Harris maintained the same stance she has previously shared regarding the war in Gaza: She condemned Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack while expressing support for a cease-fire and a two-state solution.
“Israel has a right to defend itself,” Harris said. “It is also true far too many innocent Palestinians have been killed—children, mothers. What we know is that this war must end.”
When asked about the war in Gaza, both candidates reached for their usual talking points.
Harris said she backs a ceasefire deal in Gaza that would see the release of Israeli captives, but she renewed her pledge to continue to arm Israel. She also voiced support for the two-state solution. (…)
For his part, Trump reiterated his position that the war in the Middle East would not have broken out if he were in office. He also accused Harris of having a bias against Israel.
(10.04.2024)
U.N. resolutions that are written without enforcement measures obviously cannot force Israel to stop what its leadership insists is a justified war necessary to remove Hamas and prevent another Oct. 7 massacre. But it’s just as obvious what entity can make Israel stop and isn’t doing so: the United States.
Whatever the Biden administration might have thought it was doing by permitting the resolution to pass and then undermining it, the maneuver exposed the continuing damage Israel’s war in Gaza is doing to the United States’ longstanding justification for being a superpower: guaranteeing what U.S. administrations like to call the international rules-based order.
Pro-Israeli lobbies have hijacked most western liberal democracies.
The whole world is now privy to the shameless pimping of western politicians previously documented in Congressman Paul Findley‘s 1985 book They Dare to Speak Out and reinforced by the 2007 book The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy, by political scientists John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt.
As an anonymous commentator wrote: “People think Gaza is occupied, but in reality, Gaza is free but the whole world is occupied.”
We are already halfway through Ramadan, a month-long holy period marked by pronounced grief and suffering in the Palestinian territories. The Israeli campaign in Gaza has killed more than 32,000 Palestinians, including many women and children, forced the overwhelming majority of people in Gaza to flee their homes and plunged more than half of Gaza’s population into a de facto famine. Small children are dying of malnutrition in what U.N. officials describe to be the broadest and most severe food crisis in the world.
Amid growing global pressure for a truce in the fighting that has killed more than 32,000 Palestinians, the US abstained from the vote to allow the Security Council to demand an immediate ceasefire for the month of Ramazan, which ends in two weeks.
It also demands the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages.
(25.03.2024)
After more than five months of war in Gaza, the UN Security Council for the first time on Monday, March 25, demanded an immediate ceasefire after the United States, Israel‘s ally which vetoed previous draft resolutions, abstained. Drawing unusual applause in the often staid Security Council, all 14 other members voted in favor of the resolution which „demands an immediate ceasefire“ for the ongoing Islamic holy month of Ramadan.
A copy of the new draft resolution, obtained by Al Jazeera, reads: “The Security Council determines the imperative of an immediate and sustained ceasefire to protect civilians on all sides, allow for the delivery of essential humanitarian assistance, and alleviate humanitarian suffering and towards that end unequivocally supports ongoing international diplomatic efforts to secure such a ceasefire in connection with the release of all remaining hostages.” (…)
No vote has yet been scheduled on this text.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday the U.S. has submitted a draft resolution to the UN Security Council that calls „for an immediate ceasefire“ in Gaza that‘s „tied to the release“ of hostages held by Hamas.
“He has a right to defend Israel, a right to continue to pursue Hamas, but he must, he must, he must pay more attention to the innocent lives being lost as a consequence of the actions taken,” Mr. Biden said of Mr. Netanyahu in an interview with MSNBC.
“In my view, he’s hurting Israel more than helping Israel,” Mr. Biden said, appearing to refer to Mr. Netanyahu’s military strategy. “It’s contrary to what Israel stands for, and I think it’s a big mistake. So I want to see a cease-fire.”
At least 104 Palestinians were killed and hundreds more wounded when Israeli forces fired on people at an aid convoy in Gaza City’s al-Rasheed Street on Thursday, the Palestinian health ministry said, calling the incident a „massacre“.
Residents of Gaza City had gathered seeking food, with the area completely cut off from aid by Israeli forces. NGOs and UN experts have voiced fears of famine in northern Gaza and there have been reports of people, including babies, dying of hunger.
„Meeting after meeting, resolution after resolution, this body has failed to effectively address this conflict,” Lockyear said. “We have watched members of this Council deliberate and delay while civilians die. This death, destruction, and forced displacement are the result of military and political choices that blatantly disregard civilian lives. These choices could have been—and still can be—made very differently.
The consequences of casting international humanitarian law to the wind will reverberate well beyond Gaza. It will be an enduring burden on our collective conscience. This is not just political inaction—it has become political complicity.“
(22.02.2024)
The head of the international medical charity Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) slammed the US for vetoing a Gaza ceasefire resolution in testimony at the UN Security Council on Thursday and detailed the horrors Palestinian children are facing in the Gaza Strip due to the Israeli siege.
“We are appalled by the willingness of the United States to use its powers as a permanent Council member to obstruct efforts to adopt the most evident of resolutions: one demanding an immediate and sustained ceasefire,” said MSF Secretary-General Christopher Lockyear.
Also briefing the Council was Christopher Lockyear, Secretary General, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), or Doctors Without Borders.
Fearful of further deadly Israeli attacks, he said he was “appalled” by the United States’ repeated use of its veto power to obstruct efforts to adopt the most evident of resolutions: one demanding an immediate ceasefire.
“We live in fear of a ground invasion” in Rafah, he said.
Calling Washington’s new proposed draft resolution “misleading at best”, he said the Council should reject any resolution “that further hampers humanitarian efforts on the ground and leads this Council to tacitly endorse the continued violence and mass atrocities in Gaza”.
The vote in the 15-member council was 13-1, with the United Kingdom abstaining, reflecting the strong support from countries around the globe for ending the devastating conflict that has killed more than 29,000 Palestinians.
Here’s how countries and world leaders responded.
Thirteen council members voted in favor of the Algerian-drafted text, while Britain abstained. It was the third such US veto since the start of the current fighting on Oct. 7.
The U.N. Security Council is expected to vote Tuesday on an Arab-backed resolution demanding an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza, which the United States announced it will veto.