No, Israel does not have the ‘right’ to ‘defend itself’ against a population living under its occupation.
TAIF MHAKA FROM ALJAZEERA
On November 15, after long negotiations and four failed attempts to reach a consensus, the United Nations Security Council finally adopted a resolution on what it calls the “Israel-Palestine crisis”.
Resolution 2712, adopted with 12 votes in favour, zero against and three abstentions (from Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States), however, did not achieve much other than give Israel the green light, yet again, to continue with its genocidal war on Gaza.
The resolution called for the implementation of “urgent and extended humanitarian pauses and corridors” in Gaza for “a sufficient number of days” to facilitate “full, rapid, safe and unhindered access for UN agencies and partners”. It demanded “the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages held by Hamas and other groups, especially children, as well as ensuring immediate humanitarian access”. And ostensibly to protect Palestinian civilians, who are bearing the brunt of Israel’s offensive, it further called on “all parties to refrain from depriving the civilian population in Gaza of basic services and aid indispensable to their survival, consistent with international humanitarian law”.
Ambassador Vanessa Frazier of Malta, who drafted the text, went as far as to say the votes for the resolution would translate “into real human lives. The lives of thousands of children, civilians and heroic humanitarian workers.”
It is, of course, impossible to say whether the resolution helped save any “real human lives” at all as it did not explicitly require Israel to stop killing Palestinians or condemn its indiscriminate bombing of and lawless siege on Gaza.
Indeed, the very call for “humanitarian pauses and corridors” was nothing but an admission that the UN Security Council is more than willing to allow Israel to continue with its ethnic cleansing project in Gaza as long as it agrees to occasionally stop its bombing and give safe passage to a few aid trucks, presumably to improve optics.
This is unacceptable.
Israel is committing war crimes in Gaza out in the open. Thousands of Palestinians, overwhelmingly women and children, have been killed in Gaza since October 7. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres himself has warned that in Gaza civilians are being killed at a rate “unparalleled and unprecedented in any conflict” he’s seen since he took office in 2017. The Israeli bombardment has reduced most civilian infrastructure – including hospitals, schools and a majority of homes – to rubble in the north of the besieged enclave, and the south is not faring much better. More people could die from disease in Gaza than from bombings if the health system is not urgently repaired, the World Health Organization said.
And yet, the mighty UN Security Council appears unable to offer the long suffering Palestinians in Gaza nothing more than a few aid trucks and an empty demand that Israel occasionally take a short break from indiscriminately killing them.
Even this watered-down and useless resolution, however, was a step too far for Israel’s imperial patron, the United States, who did not outright reject it yet still refused to vote for it.
