On June 13, Hamas responded to persistent needling by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken over the U.S. proposal for a pause in the Israeli massacre in Gaza. The group said it has “dealt positively . . . with the latest proposal and all proposals to reach a ceasefire agreement.” Hamas added, by contrast, that “while Blinken continues to talk about ‘Israel’s approval’ of the latest proposal, we have not heard any Israeli official voicing approval.”
The full details of the U.S. proposal have yet to be made public, but the pause in Israeli attacks and release of hostages in the first phase would reportedly lead to further negotiations for a more lasting ceasefire and the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in the second phase. But there is no guarantee that the second round of negotiations would succeed.
As former Israeli Labor Party prime minister Ehud Barak told Israeli radio on June 3, “How do you think [Gaza military commander Yahya] Sinwar will react when he tends to agree and then he’s told: ‘but be quick, because we still have to kill you, after you return all the hostages’ ?”
Meanwhile, as Hamas pointed out, Israel has not publicly accepted the terms of the latest U.S. ceasefire proposal, so it has only the word of U.S. officials that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has privately agreed to it. In public, Netanyahu still insists that he is committed to the complete destruction of Hamas and its governing authority in Gaza, and has actually stepped up Israel’s vicious attacks in central and southern Gaza.
The basic disagreement that the smoke and mirrors of Blinken and President Joe Biden can not hide is that Hamas, along with every Palestinian, wants a real end to the genocide, while the governments of Israel and the United States do not.
The basic disagreement that the smoke and mirrors of Blinken and President Joe Biden can not hide is that Hamas, along with every Palestinian, wants a real end to the genocide, while the governments of Israel and the United States do not.
Biden or Netanyahu could end the slaughter very quickly if they wanted to—Netanyahu by agreeing to a permanent ceasefire, or Biden by ending or suspending U.S. weapons deliveries to Israel. Israel could not carry out this war without U.S. military and diplomatic support. However, Biden refuses to use his leverage, even though he admitted in a June 4 interview that it was “reasonable” to conclude that Netanyahu is prolonging the war for his own political benefit.
The United States is still sending weapons to Israel to continue the massacre in violation of an order by the International Court of Justice to halt its offensive in Rafah. Democratic and Republican leaders in the House and Senate have invited Netanyahu to address a joint session of the U.S. Congress on July 24, even as the International Criminal Court reviews a request by its chief prosecutor for an arrest warrant for Netanyahu for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and murder.
The United States seems determined to share Israel’s self-inflicted isolation from the voices calling for peace from all over the world, including large majorities of countries in the U.N. General Assembly and Security Council.
Unconditional U.S. support for Israel’s illegal occupation and annexation of more and more territory over the past fifty-seven years has corrupted Israeli politics and encouraged increasingly extreme and racist Israeli governments to keep expanding their genocidal territorial ambitions. Netanyahu’s Likud party and government now fully embrace their Greater Israel plan to annex all of occupied Palestine and parts of other countries, wherever and whenever new opportunities for expansion present themselves.
Israel’s expansion has been facilitated by the U.S. monopoly over mediation between Israel and Palestine, which it has aggressively staked out and defended against other countries and the United Nations. The irreconcilable contradiction between the United States’ conflicting roles as Israel’s most powerful military ally and the principal mediator between Israel and Palestine is obvious to the whole world.
But as we see amid the current genocide in Gaza, the rest of the world and the United Nations have failed to break this U.S. monopoly and establish legitimate, impartial mediation by the United Nations or various neutral countries that respect the lives of Palestinians and their human and civil rights.
Qatar mediated a temporary ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in November 2023, but it has since been upstaged by U.S. moves to prolong the massacre through deceptive proposals, cynical posturing, and U.N. Security Council vetoes. The United States consistently vetoes all but its own proposals regarding Israel and Palestine in the U.N. Security Council, even when its own proposals are deliberately meaningless, ineffective, or counterproductive.
The U.N. General Assembly is united in support of Palestine, voting almost unanimously year after year to demand an end to the Israeli occupation. At least 144 countries have recognized Palestine as a nation, and only the U.S. veto continues to deny it full membership in the United Nations. The Israeli genocide in Gaza has even shamed the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Criminal Court (ICC) into overcoming their ingrained pro-Western bias and pursuing cases against Israel.
One way that the nations of the world could come together to apply greater pressure on Israel to end its assault on Gaza would be a “Uniting for Peace” resolution in the U.N. General Assembly. This is a measure the General Assembly can take when the Security Council is prevented from acting to restore peace and security by the veto of a permanent member.
Israel has demonstrated that it is prepared to ignore ceasefire resolutions by the General Assembly and the Security Council and an order by the ICJ, but a Uniting for Peace resolution could impose penalties on Israel for its actions, such as an arms embargo or an economic boycott. If the United States still insists on continuing its complicity in Israel’s international crimes, the General Assembly could take action against the United States as well.
A General Assembly resolution would change the terms of the international debate and shift the focus from Biden and Blinken’s diversionary tactics to the urgency of enforcing the lasting ceasefire for which the whole world is clamoring.
It is time for the United Nations and neutral countries to push the United States, Israel’s partner in this genocide, to the side. Legitimate international authorities and mediators must take responsibility for enforcing international law, ending the Israeli occupation of Palestine, and bringing peace to the Middle East.