By Monica Moorehead
March 26, 2024
UPDATE: Resistance News Network issued the following statement on March 25: “The United Nations Security Council passed a resolution calling for a temporary ceasefire until the end of Ramadan, presented by non-permanent member states, with only the United States abstaining (without a veto). The vote came after an amendment presented by Russia to include the words ‘permanent ceasefire’ failed. The resolution called for the unconditional release of zionist prisoners held in Gaza. Netanyahu announces his anger at the U.S.’s abstention from the U.N. Security Council vote, stating that their decision not to veto ‘harms the war effort.’ As punishment, Netanyahu has withdrawn the ‘israeli’ delegation set to head to Washington D.C. to discuss the planned invasion of Rafah.”
Boston protest, Feb. 4, 2024. (Photo: Stevan Kirschbaum)
The Joe Biden administration attempted to push a resolution through the 15-member United Nations Security Council on March 22 calling for an “immediate and sustained ceasefire” in Gaza. This resolution was defeated in a vote of 11 for, three against and one abstention. Permanent Security Council members China and Russia vetoed the resolution, with Algeria being the other no vote.
Guyana abstained, whose U.N. Ambassador Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett explained, “Indeed if one were to read this resolution without background knowledge, it would be difficult to ascertain which party in this conflict is committing the atrocities in Gaza.” (caribbean.loopnews.com, March 23)
The resolution included a condemnation of Hamas — the Islamic Resistance Movement — for conducting the October 7 action against Israel. The resolution did not raise one iota of criticism of Israel’s ongoing racist ethnic cleansing in Gaza, including the blockade of huge amounts of humanitarian aid, preventing it from reaching hundreds of thousands of Gazans who are literally dying of starvation, dehydration and preventable diseases. As of March 24, over 7,000 trucks carrying aid still wait outside the Rafah crossing in Egypt.
While the U.S. resolution called for the release of the remaining Israeli hostages held by Hamas, it did not call for the freedom of thousands of Palestinian political prisoners held for months and years in Israeli torture chambers.
Palestinian resistance groups praised the veto of the U.S. resolution. Hamas stated that the resolution was “complicit with the goals of the criminal zionist enemy, enabling it to continue its aggression, and giving it cover and legitimacy for the war of genocide that it is committing against our Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip. The resolution does not include an explicit demand for an immediate cessation of the zionist aggression against Gaza.” (Resistance News Network, March 21)
Russian Ambassador Vasily Nebenzya characterized the resolution as a “hypocritical initiative” to “ensure the impunity of Israel.” He went on to say: “The American product is exceedingly politicized, the sole purpose of which is to help play to the [U.S.] voters, to throw them a bone in the form of some kind of a mention of a cease-fire.” (New York Times, March 22)
The Palestine Chronicle conducted interviews with Palestinians in Gaza on their reactions to the U.S. resolution and its hypocritical nature. Baraa Eid, currently displaced in the Al-Bureij camp in the central Gaza Strip, stated: “Isn’t the blood of more than 100,000 Palestinians in Gaza, most of them children and women, enough for the world to unite on a firm stance to force Israel to stop its war on Gaza?”
Eid went on to say, “We have no part in the political game between other major countries. We want to live in peace in our homeland, and we want the unjust blockade that Israel has imposed on us since 2006 to be lifted. What is happening on the ground now is the continuation of a brutal war, with more martyrs and victims falling every day.” (March 23)
Congress provides more weapons for Israel
The U.S. had vetoed three previous resolutions since October 7 demanding a permanent ceasefire and to allow humanitarian aid to be distributed in Gaza. This latest maneuver at the U.N. has deepened the view on a global scale that the U.S. is a social pariah for backing its fascist ally, even amongst some of Washington’s longtime allies, some of whom have cut military aid to Israel.
Just hours after the U.S. resolution was rebuffed in the U.N., a $1.2 trillion bill was passed in the House and Senate to avert a partial shutdown of the government.
Among the provisions in the bill, $3.8 billion was allocated for more arms to Israel, and the U.S. banned its funding of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), which since 1950 has provided vital aid for displaced Palestinians.
The bill also limits aid to the Palestinian Authority if any of its representatives initiate or support the International Criminal Court investigation against Israel for genocide. The U.S. is seeking to rehabilitate the image of the discredited Palestine Authority in order to replace Hamas as the governing body in Gaza.
The bourgeois media is attempting to emphasize any tactical differences “Genocide Joe” and his administration may have in how the Zionist, terrorist regime is conducting its massacres and mass displacement of the Palestinian people. But these tactical differences can never disguise the blatant complicity that U.S. imperialism has in sending deadly war machinery to Israel that is responsible for killing and wounding over 100,000 Palestinians in Gaza in a nearly six-month period.
If the U.S. was truly concerned about the plight of the Palestinians, it could have cut off all military funding to its garrison state immediately to force Israel to open up the borders to allow humanitarian aid, to adhere to a permanent ceasefire and to withdraw all Israeli occupation troops from Gaza. These are all demands coming from the united Palestinian resistance.
But once again, the U.S. is just as guilty of genocidal war crimes as its junior imperialist partner, resulting in the two countries facing further diplomatic and political isolation on a global scale.
