The United States has forced the latest UNSC ceasefire resolution to be softened to exclude language actually mentioning an immediate ceasefire. On December 22, the UNSC resolution passed with 13 votes in favor and two abstentions, one abstention being from the US itself despite, its hard work to change the language. The US has blocked UNSC ceasefire resolutions from passing multiple times, proving to be a key culprit in continuing Israeli aggression in Gaza.
NEW: The UN Security Council has voted 13-0-2 for a hostage release & ramp-up of aid to Gaza.
The US delayed this for days until it was watered down, including softening the call for an end to the violence.
They got what they wanted. And even after all that, the US abstained. pic.twitter.com/nIpRt1fn2a
— Prem Thakker (@prem_thakker) December 22, 2023
Specifically, the US worked hard in negotiations to change the draft resolution language from calling “for a sustainable cessation of hostilities” to calling for “urgent steps to immediately allow safe and unhindered humanitarian access, and also for creating the conditions for a sustainable cessation of hostilities.”
“Israel is aware and can live with it,” said a US official in negotiating the new language for the resolution. As per usual, Israel’s feelings of top of mind when the US is negotiating it’s own foreign policy.
The US also opposed language calling for a UN-created monitoring mechanism for aid going into Gaza, arguing that it would slow down aid delivery.
Following the changes in language, however, the US did not even vote yes on the resolution—UN Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield abstained.
Thomas-Greenfield stated after the vote that she was “deeply disappointed, appalled…that the council was not able to condemn Hamas’s horrific terrorist attack on October 7.”
Russia was the only other abstention, but for separate reasons. “By signing off on this, the council would essentially be giving the Israeli armed forces complete freedom of movement for further clearing of the Gaza Strip, and anyone who votes in favor of the text as it is currently…would bear responsibility for that essentially becoming complicit in the destruction of Gaza,” said Russian UN Ambassador Vasily Nebenzya.
He added, “moreover, the text of the draft has lost a reference to condemnations of all indiscriminate attacks on civilians. What signal…this send[s] to the international community [is] that the security council is giving Israel a green light for war crimes.”
