Security Council’s ceasefire resolution will raise international pressure on Israel, while Hamas will ignore the demand to release the hostages
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The United States may assert that its decision not to veto Monday’s UN Security Resolution 2728 marks no shift in policy, being consistent with its “support for a ceasefire as part of a hostage deal,” but the text tells a different story.
The resolution it allowed through, by abstaining rather than vetoing, “demands an immediate ceasefire for the month of Ramadan respected by all parties leading to a lasting sustainable ceasefire, and also demands the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages.” But it does not condition the one on the other — that is, it does not require the release by Hamas of the 130 Israeli hostages it has been holding since October 7 in order for the ceasefire demand to become operative.
Furthermore, the resolution issues a ceasefire call that Israel, a party to the UN Charter, will now be pressured by the international community to heed, while Hamas, a barbaric terrorist organization that regards itself as answerable to nothing but its own Jew-killing genocidal ideology, will blithely ignore the demand to unconditionally free the hostages.
Indeed, Hamas rushed to congratulate the Security Council on its initiative — and to call for the initial Ramadan ceasefire to become permanent and require the withdrawal of the IDF from Gaza, thus enabling the terror group’s survival and military revival. Its callous abduction and holding of hostages, during protracted negotiations on a truce deal, have for weeks delayed the IDF’s planned major ground offensive in Rafah, at the southern foot of the Gaza Strip, where four of Hamas’s final six intact battalions are deployed. Now, it has growing reasons to believe that offensive may never come.
However the Biden administration chooses to spin it, the non-veto manifestly constitutes a significant further deterioration in its fraying ties with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition — but with consequences for the entire nation.
She also pledged, however, “to stand for the security of Israel and its people.” Monday’s vote risks doing the opposite: Diplomatically, and potentially practically, it weakens Israel’s capacity to complete the dismantling of Hamas’s war machine, and emboldens Israel’s other enemies.
Predictably and dismally, Netanyahu’s response to the US non-veto escalates the damage still further.
Having inevitably failed to dictate to the US how it should vote, he followed through on his unsuccessful ultimatum and canceled the imminent departure for White House talks of his two loyal aides, Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer and National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi.
Netanyahu had agreed to dispatch representatives to Washington, DC, at the express personal request of US President Biden, in their phone conversation last week, and the trip was intended to enable debate and discussion over the planned Israeli campaign in Rafah.
The US, publicly fuming at Israel for months over the “massive” civilian death toll in Gaza, is unpersuaded that the IDF is capable of operating in Rafah, where well over a million Gazans are sheltering, without causing unthinkable harm to noncombatants. The IDF is adamant that it will be able to evacuate civilians and focus its fire on Hamas. The US was reportedly set to present its Israeli guests with alternative ideas and plans; the Israelis would presumably have listened, debated, and reported back to Jerusalem.
All the indications were that agreement on the path ahead would be crucial to the nature of ongoing US support for the war. Now, that dialogue will not take place.
Netanyahu could also have recalled Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who on Monday began his first visit to the US since October 7 — and who termed the UN vote “scandalous” — but may have concluded that Gallant would ignore him. Gallant said before entering the White House for meetings that he had received no instruction to come home.
Presumably, Netanyahu regards the face-off as the latest proof of his self-cited capacity to rebuff pressure, even from the best of allies, and ostensibly defend Israel’s interests. He may believe it makes him look strong, and will thus help rescue his popularity, destroyed by the failure to prevent Hamas’s horrific invasion of southern Israel. Straight out of that playbook, a “senior source” quoted in Hebrew media Monday night asserted, “The confrontation with the United States doesn’t weaken Israel; it conveys strength. The world, and especially our enemies, see that Israel knows how to stand up to all pressure, even at the cost of confrontation with our greatest friend.”
But as Netanyahu has himself highlighted in recent months, it is vital to thwart “international initiatives against Israel that would endanger the continuation of the fighting,” Indeed, he has frequently praised himself for his ability to do just that. Not on Monday, he didn’t.
He has also often acknowledged that Israel cannot actually continue to fight Hamas in Gaza without the constant shipments of crucial US weaponry and defense equipment. Biden has already hinted that not all these supplies are guaranteed, telling MSNBC two weeks ago that “there’s no red line [in which] I’m going to cut off all weapons, so that they don’t have the Iron Dome [missile defense system] to protect them” — phrasing that strikingly did not promise ongoing supplies of offensive weapons. Holding Dermer and Hanegbi at home is hardly the best way to persuade the president to keep the arms coming.
Netanyahu’s increasingly unhappy emergency coalition partner Benny Gantz declared on Monday evening that Netanyahu should have dispatched Dermer and Hangebi as planned. Better yet, said Gantz, Netanyahu should himself fly to the US and speak directly to Biden.
Perhaps it had slipped Gantz’s mind that the president has yet to invite the prime minister to the White House. Or perhaps Gantz sees Biden’s promised “Come to Jesus” meeting with the prime minister as more urgent than ever.
Content retrieved from: https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-non-veto-at-un-netanyahus-response-reflect-an-alliance-in-crisis-a-war-slowed/.
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