By Joseph A. Klein, CFP United Nations Columnist ——Bio and Archives--December 10, 2023
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For the first time during his two terms as United Nations Secretary General, Antonio Guterres invoked Article 99 of the UN Charter, which allows the Secretary General to “bring to the attention of the Security Council any matter which in his opinion may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security.” He did so to call for an immediate “humanitarian ceasefire” on the grounds that the fighting in Gaza is risking “the total collapse of the humanitarian support system in Gaza, which would have devastating consequences.”
In response, the United Arab Emirates presented a draft resolution to the Security Council calling for an immediate ceasefire. The draft resolution received 13 yes votes, 1 abstention, and 1 no vote by the United States, which rightly exercised its veto power in this case. The veto deep-sixed the so-called international community’s attempt to prevent Israel from winning its war for survival by destroying its genocidal enemy, Hamas.
In explaining the U.S.’s veto, Robert A. Wood, representing the U.S. at the Security Council meeting, said: “We still cannot comprehend why the resolution’s authors declined to include language condemning Hamas’ horrific terrorist attack on Israel on October 7. An attack that killed over 1,200 people. Women, children, the elderly. People from a range of nationalities. Burned alive. Gunned down. Subject to obscene sexual violence. We are very disappointed that for the victims of these heinous acts, the resolution’s authors offered not their condolences, nor condemnation of their murderers. It’s unfathomable.”
Mr. Wood also criticized the draft resolution for its “call for an unconditional ceasefire,” which “would simply leave Hamas in place, able to regroup and repeat what it did on October 7.”
“Colleagues,” Mr. Wood said, “a senior Hamas official recently stated the group intends to repeat the vile acts of October 7, ‘again and again and again.’ And yet, this resolution essentially says Israel should just tolerate this. That it should allow this terror to go unchecked.”
Mr. Wood noted, however, that the United States supports “a resumption of humanitarian pauses, to allow for the release of hostages and an increase of aid,” as opposed to a permanent ceasefire. “As long as Hamas clings to its ideology of destruction, any ceasefire is at best temporary,” he declared.
Hamas started this war on October 7th when it unilaterally broke the ceasefire then in place with its surprise invasion of Israel. Hamas also broke the agreement for pauses it reached with Israel to let Hamas’s hostages and Palestinians imprisoned in Israel go free and to let vital necessities into Gaza. Hamas claimed credit for the shooting of three Israelis to death in Jerusalem on November 30th while the latest pause was still in effect, and it fired rockets from Gaza into Israel. Hamas also reneged on its commitment to release all the female Israeli hostages.
Even the resumption of temporary pauses, which Hamas has already shown that it will violate at will, does not satisfy the supporters of the United Arab Emirates’ draft resolution or Secretary General Guterres himself. They want an open-ended ceasefire.
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Secretary General Guterres’ speech was 1456 words long. The Secretary General did briefly acknowledge that “Israel began its military operation in response to the brutal terror attacks unleashed by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups on 7 October,” which he “unreservedly” condemned. But that was it. He devoted less than 10 percent of his speech to the horrors inflicted on Israeli civilians on October 7th by the Hamas terrorists and their allies who control Gaza. By contrast, the Secretary General spent virtually the entirely of his speech lamenting the Palestinian civilian casualties and devastation in Gaza “since the start of Israel’s military operations.”
Secretary General Guterres said not a single word regarding Israel’s inherent right under Article 51 of the UN Charter to self-defense. Instead, he characterized Israel’s military actions to eliminate Hamas as “collective punishment of the Palestinian people.” He added that “while indiscriminate rocket fire by Hamas into Israel, and the use of civilians as human shields, are in contravention of the laws of war, such conduct does not absolve Israel of its own violations. International humanitarian law includes the duty to protect civilians and to comply with the principles of distinction, proportionality and precaution.”
Israel is fighting against an enemy that has beheaded babies, burnt families alive, shot parents and children to death at close range, and raped women and girls in Israel while exploiting its own people in Gaza as human shields.
Yet, in the face of Hamas’s gross war crimes, crimes against humanity, and attempted genocide, Israel has taken extraordinary “precaution” to reduce civilian casualties in Gaza. Aside from agreeing to the temporary humanitarian pauses, the last of which Hamas violated, Israel has advised civilian residents in the affected combat zones, including now in southern Gaza, to head further south and west for safer ground. Israel has provided civilians with other advance warnings of attacks whenever possible and agreed to designate larger safe zones in southern Gaza than originally planned. And it is helping to set up field hospitals.
Israel is taking these precautions to save civilian lives even though in doing so Israel risks telegraphing its military plans to Hamas and could hamper its efforts to eradicate Hamas.
The principles of “distinction” and “proportionality” may sound nice in abstract. But it is virtually impossible to distinguish between Palestinian civilians who are truly unaffiliated with Hamas or other terrorist groups and the terrorists who dress in civilian garb and embed themselves into the civilian population. Nevertheless, Israel has been trying to do so, even in the fog of war.
Similarly, applying the principle of “proportionality,” which requires that the expected collateral harm to civilians is not excessive in relation to the anticipated military advantage, is easier said than done. Hamas places its own civilian population in mortal danger by embedding itself within or under residential and office buildings occupied by Gazan civilians or facilities used by civilians such as hospitals and schools.
Under the Geneva Conventions, “The presence of a protected person may not be used to render certain points or areas immune from military operations.” That includes civilian hospitals if they are used, “outside of their humanitarian duties” to commit harmful acts. Evacuation of a given area is permitted “if the security of the population or imperative military reasons so demand.”
Israel, unlike the genocidal terrorist organization that Israel is fighting, does not intentionally target civilians. Israel is abiding with provisions of the Geneva Conventions pertaining to “protected” persons” to the best of its ability.
But international law must not be weaponized against Israel to force Israel to commit national suicide. Israel has an inherent right to defend itself pursuant to Article 51 of the UN Charter “until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security.” The Security Council has failed to condemn Hamas’s horrific attack upon Israeli civilians in Israel on October 7th, much less take any concrete action against Hamas to disarm the terrorist organization. The Security Council has also utterly failed to address the danger to international peace and security that Iran, the number one state sponsor of terrorism, poses to the Middle East region and to international peace and security. The draft resolution that the U.S. vetoed on December 8th would have continued the UN’s pattern of one-sided anti-Israel bias. It deserved to be thrown into the circular file.
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Joseph A. Klein is the author of Global Deception: The UN’s Stealth Assault on America’s Freedom.