America and Russia — Strange Bedfellows

The United Nations is a place where strange bedfellows are made, so we applaud Russia for its valiant, but failed efforts at preventing the Security Council from passing a resolution on aid to Gaza. To be clear, Russia is driven by its endless desire to undermine America. It failed today, as the council adopted the resolution. Yet, had Moscow prevailed in forcing a United States veto, the end result would have been more favorable for America and Israel. The resolution, approved by 13 council members, with only Russia and America abstaining, followed a week of intense negotiations, language tweaks, and late-night calls between capitals. It creates a new UN bureaucracy meant to ramp up the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza. Originally, the UN mechanism was to exclusively inspect goods. Now it accounts for Israel’s need to ensure that no missile components are hidden under carts of medicine capsules. The new mechanism will likely create conflicts between UN inspectors and Israel’s security forces, slowing aid deliveries. For 17 years the UN allowed Hamas to dig tunnels and amass arms so it “cannot be trusted to monitor aid,” Israel’s deputy ambassador, Jonathan Miller, told the council. Israel already enables “food, water, and medicine to enter Gaza,” Prime Minister Netanyahu notes. Yet, “Hamas often diverts and steals these supplies.” As our Benny Avni reports, Israel was, shockingly, largely kept out of the negotiations over the resolution. The current text concentrates on scaling up humanitarian aid to Gaza, which it imagines would create conditions for “cessation of hostilities.” America pressured the United Arab Emirates to remove a demand that Israel end the just war it wages in Gaza. In backroom haggling Russia conducted a full court press against America’s edits. Prior to today’s vote, Moscow’s ambassador at the world body, Vasily Nebenzya, called for amending the resolution to demand “urgent steps” to end the war. Russia’s aim all along has been to push Washington to veto the resolution. It goaded the UAE and other Arab states to not give up on any demands. It even urged them to toughen anti-Israel language. Moscow’s top geostrategic goal is undermining Washington’s global power. While Moscow cynically sheds tears at the UN over civilian suffering in Gaza, it bombs Ukraine without mercy. The goal is to push America to use its veto power, so next time it can justify vetoing resolutions addressing its own war of aggression. President Biden, in contrast, is eager to accommodate UN consensus, which explains America’s eagerness to avoid a veto and, instead, negotiate with the UAE. The result is today’s softened, but not benign resolution. Washington’s warm relations with Abu Dhabi and its hope that the UAE and Saudi Arabia will help a post-war Marshall Plan for Gaza are reasons to accommodate the Gulf Arab countries at Turtle Bay. At the UN, though, every soft resolution on Israel eventually leads to a harsher one. That’s why our former ambassador, Nikki Haley, vowed upon arrival at Turtle Bay in 2017 to veto all anti-Israel resolutions and to “take names” of those who oppose her. Our current ambassador, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, in contrast, holds the UN in high regard. “For a week, the eyes of the world were on us,” she told reporters today. Well, we, for one, hardly paid attention. In her speech, Ms. Thomas-Greenfield sang the resolution’s praises. The only reason she abstained, she said, was that it failed to condemn Hamas atrocities. Yet, in pre-vote negotiations she allowed the word Hamas to go unmentioned. For that, and numerous other reasons, we don’t mind saying that we favored an American veto. Had Moscow prevailed, America would have been forced to do the right thing by signaling to the world that the UN, given its hostility to Zion, has no standing to deal with anything related to Israel. In January, pro-Hamas Algeria will replace the UAE on the council. With less space for compromise, it’d be nice if America stopped feeding the UN’s jackals.

America and Russia — Strange Bedfellows

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