by Prof Gilbert Achcar
It is truly surprising that Washington abstained from voting on the resolution adopted by the UN Security Council last Monday.
It is a decision that is consistent with the US position that rejects the call for a permanent ceasefire, as it only calls for “an immediate ceasefire during the month of Ramadan,” adding a wish that this will “lead to a long-term and sustainable ceasefire.” (The resolution did not use the term “permanent” but rather “lasting” which refers to the length of existence and not to final permanence.)
The parties that drafted the draft resolution made a special effort to use expressions and concepts that would satisfy Washington so that the text reconciled the American and Arab positions. The draft denounced all acts of violence and attacks on civilians, and all acts of terrorism, and reiterated that taking hostages is prohibited under international law.
This time, the resolution came in a way that Britain itself was able to support it, after it had, until now, remained committed to the US position, not daring to go against it except by abstaining once instead of vetoing it with Washington. As for the US administration’s pretext in justifying its abstention on Monday by pointing out that the resolution did not name Hamas, it is a completely weak pretext that cannot fool anyone, as the resolution did not name Israel either, even when talking about the need to allow the entry of international aid. Avoiding naming the two parties was one of the compromises on which the resolution was based. The truth is that Washington’s abstention was an attempt to absorb some of the Israeli anger so that Washington would not appear as if it were participating in the UN Security Council’s consensus on a resolution that Israel rejects. The Likudian Zionist Foreign Minister, Israel Katz, had accused the UN last Saturday of becoming, under the leadership of its current Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, “an anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli body that shelters and emboldens terror.” This took Israel’s usual policy of labelling any criticism of its policies as anti-Jewish to a new level of excess and vulgarity.
READ: UNICEF: Ceasefire in Gaza must be ‘substantive’ to end ‘darkest chapters’ of humanity
As for the administration of US President Joe Biden, it has reached a new level of hypocrisy. It continues to supply Israel with weapons and equipment, just as it has done since the beginning of the Zionists’ genocidal war against the Palestinians in Gaza, making it fully complicit in genocide. This makes this the first openly joint war conducted by the US and the Zionist state against anyone. Although Benjamin Netanyahu threw a hissy fit at the US abstention (instead of using its veto) and cancelled a scheduled Israeli delegation’s visit to Washington that was headed by one of his advisors on strategic affairs, Israel has since asked for the meeting to be re-scheduled. Furthermore, the Minister of Defence in Netanyahu’s coalition government and member of the war cabinet formed at the beginning of the current military offensive, Yoav Gallant, arrived in Washington on Monday. His visit is much more important than the one that Netanyahu cancelled. Upon his arrival in the US capital, Gallant declared that the occupation army would inevitably invade Rafah. He came to consult with the Biden administration on how to package the Rafah invasion so that they can claim that they considered humanitarian concerns that have become extremely sensitive to the Americans.
Of course, this sensitivity does not stem from loyalty to humanitarian concerns and considerations themselves. How can it, when Washington has participated in the killing of approximately 40,000 people and the wounding of tens of thousands more, with a high percentage of those sustaining life-changing injuries? The US has participated in the destruction of the Gaza Strip to an unprecedented extent in terms of the scope of destruction in such a short period of time, and the displacement of the vast majority of the population of the Strip to the Rafah area. While Washington airdrops some food aid boxes, this action is nowhere near able to compensate for this, which is what the US had hope it would do. Humanitarian officials were quick to point out that airdrops are an expensive and ineffective way to deliver aid and thus ease the famine spreading among the Palestinians in Gaza. They called instead for the hundreds of aid trucks lined up in Egypt to be allowed into the besieged territory. Israel is blocking their entry; the US can, supposedly, do nothing about this, even though all it has to do is threaten to stop sending arms and ammunition to the Zionist state.
OPINION: Those airdropping food cannot also be airdropping missiles
We are entitled to ask what the real intention is behind the “floating port” being built on the Gaza coast. Is it, as Netanyahu suggested, being made ready to ease the displacement of the Palestinians? Is the neo-fascist Israeli government preparing a second Nakba? The option of sending the Palestinians to Sinai has been rejected by Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi’s regime in Egypt, for security, not humanitarian considerations.
Recently, we have heard Israel proposals to push the Palestinians from Gaza into a corner of the Negev desert on the Egyptian border so that the Zionist state can annex the Gaza Strip as it is seen as a much more valuable piece of real estate, especially because of its beach. This worries Washington, which duly summoned Benny Gantz, another member of the war cabinet who opposes Netanyahu and the Likud-led government, to negotiate with him. The Biden administration is concerned about the displacement project, which contradicts its position calling for the preservation of the Oslo framework and for the Palestinian Authority led by Fatah to govern the Gaza Strip once again, primarily under Israeli guardianship. This may happen, accompanied by the deployment of regional or international forces. Either way, the whole issue exposes US hypocrisy and Israel insolence.
This content was published in Middle East Monitor on March 28, 2024. To restrict the overall size; some images may have been excluded.
Opinions expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect the views of UMMnews.
