UN Security Council Passes Gaza Humanitarian Resolution; the U.S. and Russia Abstain

At its last official meeting of the year on December 22nd, the United Nations Security Council adopted a resolution regarding the current conflict in Gaza. It passed with thirteen votes in favor and two members abstaining, the United States and Russia.

Addressing “the parties to the conflict,” the resolution “demands that they allow, facilitate and enable the immediate, safe and unhindered delivery of humanitarian assistance at scale directly to the Palestinian civilian population throughout the Gaza Strip, and in this regard calls for urgent steps to immediately allow safe, unhindered, and expanded humanitarian access and to create the conditions for a sustainable cessation of hostilities.” (Emphasis in the original)

The resolution also demanded “the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages, as well as ensuring humanitarian access to address medical needs of all hostages.”

The United States, although abstaining rather than voting for the resolution, worked out compromise language during days of negotiations with the resolution’s drafter, the United Arab Emirates, that it could accept rather than veto. Russia did not like the compromise because it did not call for a total ceasefire but chose to abstain rather than veto.

The language the U.S. had objected to, and was taken out of the final version, had called for an “urgent and sustainable cessation of hostilities.” The crucial difference is in the timing when a “sustainable cessation of hostilities” can safely occur.

Hamas has been a serial violator of previous ceasefires with Israel. The tragedy of October 7^th demonstrated once and for all that the conditions for a genuine and safe “sustainable” ceasefire will only be created when Hamas is completely destroyed. This includes the “humanitarian” ceasefire” that UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has repeatedly called for.

As U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield noted in her remarks to the Security Council following the vote approving the resolution: “Hamas has no interest in a lasting peace. Hamas is determined to repeat the horrors of October 7th over and over and over again. And that is why the United States supports Israel’s right to protect its people from acts of terror.”

One reason that the U.S. had cause to abstain rather than vote affirmatively in support of the resolution was its failure to condemn Hamas’s horrific attack on October 7^th. “I can’t understand why some Council members are standing in the way, and why they refuse to condemn these evils unequivocally,” Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield said in her remarks. “Why is it so hard to condemn Hamas for slaughtering young people at a concert, for burning families alive, for the reports of widespread sexual violence? Why? I will never understand why some Council members have remained silent in the face of such evil.”

Why indeed. The Security Council’s failure to condemn Hamas for its genocidal attacks on innocent civilians in Israel is another moral stain on the United Nations’ record. But at least the resolution accomplished two crucial goals. While calling for urgent steps to immediately allow safe, unimpeded, and expanded humanitarian access, the resolution avoided giving in to the siren calls for an immediate prolonged ceasefire that would have kept the Hamas terrorist organization in place.

Israel has offered another time-bound pause to allow the release of more hostages and the safe, unimpeded flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza for its needy inhabitants. But Hamas has dug in its heels and demanded a permanent ceasefire, which will only allow the terrorists to repeat October 7^th over and over again.

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The United Nations will continue to have an important role in the delivery of humanitarian aid into and within Gaza. However, it will not be exclusively in charge of ensuring the humanitarian nature of all humanitarian relief consignments to Gaza, as an earlier draft of the resolution had envisioned. Instead, the final version assigns to the UN the role of humanitarian facilitator and coordinator. 

Secretary General Guterres spoke to the press following the Security Council vote. While he said that the resolution was helpful, he added that “much more is needed immediately.” He continued to put the onus on Israel for the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and reiterated his insistence that “a humanitarian ceasefire is the only way to begin to meet the desperate needs of people in Gaza and end their ongoing nightmare.”

No, the only way to end the nightmare in Gaza and the nightmare that Hamas would inflict on Israel again and again as it did on October 7^th is to put an end to Hamas and their other terrorist comrades once and for all.

Secretary General Guterres said that “the two-state solution, in line with UN resolutions, international law and previous agreements, is the only path to sustainable peace.”

I asked the Secretary General whether he realistically thinks that “a viable, sustainable, two-state solution is possible as long as Hamas exists, with their threats to repeat October 7th over and over again.”

Secretary General Guterres responded:

“We believe that the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people is the Palestinian Authority. And what we want to see is the creation of conditions that will allow the Palestinian Authority to assume responsibilities in Gaza and that is, in our opinion, the solution to allow for the two-state solution to become a reality.”

This is an entirely unsatisfactory answer as it ignores the elephant in the room. A fatal impediment to a durable and secure “two-state solution” is the Hamas terrorist organization, whose genocidal mission from its inception to this day is to destroy Israel, with Iran’s backing, and kill as many Jews as possible. The post-war governance plan that Secretary General Guterres has in mind would not have even the slightest chance of success while the Hamas terrorist group and other Iranian- sponsored terrorists in Gaza and the West Bank remain in existence. Moreover, to entrust the corrupt Palestinian Authority with such governance - the Palestinian entity that incentivizes terrorist acts with monies paid to imprisoned and released terrorists and to the families of slain terrorist - is grossly misguided to say the least.

Ultimately, the terrorist threats in the Middle East region to Israel, U.S. military personnel, and commercial shipping can only be stopped by dealing effectively with their source – the terrorist-sponsoring Iranian regime. The Biden administration has failed to take the lead in delivering decisive military blows to Iran’s terrorist proxies and to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) infrastructure itself. Until then, there will be no chance for a stable peace for Israelis, the Palestinians, or anyone else in this war-torn part of the world.

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