America on Wednesday vetoed a “performative” United Nations Security Council proposed resolution that would have forced Israel to end its war against Hamas in Gaza. 

The majority of the council’s members, 14 of 15 countries, supported the resolution. America’s negative vote, though, nixed the text. It called for ending the war, the release of hostages, and the resumption of the UN being in charge of aid to Gaza. 

“Performative actions in this Council designed to draw a veto, as evidenced by the process of formulating this resolution wherein there was no true negotiation, are harmful at a time when there is delicate diplomacy going on in the region to reach a cease-fire,” the American acting UN ambassador, Dorothy Shea, said. 

“Engaging in this performative process at a time when serious questions are being asked about the utility of the UN, its funding and use of resources, is shameful,” Ms. Shea added. “This Council should not be used in this way. This Council must hold itself to a higher standard.”

The postponed resolution seemed to contain two self-contradictory demands. On the one hand it wanted “an immediate, unconditional, and permanent cease-fire in Gaza respected by all parties.” Yet another paragraph demanded the “immediate, dignified, and unconditional release of all hostages held by Hamas and other groups.”

As the paragraphs were conditioned on one another, the repeated use of the word “unconditional” becomes empty. 

“If the Council had dictated the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages, and taken that demand out of the equation as a humanitarian and moral issue, we could have cheered and accepted its authority,” a former Israeli ambassador at the UN, Daniel Carmon, who now is active in efforts to release the hostages, tells the Sun.

As it is, Mr. Carmon added, “everything seems to be conditioned on everything else even as the sides don’t agree on anything, and even as one side, Hamas, has no obligation to obey UN diktats. Such resolutions are meaningless.”

Hamas is not even mentioned in the resolution that demands “unconditional” lifting of aid restrictions on Gaza, “including by the UN.” Speakers demanded that the UN would control aid, rather than the newly formed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation — an initiative meant to bypass Hamas aid confiscation and the use of food to enrich the terror group’s coffers and control Gaza civilians. 

“The GHF has emphasized it will deliver aid consistent with the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence,” Ms. Shea said. She seemed to be responding to UN officials who have adamantly criticized the GHF’s operation. 

That operation is “inhumane,” the British ambassador at the UN, Barbara Woodward, said. “Palestinians, desperate to feed their families, have been killed as they try to reach the very few aid sites that have been permitted by Israel.”

The proposed resolution “is not diplomacy, that is surrender,” Israel’s UN ambassador, Danny Donon, said. “It sends a clear message to Hamas: Reject every deal, and the international community will still reward you. Hold innocent civilians hostage and the UN will still give you legitimacy. Continue the war and the pressure will still fall on Israel, not on the terrorists who started this war.”