[Salon] Israel's Missed Opportunity

[Chas Freeman <cwfresidence@gmail.com>]

FM: John Whitbeck

In my message of March 25 retransmitted below, circulated immediately after the post-vote speeches at the UN Security Council, I wrote that the resolution just adopted was "objectively, potentially an even better deal for Israel" than the six-week pause/partial exchange of hostages deal which has been the subject of negotiations over many weeks.

The United States presumably made its psychedelic claim that this Security Council resolution is non-binding (after going to the trouble of watering it down by replacing the word "permanent" with the weaker word "lasting"!) because it knew that Israel has never complied with any UN resolution, Security Council or General Assembly, binding or non-binding, which Israel viewed as unfavorable to it and that it would certainly defy this one as well.

But was this resolution really unfavorable to Israel?

The resolution called for (i) an immediate two-week pause in hostilities, (ii) the "lifting of all barriers to the provision of humanitarian assistance at scale" and (iii) the "immediate and unconditional release of all hostages" (the term "hostages" implicitly, if not explicitly, referring only to those hostages held in Gaza).

Since no one could imagine that Hamas would release all of its hostages (its sole leverage against an even more vicious genocidal assault) in return for a mere two-week pause in hostilities, a rational Israeli government could have paused its assault for two weeks, relaxed its obstruction of the provision of  humanitarian assistance during those two weeks and then resumed its assault at the end of Ramadan on the grounds that it had respected international law by complying with the UN resolution while Hamas had not -- a significant, effectively cost-free public relations achievement.

Instead, probably to avoid the dangerous precedent of Israeli acceptance that Israel could ever be subject to international law, the Israeli government, as expected, has opted for yet more blatant defiance and doubled down on its status as an outlaw, rogue and pariah state, a status which the United States, through its "unbreakable bond" with the apartheid state and particularly after its "non-binding" claim, is on the verge of achieving for itself.

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March 25, 2024

TO: Distinguished Recipients
FM: John Whitbeck

Today's vote on a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate, albeit only briefly mandatory, ceasefire in Gaza produced a last-minute surprise.

The U.S. government has claimed -- and still claims -- to be working around the clock to achieve, in the face of Israeli resistance, a six-week pause in the hostilities in Gaza and an exchange of some of the Israeli hostages held in Gaza for some of the Palestinian hostages held in Israel.

The U.S. government was faced today with a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate two-week "ceasefire" (for the rest of Ramadan only) "leading" to "a permanent sustainable ceasefire" and the "immediate and unconditional release of all hostages" held in Gaza -- objectively, potentially an even better deal for Israel.

Earlier today, Prime Minister Netanyahu, who recently said after meeting with Secretary of State Blinken that he hoped to launch Israel's promised ground invasion of Rafah with American support but that Israel would invade on its own if necessary, publicly announced that he would not send Israel's planned delegation to Washington for joint planning of Israel's ground invasion of Rafah if the United States failed to veto the resolution, implying serious consequences if the United States dared to disobey.

What was the United States to do?

One hour before the Security Council assembled, the United States got the E10 (the non-permanent members submitting the resolution) to change to word "permanent" to "lasting".

What is the significance of this change and why did the United States insist upon it?

The Oxford definition of "lasting" is "enduring or able to endure over a long period of time". Any "lasting" and "sustainable" pause of hostilities would be capable of enduring and being sustained but would not be required to endure, to be sustained and to become permanent.

Accordingly, even in the unlikely event that Israel were to pause its hostilities until the end of Ramadan, it would, at least arguably, not violate the letter of the wording of this binding Security Council resolution -- and, remarkably, the U.S. ambassador referred to the resolution in her post-vote statement as being "non-binding" -- by resuming its hostilities immediately after the end of Ramadan.

With that one-word change in the text of the resolution, 14 members of the Security Council still voted for it and the United States felt able to abstain, no doubt hoping that the words "lasting" and "non-binding" would moderate Israeli and domestic Israel-First outrage at its failure to veto the resolution.

In his post-vote statement, Israel's ambassador offered little hope of Israeli respect for or compliance with the resolution, proclaiming: "All members of this council should have voted against this shameful resolution.... It is a travesty, and I am disgusted."

The consequences of today's resolution, both in Gaza (unlikely, except potentially to speed up Israel's ground invasion of Rafah) and in American domestic politics (very likely), remain to be seen.

We are living in interesting times.