Misconceptions associated with UNSC resolutions and ICJ decisions

As time passes on, people in general are beginning to understand that the United Nations as well as the several institutions associated with it have very little to do to resolve emerging problems, if that is seen as being against the interest of some powerful countries.

This was reflected recently on April 18, 2024 when the US vetoed a widely supported resolution backing full UN membership for Palestine-- a goal the Palestinians have long sought and Israel has worked persistently to prevent.

Interestingly, the vote in the 15-member Security Council was 12 in favour-- with the United States opposing it and the United Kingdom and Switzerland abstaining. U.S. allies France, Japan and South Korea, however, supported the resolution.

The strong support the Palestinians received reflected not only the growing number of countries recognising their claim of statehood. The denotation of the dynamic also showed growing global support for the Palestinians facing a terrible humanitarian crisis caused by the war in Gaza, now in its seventh month, which has already resulted in more than 34,000 deaths-- majority of them women and children.

However, the U.S. Deputy Ambassador Robert Wood told the Security Council that the veto "does not reflect opposition to Palestinian statehood but instead is an acknowledgment that it will only come from direct negotiations between the parties."

This scenario has persuaded many analysts to consider it absurd that UNSC resolutions and ICJ orders can stop the Israeli genocide in Gaza. They consider that with the gradually evolving international situations in the Middle East, Ukraine, Africa and in South America, we are now slowly entering the comforting world of delusions.

In this context one also has to refer to a recent development when 14 members of the United Nations Security Council expressed their approval on a resolution that called for an "immediate ceasefire" between Israel and Hamas and the "unconditional release of all hostages". Interestingly, the US delegation abstained, allowing the resolution to pass. It was reported in the media that applause had broken out in the Chamber. It was a dreamlike scene, punctuated by an expression of self-congratulatory delusion that something palpable had finally been achieved to end Israel's killing rage in the shattered, dystopian remnants of the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank.

These delighted diplomats - many of them important officials who devote careers to doing what they are told to do by Presidents and Prime Ministers - seemed to have forgotten that up until this latest vote they were instructed to oppose a host of other ceasefire resolutions. They also appear to have forgotten that the Presidents and Prime Ministers who appointed them as United Nations Ambassadors rushed to Tel Aviv not too long ago and embraced Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and advised him, in effect, to do whatever he wanted to Palestinians in Gaza and beyond, by whatever means he wanted to, for as long as he wanted to. Now, some of these same Presidents and Prime Ministers apparently want Netanyahu to stop doing what he has been doing with their unequivocal blessing, and they want the world to believe them.

This is slowly evolving into a travesty and a misconception. Even if there was a sliver of sincerity in their craven volte-face, it is far too late. They championed Netanyahu who is trying to, if possible, remove Gaza and its people from the world map - with their approval or not. 

Netanyahu and his obsessive cabinet members who have long claimed that the UN is a cesspit of anti-Semitism  are not going to be dissuaded from achieving their aim of turning Gaza into dust and memory by any UN Resolution that they consider as throwaway as a bathroom paper roll.

In this regard, some media reports have also used another word- "delusional". This word has been recalled with reference to January when, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which arguably enjoys a touch of more international seriousness than the UN Security Council, declared almost unanimously that Israel needs to stop doing what it is doing to Palestinians in Gaza given that it amounts "plausibly" to genocide.

It is sad that Israel's response has been to become more pitiless in Gaza since the ICJ issued its interim ruling. Analysts claim that if anything, Israel's killing rage appears to have surged in its cruelty and ferocity. Such a scenario has led the Judges recently to issue "new provisional measures" amid "the worsening conditions of life faced by Palestinians in Gaza". The ICJ through this has recognised the obvious: Israel has, by careful design, engineered a famine in Gaza meant to starve Palestinians into submission and capitulation. This is despite the fact that the ICJ has again wanted that Israel, as a signatory to the Geneva Conventions, allow food, water, fuel and the other stuff of life to enter Gaza "unhindered" at "land crossings" more often.

However, it is clear that instead of immediate implementation of judicial orders, Israel is following its own path. They have indicated that "… the State of Israel shall submit a report to the Court on all measures … within one month."

Meanwhile, back at the UN Security Council, the US delegation has given a performance that has been welcomed by a batch of hyperbolic Western commentators as evidence that US President Joe Biden has lost patience with the recalcitrant Israeli government. Leading the delusional pack was an article in the online British publication The Independent, which has observed the US Ambassador's abstention as a "landmark" moment that may have signalled the end of Biden's, and by extension America's, "love affair with Israel". Such an observation and assumption, to say the least, appears to be less than correct.

We need to remember that from last year's October 7 onwards, Biden has repeatedly declared that America's abiding "love affair" with Israel is sacrosanct even in the face of Netanyahu's "unsparing belligerence" in Gaza, which is a polite euphemism for genocide. Such a message had its own connotations for Netanyahu and his war cabinet. This has also led some analysts to suggest that "whatever differences exist between the US and Israel vis-à-vis the genocide in Gaza, they have been on the rhetorical margins and, hence, meaningless". This has been reflected through the USA sending more bombs and many new planes to continue the on-going genocide.

Some journalists who share the US Republican matrix has also indicated that if Donald Trump becomes President once again, then, "the empty rhetorical spats will vanish, and Israel will be granted carte blanche to "reshape" Gaza and the occupied West Bank as it pleases." This viewpoint has been translated as measures that would be undertaken towards the forcible expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza and the occupied West Bank as the definitive solution to the "Palestinian question". After that, "there will be one State: a greater Israel".

We have already seen how despite efforts from different Third Parties no agreement has been reached till now, either for a working cease-fire between the concerned Parties or cessation of hostilities. Israeli forces are also targeting members of local and popular tribal committees that are responsible for securing the deliveries of aid supplies. They work for the supplies to be safely distributed among desperate families in need.

The notion that there exists some grand plan  – ready to be enacted whenever Israel's killing rage ends - to recognise the right of Palestinians to self-determination and the territorial integrity of a Palestinian state is perhaps the grandest delusion of all.

Human rights organisations inside and outside Israel are now warning that an avowed apartheid state would not be satisfied with "occupying" Gaza and the West Bank. It is likely that their fingers will then spread towards different neighbouring directions. 

Muhammad Zamir, a former Ambassador, is an analyst specialised in foreign affairs, right to information and good governance. [email protected]