Friday
Jan092009
The Israeli Invasion of Gaza: The United Nations "Cease-fire" Vote
Friday, January 9, 2009 at 7:55
The Israeli Invasion of Gaza: Rolling Updates (9 January)
A Headline Story with a Twist....
As expected, the United Nations Security Council passed a consensus resolution, drafted by Britain, which "calls for, an immediate, durable, and fully respected cease-fire which will lead to the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza". The resolution also welcomed negotiations on the Mubarak-Sarkozy package and called for humanitarian corridors. The vote was 14-0 in favour, with one abstention.
The twist is that the abstention came from the United States. Despite news reports throughout the day that the resolution was a US-UK-France initiative, when the vote came, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice sat on her hands.
The reason? Well, Rice said that the resolution had laudable goals but the US "prefers to wait for results of ongoing, Egyptian-brokered talks in Cairo, Egypt, with Israeli and Palestinian leaders". In other words, Washington just told the United Nations that it is secondary, and indeed peripheral, to the Mubarak-Sarkozy process. There is no alternative to the talks in Cairo.
So what's the problem? Well, the immediate one is that Washington has just green-lighted Israel for a few more days: "All this discussion of a cease-fire is very, very nice but, for now, we're stand aside if you press on with your military operations." (Indeed, if you want to be cynical, you might speculate that the US went through the process of drafting this resolution only to block a Libyan-drafted resolution which was due to come before the Security Council yesterday.)
Beyond that, the Mubarak-Sarkozy process succeeds only if both Israel and Hamas agree to it. If Israel stalls on it or decides to walk away, it suffers no consequences --- at least in terms of American action. (That may also apply to the third actor, the Palestinian Authority.) However, if Hamas doesn't play ball, well, you fill in the blank.
This isn't a "spineless" abstention by the US. It does show resolve, calculated resolve. Unfortunately, that resolve is for more military action and more deaths until Hamas, in US and Israeli eyes, is cornered.
A Headline Story with a Twist....
As expected, the United Nations Security Council passed a consensus resolution, drafted by Britain, which "calls for, an immediate, durable, and fully respected cease-fire which will lead to the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza". The resolution also welcomed negotiations on the Mubarak-Sarkozy package and called for humanitarian corridors. The vote was 14-0 in favour, with one abstention.
The twist is that the abstention came from the United States. Despite news reports throughout the day that the resolution was a US-UK-France initiative, when the vote came, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice sat on her hands.
The reason? Well, Rice said that the resolution had laudable goals but the US "prefers to wait for results of ongoing, Egyptian-brokered talks in Cairo, Egypt, with Israeli and Palestinian leaders". In other words, Washington just told the United Nations that it is secondary, and indeed peripheral, to the Mubarak-Sarkozy process. There is no alternative to the talks in Cairo.
So what's the problem? Well, the immediate one is that Washington has just green-lighted Israel for a few more days: "All this discussion of a cease-fire is very, very nice but, for now, we're stand aside if you press on with your military operations." (Indeed, if you want to be cynical, you might speculate that the US went through the process of drafting this resolution only to block a Libyan-drafted resolution which was due to come before the Security Council yesterday.)
Beyond that, the Mubarak-Sarkozy process succeeds only if both Israel and Hamas agree to it. If Israel stalls on it or decides to walk away, it suffers no consequences --- at least in terms of American action. (That may also apply to the third actor, the Palestinian Authority.) However, if Hamas doesn't play ball, well, you fill in the blank.
This isn't a "spineless" abstention by the US. It does show resolve, calculated resolve. Unfortunately, that resolve is for more military action and more deaths until Hamas, in US and Israeli eyes, is cornered.
Reader Comments (1)
If the UN resolution is enforced, both Hamas and Israel will end up with conditions that both could have acheived through negotiation before the Israeli operations, don't you think? And while Hamas will be considerably weakened militarily but perhaps in a much stronger political position. And for Israel, Kadima and Labour will have put in some good PR for the elections.
So both parties to the conflict will gain to the detriment once again of Gazan civilians