Gaza war: UN Security Council’s ceasefire demand must not be ignored

Faced with US ambivalence and Israel’s rejection, the ceasefire demand risks becoming a political footnote
At the least, council members should organise a humanitarian task force and evolve a plan to implement the spirit of the resolution

C. Uday Bhaskar

Published: 3:30pm, 31 Mar 2024

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In a politically significant, albeit symbolic development, the UN Security Council has adopted a resolution demanding a Gaza ceasefire for the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan. This is the first ceasefire resolution it has passed since the October 7 attack on Israel by Hamas and the brutal reprisals that followed.

Four previous ceasefire resolutions failed: three were vetoed by the US and one was voted down by China and Russia. The latest resolution had 14 votes in favour; the US abstained.

Despite the many months it took to reach a ceasefire consensus and the thousands of lives lost, the resolution is to be cautiously welcomed – a slender silver lining in the dark clouds above Gaza.

The core demand is for an “immediate ceasefire” for the rest of Ramadan, which ends on April 9, to be “respected by all parties” and “leading to a lasting sustainable ceasefire”.

This was rejected by Israel, though Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reportedly agreed to further talks. More importantly, the military offensive by Tel Aviv continues unabated and the US is reported to have authorised the transfer of more arms and ammunition to Israel.

Clearly, the Security Council resolution has had little effect so far. Israel has vowed to continue the war against Hamas, despite international warnings that it would mean the deaths of more innocent civilians.

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The resolution has its weaknesses. Like with other consensus documents agreed upon at the horseshoe-shaped table, the language has had to accommodate very divergent political positions among the five permanent members, the US, Russia, Britain, France and China.

Remarkably, White House National Security Council adviser John Kirby has declared the Security Council resolution “non-binding” and that Israel cannot be forced to comply with it. Kirby also said there was no change in US policy with regard to the October 7 Hamas attack.

While there are other legal interpretations of such resolutions passed by the Security Council and the obligations that devolve on Israel, it is the US stance that is critical to the war in Gaza – and the very fact that the Biden government did not use its veto has incensed Israel. An irate Netanyahu denounced the US and cancelled the visit of a high-level delegation to Washington.

But since Tel Aviv knows it cannot continue this war if the US were to suspend the military aid and much-needed inventory it is providing to the Israel Defence Forces, Netanyahu’s public posturing will be shaped to address domestic political compulsions and its military dependency.

A similar pattern is evident in the US. President Joe Biden, preoccupied with his re-election bid, is acutely aware of the Israel factor in both the US electoral calculus and America’s Middle East strategy. Consequently, he has been walking a thin line by providing tangible support to Israel while asserting a rhetorical endorsement of the need for a ceasefire.

The Biden team is unlikely to take a firmer position to restrain Israel, despite the global outrage and condemnation of the manner in which the war is waged.

A day before the ceasefire resolution was passed, independent UN-appointed expert Francesca Albanese concluded that there were “reasonable grounds to believe” Israel’s actions had met the threshold for “acts of genocide”. Predictably, Israel has rejected the charge, but this is not the first time such an allegation has been made.

During the 1982 Lebanon war, US president Ronald Reagan reportedly described a massive Israeli air strike on Beirut as “a holocaust” during a phone call with Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin.

Four decades later, the Middle East is a very different region and the politics of Palestine and Israel has become far more tangled and intractable. Since September 11, the global strategic landscape has seen the rise of potent non-state jihadi terrorist groups, and Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis have become active players in the regional security framework.

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If the Security Council’s ceasefire resolution is allowed to flounder and remain a political homily, the major powers (the US, Russia and China) would be guilty of remaining inside their insular security envelopes while Palestinians face a dire threat where their right to exist is being endangered by Netanyahu’s intransigence.

The most urgent need is for humanitarian aid to reach Gaza and the starving Palestinians trapped in different locations. Within the Security Council, the three permanent members of China, France and Britain and the three non-permanent members of Algeria, Japan and South Korea ought to form a cluster of like-minded nations to put together a humanitarian task force under the aegis of the UN and evolve a plan to implement the spirit of the ceasefire resolution.

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The inability to reach a meaningful major power consensus to deal with the unrelenting Israeli military action in Gaza will add to regional instability in the Islamic world and sow the seeds of an extended period of resentment, which might fuel extreme acts of retribution and revenge. The October 7 Hamas attack on Israel and the recent Islamic State attack in Moscow are illustrative.

Terrorism must not be condoned. But the mass killing of a demography by a state that rose from the embers of the Holocaust cannot be the ethical answer. Ethics here is about enlightened self-interest and the major powers must consider more objectively and empathetically the subtext and context of the ceasefire resolution the Security Council has managed to pass.

Commodore C. Uday Bhaskar is director of the Society for Policy Studies (SPS), an independent think tank based in New Delhi