The shame of Veto
It is now official the United States is a complicit in the ongoing slaughter in Gaza. The audacity of Washington to veto a resolution in the UN Security Council will see more blood and destruction. While all of the humanitarian agencies and civil society groups have condemned the inhuman attitude of the US, it has hardly made any difference on the ground situation. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who the other day invoked Article 99 of the UN Charter to override the member states’ apathy, was right as he said, “the people of Gaza are looking into the abyss.” This scenario is fraught with serious consequences and the death of 17,000 and rising will surely offshoot into a global conflict as sidelines players will no longer be sitting idle.
It is no exaggeration, rather on the spot, to say that the two months of conflict and barbaric bombardment of Israel has endangered peace in one of the most volatile regions of the world. The veto has simply confirmed Israelisation of the United Nations, and Robert Wood’s submission that the resolution was “divorced from reality” and “would have not moved the needle forward on the ground” is appeasement towards the Zionist states for reasons of political exigency. The Biden administration has made a wrong choice by continuing to stand with the far-right dispensation of Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv, and has surely snubbed its allies in the Middle East and Muslim world. This is a transience of arrogance and shall not last long. Enough of this Jewish state policy of pushing all and sundry to the brink merely for the fact that it believes in a so-called theory of unilateral existence!
Gaza is the flashpoint from where one of the world conflicts is set to emerge. The world body and the powerful Western states are playing with fire, and their silence in terms of standing with Israel will bear a definite cost. It is no secret that revulsion in the academia and social media against Israel and its supporters is rewriting history. The veto is nothing but a shame.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 10th, 2023.
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