It looks like there is a good chance that the United Nations Security Council will vote tomorrow on a resolution calling for a halt to the fighting in Gaza, new humanitarian aid deliveries to Gaza and returning the hostages. Rami Ayari, a Tunisian-American journalist who covers the UN for Al Jazeera, posted a copy of the text of the resolution that was being discussed in the Security Council yesterday. Here it is:
If the resolution that the Security Council votes on tomorrow is essentially the same as the one Ayari has posted, then President Biden should not veto it. If adopted, the resolution could get much needed aid into Gaza, return at least some of the hostages, and stop the killing, at least for a while.
However, apparently there have been two minor sticking points and one major one. One minor sticking point is that Biden wants tomorrow’s resolution to include an explicit condemnation of Hamas’ October 7 terrorist attacks. Some other countries don’t want this, because they think it unfairly singles out Hamas for having done something deeply immoral. However, I agree with Biden. What Hamas did on October 7 was atrocious and should be explicitly condemned by the UN.
Nevertheless, some other countries might be unwilling to vote for any resolution that explicitly condemns Hamas for October 7. If the only way for the Security Council to pass a reasonable resolution calling for a halt to the hostilities in Gaza and increased aid deliveries into Gaza is for Biden to agree not to include any explicit condemnation of Hamas, then he should agree not to include one. It’s so important to get aid to these people. Among other things, hundreds of thousands are on the brink of starvation. And it’s critical to stop the violence in Gaza.
A second sticking point is that Biden does not want to use the word “ceasefire” or the phrase “cessation of hostilities.” I disagree with Biden here. It’s important to use that strong language, because it would increase the likelihood of getting Prime Minister Netanyahu to stop giving orders that result in people being killed. The US and UN Security Council have a lot of influence over Israel, as evidenced by the relative success of the resolution on a humanitarian pause that the Security Council adopted in November (here). And actions by the Netanyahu government have already resulted in 20,000 people being killed, many of them children. So, the US and UN should exercise their influence over Netanyahu and use “ceasefire” language to try to bring a stop to the killings.
Moreover, a provision could be included in tomorrow’s resolution that would say that if Israel has reason to believe that Hamas is right about to do something that would result in Israelis being harmed, Israel would be permitted to take action to try to prevent the Israelis from being harmed. This language could give Israel some protection if it looked like Hamas was on the brink of launching another terrorist attack.
However, the biggest apparent sticking point is on the nature of the inspections of the aid going into Gaza. Israel wants to be the authority that inspects the aid going into Gaza, perhaps partly because Israel worries that any other authority might overlook shipments to Gaza that include items that Hamas could use to harm Israelis and/or Palestinians (here). However, the UN wants the aid to get into Gaza quickly, including via ships and aircraft. And the UN worries that if Israel must inspect all aid going into Gaza, then the aid won’t get in quickly enough. Moreover, the UN, as the world’s foremost intergovernmental democratic body, wants to have the authority to monitor and deliver the aid to Gaza, a region in which the Netanyahu government has been waging a deadly war since October. In addition, tomorrow’s resolution says that the UN will deliver and monitor the aid going into Gaza for one full year.
I strongly disagree with Netanyahu on this and strongly believe that Biden should not veto any resolution that has the UN monitoring and delivering aid into Gaza for a year. However, if Biden won’t agree not to veto such a resolution, then perhaps the US government should be in charge of monitoring and delivering the aid to Gaza. It’s extremely important to get the aid into Gaza now or thousands of people could die, and the US has the administrative capacity and know-how to deliver and monitor lots of aid quickly. We did it with the Marshall Plan and in Afghanistan. Other options would include the International Red Cross and Red Crescent or USAID (including Samantha Power).
Also, perhaps if the UN resolution included a shorter period (than one year) in which the UN would be the authority to deliver and monitor aid into Gaza, Biden would not veto it. Perhaps the resolution could say that the period in which the UN would deliver and monitor the aid to Gaza would be for three months or only one month, with a provision that the Security Council would authorize a renewal of the aid delivery provision if the delivery of aid goes well during the first month or so.
An advantage of Biden’s not vetoing this resolution is that it might help get Hamas to release some or all of the hostages. Most of the hostages that have been released were released during the November humanitarian pause, which suggests that less violence and more aid tends to contribute to Hamas’ being more apt to release hostages. In addition, Hamas’ leaders have suggested to the New York Times that they won’t release hostages until truly significant aid starts to flow into Gaza (here).