UNSC Ceasefire Vote Sends Shockwaves Around World, But Will It Stop Bibi at Gates of Rafah?
March 27—The United Nations Security Council March 25 finally approved a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, which UN Secretary-General António Guterres says is binding on all parties and must be implemented. The 14-0 vote approving the ceasefire which also calls for the release of all hostages held by Hamas and a prisoner exchange with Israeli-held Palestinians but did not make the ceasefire contingent on such a release, was made possible because the United States, which had cast its veto on three previous similar ceasefire calls, abstained.
On Friday, the U.S. had submitted a less direct resolution, stating that the Council found a ceasefire imperative and urged the free flow of humanitarian aid which even the Americans have said the Israelis are impeding. That resolution was vetoed by the Russians and the Chinese, with the Algerians also voting against. After that vote, it was announced a new, more direct resolution would be submitted by the Algerians and other Council members. U.S. delegate Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield strongly implied that the U.S. would veto.
That likely would have happened, had Thomas-Greenfield, who has been a slavish servant and defender of Israeli interests, had received her instructions from the State Department. But sources report that President Sleepy Joe Biden, whose rage against the bloodthirsty Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu and his oft-stated plans to carry his war of extermination against the Palestinian people of Gaza to the last city standing in the face of the Israeli onslaught, Rafah, personally ordered the abstention. If the resolution’s sponsors had accepted suggested language that condemned Hamas for their October 7 attack on Israel that slaughtered more than 1,200 innocent Israeli civilians and took another 250 hostage, of which, it is thought, less than 100 are still held alive, sources report that the American delegate had been instructed to vote for the resolution.
What provoked this change, sources report, was the word sent to the White House by Director of Central Intelligence William Burns, who is leading the U.S. efforts in Qatar, along with the Egyptians and Qatar, with Saudi input, to secure a deal for a prolonged ceasefire and hostage/prisoner exchange that the Israelis were stalling on making any deal. Sources report that U.S. intelligence believes that Bibi intends to soon send the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) into Rafah, ignoring pleas from the White House to not threaten the city’s more 1.5 million current inhabitants, swelled by refugees from the rest of Israeli-devastated Gaza.
Following the March 25 vote, Netanyahu immediately cancelled a trip by a special delegation to Washington to discuss plans to minimize civilian casualties in Rafah, as he proceeds with an attack that he claims is aimed at wiping out the last two battalions of so-called Hamas “fighters.” Also reported is that he has cancelled his own plans to come to Washington, on the invitation of the Christian Zionist true believer and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La) to address the House of Representatives. He was not to speak to a joint session of Congress, because the White House had ordered Senate Minority leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who has called for Bibi’s removal from office by the Israeli people, not to allow that.
Another intelligence source with Israeli contacts reports that Bibi is in a state of blind rage against Biden and the U.S. and has no intention of heeding any calls for a ceasefire. Even if a deal is somehow reached in Qatar, the deranged Netanyahu intends to carry his crusade into Rafah, damn the consequences.
“This is not about Hamas,” said the source. “It never really was. After all, Bibi helped create Hamas and definitely put them in power in Gaza, because they, like him, oppose a two-state solution. The October 7 Hamas attack—which Bibi had enough information to stop but chose to look the other way, merely provided a pretext for him to launch this war intending to make Gaza uninhabitable for years or even decade to come, brutally killing as many Gazans as possible. This, he intends as a message to the 14 million Palestinian diaspora: ‘Never come back. There is nothing here for you, except death.’”
Now, there is a ceasefire resolution, agreed to by even the United States, which has the force of international law. Here is something that the U.S., the Russians and the Chinese all agree must be implemented immediately, which the UN Secretary-General also says must be implemented. Bibi must be stopped at the gates of Rafah and his killing spree ended! This, the world’s three superpowers must demand, and take the steps necessary to make that happen. Here, the U.S. must be even clearer than it has been in recent days: A ceasefire now and a move by the IDF away from Rafah; allow humanitarian aid to flow en masse to the people of Gaza—or you will suffer the consequences.
For the Israelis, it is incumbent they now take the steps they must as a sovereign people to remove the murderous tyrant from office. For a viable and durable two-state solution, in which Israelis and Palestinians can live as neighbors and in peace, before any long term regional development proposal can be implemented, such as the Schiller Institute’s Oasis Plan, the rebuilding of Gaza will require a well-organized Project Return of the millions of Palestinians now living outside Gaza, as the battered and beleaguered Gazans will be unable to accomplish this rebuild by themselves.
