UN General Assembly is set to vote on a key resolution calling on Tel Aviv to abide by international law
Medea Benjamin , Nicolas J S Davies
This resolution comes in response to a historic ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in July, which found that “Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and the regime associated with them, have been established and are being maintained in violation of international law”.
The court ruled that Israel’s obligations under international law include “the evacuation of all settlers from existing settlements” and the payment of restitution to all who have been harmed by its illegal occupation.
The passage of the General Assembly resolution by a large majority of members would be a small, but important, first step towards ensuring that Israel lives up to those obligations.
If Israel predictably fails to heed such a resolution, and the United States then vetoes (or threatens to veto) a Security Council resolution to enforce the ICJ ruling, then the General Assembly could go a step further.
It could convene an emergency session to take up what is called a Uniting for Peace resolution, which could call for an arms embargo, an economic boycott or other UN sanctions against Israel - or even call for actions against the US.
While Israel used its hotly disputed account of the 7 October Hamas attack as a pretext to declare open season for the mass killing of Palestinians in Gaza, Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem used it as a pretext to distribute assault weapons to illegal Israeli settlers and unleash a new wave of violence there, too.
Massive death toll
Since last October, Israeli forces and armed settlers in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem have killed at least 700 people, including more than 150 children. The escalation of violence and land seizures has been so flagrant that even the US and European governments have felt obliged to impose sanctions on a small number of violent settlers.
The Palestinian health ministry has counted more than 41,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza, but with the destruction of the hospitals that it relies upon to identify and count the dead, this is only a partial toll. Medical researchers estimate that the total number of deaths in Gaza, from both the direct and indirect results of Israeli actions, could be in the hundreds of thousands, even if the massacre were to end soon.
US President Joe Biden is exercising the worst kind of international leadership in this crisis. Washington has muscled its way into a pivotal role in the ceasefire negotiations begun by Qatar and Egypt, and used that position to skillfully and repeatedly undermine any chance of a ceasefire, the release of hostages or an end to the genocide.
By failing to use any of its substantial leverage to pressure Israel, and by disingenuously blaming Hamas for every failure in the negotiations, US officials are ensuring that the genocide will continue for as long as Washington and its Israeli allies want.
The world has rarely come together so unanimously since the founding of the United Nations in the aftermath of the Second World War
This is a continuation of the strategy by which the US has stymied and prevented peace since 1967, falsely posing as an honest broker while presenting the most critical diplomatic obstacle to a free Palestine.
In addition to cynically undermining any chance of a ceasefire, the US has injected itself into debates over the future of Gaza, promoting the idea that a postwar government could be led by the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority, which many Palestinians view as hopelessly corrupt and compromised by subservience to Israel and the US.
China has taken a more constructive approach, inviting Hamas, Fatah and 12 other Palestinian groups to a three-day meeting in Beijing in July, where they all agreed to a “national unity” plan that sets the stage for a postwar “interim national reconciliation government”, which would oversee relief and rebuilding in Gaza and hold elections for a more permanent government.
Mustafa Barghouti, secretary general of the Palestinian National Initiative, hailed the Beijing Declaration as going “much further” than previous reconciliation efforts, telling Al Jazeera that the plan for a unity government “blocks Israeli efforts to create some kind of collaborative structure against Palestinian interests”.
Deadly supply chain
While arming Israel to the teeth, the US has also vetoed 46 UN Security Council resolutions over the years that would have required Israel to comply with international law, called for Palestinian statehood, or held Israel accountable for war crimes or illegal settlement building.
Of the UN’s 193 nations, 146 have recognised Palestine as a sovereign nation comprising Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem; even more have voted for resolutions to end the occupation, prohibit Israeli settlements and support Palestinian self-determination and human rights.
In the Gaza crisis, the US military alliance with Israel involves Washington directly in the crime of genocide, as it provides the warplanes and bombs that are killing thousands of Palestinians and destroying Gaza. The US also deploys military liaison officers to assist Israel in planning its operations, special forces to provide intelligence and satellite communications, and trainers and technicians to teach Israeli forces to use and maintain new American weapons, such as F-35 warplanes.
The supply chain for the US arsenal of genocide criss-crosses the country, from weapons factories to military bases to procurement offices at the Pentagon and Central Command. The US sends planeloads of weapons to military bases in Israel, from where these endless tons of steel and high explosives rain down on Gaza to shatter buildings, flesh and bones.
The US role is greater than complicity; it is essential, active participation, without which Israel could not conduct this genocide in its present form. And it is precisely because of the essential US role in this genocide that Washington has the power to end it - not by pretending to plead with the Israelis to be more “careful” about civilian casualties, but by ending its own instrumental role in the genocide.
Every American of conscience should keep applying all kinds of pressure to our government - but as long as it keeps ignoring the will of its own people, sending more weapons, vetoing Security Council resolutions and undermining peace negotiations, it is by default up to our neighbours around the world to muster the unity and political will to end the genocide.
The world has rarely come together so unanimously since the founding of the United Nations in the aftermath of the Second World War. Even the catastrophic US-British invasion and destruction of Iraq failed to provoke such united action.
But the lesson of that crisis - indeed, the lesson of our time - is that this kind of unity is essential if we are ever to bring sanity, humanity and peace to our world. That can start with a decisive vote at the UN General Assembly on Wednesday.
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