LOS ANGELES.–U.S. Amb. Linda Thomas-Greenfield held firm in U.N. Security Council, resisting pressure to include a call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, instead confining the latest resolution to humanitarian aid shipments. With over two months of war, Gaza has been reduced to ruins and if you believe the dubious Hamas Ministry of Health, over 20,000 civilians, mostly women and children, have been killed in Israeli airstrikes. But there’s zero evidence to anything close o the mass casualties reported by Hamas to sway world opinion against Israel. Most news organizations qualify reporting on casualties to say “reported by the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health.” So, whatever the numbers, it’s too high, given that ordinary Gazans didn’t launch the Oct. 7 massacre that killed over 1,200 Israelis and others, taking 240 hostages, leaving at least 129 hostages, including 21 already dead.
Oct. 7 mastermind Hamas Gaza leader Yahya Sinwar, still directing the war in an unknown underground bunker, says Israel must release all Palestinian prisoners in Gaza to get its remaining hostages back. All the support in the U.S. Security Council to call for an unconditional ceasefire accepts that Hamas would remain the ruling authority in Gaza. Only 81-year-old President Joe Biden has instructed Thomas-Greenfield to veto any Security Council resolution calling for an unconditional ceasefire. Arab states and others on the Security Council have accepted the U.S. position that Hamas must leave Gaza to end the over two-month-old war. Thomas-Greenfield made it clear “to alleviate this humanitarian crisis to get life saving assistance into Gaza and to get hostages out of Gaza, to push for the protection of innocent civilians and humanitarian workers and to work toward a lasting peace.”
Foreign governments and news organizations all favored a tough Security Council Resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire and end of hostilities. Few Security Council members see the need for Hamas to leave Gaza as the controlling legal authority. Since seizing Gaza in 2007, Hamas has launched five failed wars with Israel and even more uprisings, all resulting in decimation to the Gaza Strip. Sinwar repeated the same failed strategy, this time slaughtering more Israelis and taking more hostages, exacting a bigger toll than ever before. But Sinwar gambled that his carefully planned operation would have different results than the last four wars, proving, once again, the complete waste of billions in resources, all for Sinwar to say he resisted Israeli occupation. Hamas has one single-minded obsession of destroying the Jewish State in returning to Islamic control of the Holy Land.
Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu, demonized in the global press, vowed that the war would not end until Hamas leaves Gaza. U.N. Security Council members all know the history, with Hamas squandering rich oil-state donor money on arms and building military tunnels, something that’s presented Israeli Defense Forces [IDF] with many challenges. Billions of humanitarian relief has been wasted by Hamas in building out its military tunnel infrastructure while ordinary Gaza residents suffer without electricity and running water. Security Council members know that Hamas cannot return to power without repeating the exact same future destruction. Russian Ambt Vassily Nebenza called Thomas-Greenfield’s demands a “shameful, cynical and irresponsible conduct,” watering down the resolution, saying the U.S. “of gross pressure, blackmail and twisting arms.”
U.S.-Russian relations hit the lowest point in post WW II history, with the U.S. actively funding a proxy war against the Russian Federation. If the U.S. had normal diplomatic relations with Russia, Nabenza might have backed the U.S. plan of regime change in Gaza. Biden’s war against the Kremlin has made any kind of diplomacy impossible, leaving the U.S. out on a limb in the Security Council. Nebenza’s hostility toward the U.S. directly relates to Biden’s proxy war in Ukraine against the Kremlin. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has shuttled between Arab capitals, including the United Arab Emirates and Egypt to drum up support for the U.S. position of letting Israel get rid of Hamas. No one in the Arab world understands that necessity more than Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi who battles the Hamas-backed Muslim Brotherhood to oust him from power.
No Arab State, including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar or the UAE, will admit publicly that they back Israel’s attempt to rid the Gaza Strip of Hamas’ stranglehold. Behind closed doors, they want Hamas out of Gaza to restore order to the region. Arab Gulf States and Egypt all accept Israel as a sovereign state, despite minor differences on Gaza and the West Bank. When it comes to the latest U.N. resolution it’s opposed mainly by the press that likes to highlight Gaza suffering on the nightly news. No new organization calls out Hamas for grossly exaggerating Gazan casualties, all to make Israel look like the aggressor. Hamas propaganda says Israel perpetrates genocide on innocent Gazans. Israel fights a war with Hamas to liberate Gaza and the Mideast from Hamas’ deadly stranglehold that prevents Gaza and the region for enjoying economic development and prosperity.
About the Author
John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.
