrants, bigots, despots and thieves. They also know the U.N. never has sanctioned Israel for violating other resolutions concerning violations against Palestinians for 75 years.
What can we do? Name the hypocrites. Name the warmongers. Name the genocidal actors and their enablers. Declare their names to the world and to future generations. And include the United Nations Security Council.
This is what Palestinians are doing. If we won’t do anything else, we can at least join them in denouncing the Security Council as a sham for privileged nations addicted to settler colonialism, imperialism, capitalism, militarism, bloodlust and white supremacist hegemony.
Wendell Griffen is a retired judge in Little Rock, Ark., where he serves as pastor of New Millennium Baptist Church.
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