Dueling U.S. and Russian Draft UN Security Council Resolutions Fail to Pass

U.S. Secretary Antony J. Blinken addressed the October 24^th United Nations Security Council Ministerial Meeting on the Situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian Question. He minced no words in calling for the Security Council to “unequivocally condemn Hamas’s barbaric terrorist attack against Israel – babies riddled with bullets; young people hunted down and gunned down with glee; people, young people beheaded; families burned alive in a final embrace; parents executed in front of their children; children executed in front of their parents; and so many taken hostage in Gaza.”

These moral relativists demand an immediate ceasefire

“We must affirm the right of any nation to defend itself and to prevent such horror from repeating itself,” Secretary Blinken added. No member of this council – no nation in this entire body – could or would tolerate the slaughter of its people.”

This should be patently obvious. However, despite UN officials and some member state representatives mouthing the words that Israel has a right to defend itself, they seek to hamstring Israel’s ability to do so at every turn. These moral relativists demand an immediate ceasefire. And they put the onus on Israel for the inevitable civilian casualties that have occurred as collateral damage during Israel’s counterattacks in Gaza, which Hamas multiplies exponentially by using Palestinian civilians as human shields. It is Hamas, not Israel, that is guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity – both against Israeli civilians whom Hamas has slaughtered and abducted and against Palestinian civilians whom the terrorists deliberately put in harm’s way.

Unfortunately, the Biden administration backed off its initial insistence that an explicit reference to “Israel’s inherent right of individual or collective self-defense as reflected in Article 51 of the Charter” be included in an acceptable Security Council resolution. Instead, under pressure from other Security Council members, the Biden administration settled for presenting a watered-down draft Security Council resolution, which removed both an explicit reference to Israel’s right of self-defense as well as a clause challenging Iran’s export of arms to terrorists. It also included language calling for “all measures specifically to include humanitarian pauses.”

Nevertheless, Russia was not satisfied and presented its own draft resolution, which demanded “an immediate, durable and fully respected humanitarian ceasefire.” While the U.S. draft at least affirmed in general “the inherent right of all States to individual and collective self-defense,” Russia’s draft said nothing at all about self-defense.

Both draft resolutions failed to pass. Russia and China vetoed the U.S. draft resolution, which nevertheless received a majority vote in favor – 10 yes votes out of 15. Russia’s draft resolution obtained only 4 votes in favor, half of what would be required to reach a majority of yes votes from the 15-member Security Council.

Secretary General Antonio Guterres sparked a firestorm at the Security Council meeting on October 24^th with his assertion that “the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum,” citing what he described as “56 years of suffocating occupation.” He tried to soften what he had just said by adding that “the grievances of the Palestinian people cannot justify the appalling attacks by Hamas.” Then, caught in his own web of moral equivalence, Secretary General Guterres declared that “those appalling attacks cannot justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people.” And in addition to calling for an immediate “humanitarian ceasefire,” which would give Hamas a chance to rebuild its war machine, he castigated Israel’s military for “its relentless bombardment of Gaza by Israeli forces.”

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Israel was furious at Secretary General Guterres for his attempt to contextualize Hamas’ terrorist attacks

The truth is that Hamas, not Israel, is inflicting “collective punishment” on the civilians in Gaza whom Hamas governs. Hamas’ obsessive focus on its mission of genocide against Jews in Israel, rather than working to advance the welfare of the people it rules in Gaza, is why Gazans have been suffering since 2007 when Hamas forcibly took over full control of Gaza. Hamas and other Palestinian terrorists have no respect for Palestinian lives any more than they have for Jewish lives.

Israel was furious at Secretary General Guterres for his attempt to contextualize Hamas’ terrorist attacks. Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan called upon Mr. Guterres to resign.

“The shocking speech by the UN Secretary-General at the Security Council meeting, while rockets are being fired at all of Israel, proved conclusively, beyond any doubt, that the Secretary-General is completely disconnected from the reality in our region and that he views the massacre committed by Nazi Hamas terrorists in a distorted and immoral manner,” Ambassador Erdan wrote on X (formerly Twitter).

After speaking at the Security Council meeting himself, Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen reacted to Mr. Guterres' speech by cancelling his planned meeting with the UN Secretary General. “In what world do you live?” Foreign Minister Cohen asked rhetorically. “Definitely, this is not our world.” Later he posted on X, “I will not meet with the UN Secretary General. After October 7th there is no room for a balanced approach. Hamas must be erased from the world!”

The Secretary-General, once again, distorts and twists reality

In a statement to the press on the morning of October 25^th, Secretary General Guterres said that he was “shocked by misinterpretations by some of my statement yesterday in the Security Council – as if it was justifying acts of terror by Hamas.” But the damage to his credibility on this issue had already been done.

Israeli Ambassador Erdan wasted no time in responding to the Secretary General’s effort to explain himself for the words he used in his speech the day before. "It is a disgrace to the UN that the Secretary-General does not retract his words and is not even able to apologize for what he said yesterday. He must resign," Ambassador Erdan said. "The Secretary-General, once again, distorts and twists reality. He clearly said yesterday that the massacre by Hamas ‘did not happen in a vacuum.’ Every person understands very well that the meaning of his words is that Israel has guilt for the actions of Hamas or, at the very least, it shows his understanding for the ‘background’ leading up to the massacre."

Secretary General Guterres will not be going anywhere. He will continue to remain in office until the end of his second term. But Israel’s strong public rebuke of the Secretary General’s equivocation in the face of Hamas’ pure evil should serve as a strong message that sometimes there is only one morally right side in a war. In this case, Israel is fighting for its survival against a morally bankrupt enemy whose genocidal slaughter of Jews in one single day has not been seen on this scale since the Holocaust.

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