By Indrani Chakraborty
U.S. President Donald Trump has finally given up his initial musk as the global peace maker after taking over presidency on January 20 this year. After 135 days of acting as a fake peace maker, under his direction, the United States vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution Wednesday night calling for an immediate end to Israel’s war of extermination in the Gaza Strip. Fourteen of the 15 Security Council members voted in favor of the draft resolution, while the United States rejected it.
The resolution was drafted by Algeria and submitted by the ten non-permanent members of the Council: Algeria, Pakistan, Panama, South Korea, Denmark, Slovenia, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Guyana, and Greece.
The other five permanent members have veto power: the United States, Britain, France, Russia, and China. All except the United States voted in favour of the resolution. The draft resolution calls for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza and describes the humanitarian situation there as “catastrophic.”
It also calls for the immediate and unconditional lifting of all restrictions on the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza, and for its safe and unhindered distribution on a wide scale, including by the United Nations and humanitarian partners..In the last three weeks, the Israeli soldiers rebuffed every effort of the sick Palestinians to go to the aid centres for medical aid. There were large number of killings of such ailing patients in Gaza.
For 18 years, Israel has been besieging Gaza, leaving approximately 1.5 million Palestinians out of a population of approximately 2.4 million in the Strip homeless after the mass bombing and demolition campaigns that have characterized the war of extermination.
The draft resolution also calls for the immediate, unconditional, and dignified release of the Israeli hostages held by Palestinian factions in Gaza. According to Israel’s estimates, there are 58 hostages, 20 of whom are still alive.
Algerian Ambassador to the Security Council Amar Bendjama said the draft resolution represents “the collective will of the entire world and a message to the Palestinian people that you are not alone, and to the Israeli occupier that the world is watching them.”The Algerian delegate stressed the need to remove the “shield of impunity.”
He said, “Today’s vote reveals why the Israeli occupier continues its crimes; because it has never faced justice and has always felt protected, while the victims are buried without names, without headlines, without investigation, and without accountability.”
He stressed that the Security Council should have acted “to prevent the killing of Palestinian children from becoming a mere hobby, and should have acted to impose a ceasefire in Gaza so that starvation would not be legitimized as a weapon.”
Bendjama affirmed that his country will never stop coming to the Security Council on behalf of “the hungry who refuse to trade their dignity for bread under siege, the thirsty who are killed in search of clean water, and because Palestinians deserve to live in freedom and dignity.”
Meanwhile, the U.S. Chargé d’Affaires to the United Nations, Dorothy Shea, said her country’s rejection of the draft resolution “should not come as a surprise.” She added, “We will not support any action that does not condemn Hamas. Any decision that undermines the security of our close ally, Israel, is completely unacceptable.”
In contrast, British Ambassador Barbara Woodward said her country voted in favor of the draft resolution because “the unbearable situation in Gaza must end.”Woodward expressed Britain’s determination to work to end this war, secure the release of the hostages, and alleviate the catastrophic humanitarian situation for Palestinians in Gaza. She added that the Israeli government’s decision to expand its military operation in Gaza and impose severe restrictions on aid is “unjustified, disproportionate, and counterproductive.”
Denouncing the current Israeli aid distribution mechanism, she said that “desperate Palestinians who wanted to feed their families” were being killed while trying to access aid, an “inhumane situation.”Woodward supported the U.N. call for an immediate and independent investigation into these incidents and for the perpetrators to be held accountable. She stressed the need for Israel to allow the United Nations and aid workers to do their work to save lives.
Donald Trump as a part of his election campaign said that he would stop both Israel-Hamas war and Russia-Ukraine war within days of his inauguration. In fact five days before January 20 this year, the President elect organized the signing of truce by Israel and Hamas. That was fine. It was good optics that helped Trump in getting a pro-peace image at the time of swearing in. But in the later days, despite the exchange of hostages and prisoners, Israel continued its attacks on Gaza strip and in the recent weeks, it tuned into a genocide leading to the worst humanitarian crisis in the recent years. Trump has taken no action against Prime Minister Netanyahu for indiscriminate killings of Palestinians. Now the US veto against the UN resolution has exposed the true pro-Israel character of the US President.
The same has happened to the Russia-Ukraine war. After organizing two peace talks that helped in the swapping of prisoners between Russia and Ukraine, the war has taken a fiercer turn after Ukraine’s combined drone attacks on the Russian military bases. President Putin has instructed his military to step up the offensive. Trump and Putin talked in phone on Wednesday and it was clear that the war would continue. Trump himself said after the phone call ‘Let Russia and Ukraine continue war for more days”. So there is no immediate possibility of any end of war in Ukraine.
For now, the only saving grace for Trump is his positive talks on Thursday with the Chinese President Xi Jinping. Both have agreed to take forward the interim agreement that was reached in Geneva after the high level talks between the two delegations. There is a possibility that Trump will be visiting China after the dates are finalized through mutual consultations. The 90 day pause in tariffs announced by Trump in April this year expires on July 9 this year. Now, all focus will be on trade talks and tariffs till July 9. (IPA Service)
