Biden Administration Caves to Globalist Demands for an Immediate Ceasefire in Gaza

The resolution also demands the release of the hostages still held captive in Gaza. But there is no linkage in the resolution between the demands for an immediate ceasefire and the release of hostages. Nor does the resolution condemn Hamas’s brutal slaughter, rape, dismemberment, and abduction of innocent Israeli civilians on October 7^th.

Fourteen members of the fifteen-member Security Council voted in favor of the resolution. The United States abstained.

Previously, the Biden administration had decided to veto three prior resolutions demanding a ceasefire in Gaza. At that time, the administration recognized the opportunity such a ceasefire would provide to Hamas to rebuild its military capabilities and renew its attacks at a time of its choosing. But not this time.

Just seventy-two hours before the disgraceful resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire passed with the Biden administration’s acquiescence, the administration had submitted its own draft resolution to the Security Council that for the first time used the word “ceasefire.” That draft referred to “the imperative of an immediate and sustained ceasefire.”

The draft resolution stated that such a ceasefire is needed “to protect civilians on all sides, allow for the delivery of essential humanitarian assistance, and alleviate humanitarian suffering.” But the Biden administration’s draft resolution last week at least did not go so far as demanding an immediate ceasefire without the simultaneous release of the hostages. And it contained an explicit condemnation of Hamas’s terrorist attack.

Eleven members of the Security Council voted in favor of the U.S.-sponsored draft resolution and one member abstained. Nevertheless, the resolution still failed to pass because both Russia and China vetoed it. Both countries complained that the draft resolution did not unambiguously demand an immediate ceasefire. Algeria also voted against the draft resolution.

The U.S. Ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, minced no words in taking Russia and China to task for their vetoes. “Russia and China still could not bring itself to condemn Hamas’ terrorist attack on October 7,” Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield told the Security Council after the two countries vetoed the U.S-sponsored draft resolution.

“Russia and China refuse to condemn Hamas for burning people alive, for gunning down innocent civilians at a concert, for raping women and girls, for taking hundreds of people hostage,” she said. “This was the deadliest single attack on Jews since the Holocaust. And a permanent member of this Council can’t even condemn it? I’m sorry, it’s really outrageous, and it’s below the dignity of this body.”

Seventy-two hours later, the Biden administration disgracefully capitulated to pressure by the so-called “international community” to reach a consensus at the Security Council for a resolution with language demanding an immediate unconditional ceasefire, while letting Hamas off the hook.

This capitulation marks the continuation of the administration’s pivot away from its initial wholehearted support for Israel’s mission to destroy Hamas following the terrorists’ October 7^th genocidal attack.

Hamas has vowed to repeat an October 7-style attack over and over again if given time and space to regroup and rebuild their war machine. An unconditional ceasefire would provide Hamas with that opportunity while Israel gets nothing in return.

Israel did not ask for a war with Hamas. The war was all Hamas’s doing when it broke the ceasefire that had been in place before October 7^th and carried out its horrific attacks against innocent, unarmed Israeli civilians. Hamas, not Israel, then violated the terms of the interim pause of hostilities that had allowed increased humanitarian aid to reach Gazan civilians. And Hamas, not Israel, has been standing in the way of a proposed six-week ceasefire, exchange of hostages in Gaza for Palestinians imprisoned in Israel, and larger scale, unimpeded delivery of humanitarian aid to Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

President Biden and senior members of his administration rationalize their capitulation to pressure to go along with a demand by the Security Council for an immediate unconditional ceasefire by falsely blaming Israel for the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. We hear less and less mention from the president about Hamas’s lion share of responsibility for the humanitarian crisis by using Palestinian civilians as human shields and using civilian facilities to hide its fighters, weapons, and command centers.

Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield tried to put lipstick on what the Security Council just passed. She claimed that the resolution will help diplomatic efforts by the U.S., Egypt, and Qatar to broker a more extended ceasefire together with the exchange of hostages for Palestinians imprisoned in Israel. But as Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield said last Friday about an earlier version of this "immediate ceasefire" resolution, “it could actually give Hamas an excuse to walk away from the deal on the table.” So does the final version of the resolution that the Biden administration allowed to pass.

Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield also tried to spin the resolution as “nonbinding.” But according to international law experts, a Security Council resolution that uses the word “demand” in an operative paragraph is legally binding. That is the case even if the resolution does not contain enforcement mechanisms that Chapter 7 of the UN Charter provides for non-compliance, such as economic sanctions. The next step that Israel’s enemies will push for in the Security Council is such an enforcement resolution to punish Israel for defending itself against terrorists whose core mission is to destroy the Jewish State of Israel and kill as many Jews as possible.

For his part, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has used his global platform to reinforce the unwarranted criticisms of Israel’s military operations in Gaza on humanitarian grounds and to call for an immediate unconditional ceasefire that the Security Council is now demanding. In his remarks on March 24^th to reporters during his visit to Egypt, Mr. Guterres said that “when one looks at the way the military operations have been conducted in Gaza, it is obvious that protection of civilians was not a concern” and “are in violation of international humanitarian law.”

This charge is totally false. As John Spencer, the chair of urban warfare studies at the Modern War Institute at West Point who served for 25 years as an infantry soldier and two tours in Iraq, wrote: “Israel has taken more measures to avoid needless civilian harm than virtually any other nation that's fought an urban war.” He added that “Israel has taken precautionary measures even the United States did not do during its recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

Mr. Spencer stated what the armchair generals in the United Nations and the so-called “international community” refuse to acknowledge because of their unbridled antipathy towards the Jewish State of Israel. Now the Biden administration has given them diplomatic cover at the United Nations Security Council.

During his visit to a Palestinian refugee camp in Jordan, UN Secretary General Guterres declared: “There might be double standards in many places around the world. There is a place where there are no double standards: in the Secretariat of UN under the authority of the Secretary General.”

The opposite is true when it comes to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The United Nations system, including the UN Secretariat and most UN member states, regularly demonstrate a double standard where Israel is always accused of being the party in the wrong no matter the circumstances. Now the Biden administration is joining this club.