UN resolutions did not stop Israel’s colonial expansion or its violence. And neither will they stop Israel’s genocide in Gaza. As long as the international community fragments Israel’s violations into separate events in the same manner as news reporting, nothing will stop the genocide.
On Tuesday, Algeria proposed a draft resolution to end Israel’s attacks on Rafah, demanding an immediate ceasefire. The US has vetoed resolutions before and there is little reason to think it will alter its track record, given that despite all that has happened in Rafah, the US still insists that Israel has not crossed any red lines. Not just in Rafah, for that matter. In the entire Gaza Strip, even after more than 36,000 dead Palestinians, thousands tortured, wounded and detained, and almost the entire population forcibly displaced. Nothing Israel does oversteps the US mark: killing two Hamas members justifies Israel killing 45 innocent people in the same attack. This is the same reasoning that the US has applied to the 36,000+ Palestinians killed and 80,000+ wounded by Israel since last October alone.
While citing the International Court of Justice’s ruling, the draft resolution specifies Rafah. Israel will ignore any resolution, of course, but the diplomatic game remains steady: ask Israel to stop one particular violation, for a specific timeframe, or its violations in one particular area. The entire context of the apartheid state’s settler-colonialism and genocide is conveniently ignored. The same happened when the UN Security Council passed a resolution calling for a ceasefire for Ramadan. That was a mockery, if ever there was one. Give some respite to a population from being bombed while fasting, and then bomb them again when the fasting ends.
How is Rafah any different? And why is Rafah now dissociated from the rest of Gaza?
Is the international community taking up the Israeli narrative of its purported end game in Rafah? If Israel stops bombing Rafah, what stops the occupation forces from bombing other areas in Gaza? Refugees keep fleeing from one area to another and Israel bombs anything that moves, even in the supposed “safe zones” that it has itself designated.
As long as Israel’s narrative remains unchallenged, there is no hope for Gaza. Each resolution targeting a specific violation only leaves Israel more room for manipulating the rest of the scenario, while still acting with complete impunity.
The US, predictably, objected to Algeria’s resolution, calling it unhelpful. US Deputy Ambassador Robert Wood said, “Another resolution is not necessarily going to change anything on the ground.” It is ironic that it fell to the US to point out the truth for a change, while doing nothing to alter the intolerable situation “on the ground”.
On the other hand, Palestinian Deputy Ambassador Majed Bamya perceived the draft resolution to be important “to force Israel to halt its military offensive and to withdraw its occupation forces and to ensure an immediate ceasefire.” Palestinian officials are keeping to the illusory international narratives of stopping Israel, despite knowing that there is only on way to stop Israel, and that is to force decolonization upon what is a settler-colonial entity.
Of course, Palestinians need international help, but resolutions are not helping. They are only helping Israel, whether they are adopted or not.
The only way to stop Israel’s genocide is to “de-Zionise” occupied Palestine and dissolve the settler-colonial Zionist state.
Israel’s right to exist in someone else’s land is a claim made by Zionists. The world has not only accepted that claim, but now also endorses Israel’s right to commit genocide, because international institutions protect the war criminals. The world can’t afford to have such institutions which developed international law treating it with the same contempt as Israel does by not enforcing it.
-Ramona Wadi is an independent researcher, freelance journalist, book reviewer and blogger. Her writing covers a range of themes in relation to Palestine, Chile and Latin America. Her article appeared in MEMO.
