Negotiations Grow Tense at UN Security Council, as Biden Administration Scrambles To Avoid Vetoing an Anti-Israel Measure

As Israel grows increasingly leery of action by the United Nations, America is intensifying negotiations there to avoid any need to veto a Security Council draft resolution — even though the resolution under consideration would damage Israel’s war efforts in Gaza. The United Arab Emirates, which represents the Arab bloc at the UN council, is promoting a resolution that purportedly would improve humanitarian conditions in Gaza. The vote on the resolution, initially scheduled for Monday, was delayed several times today, and then postponed to Wednesday. The UAE text calls for “the urgent suspension of hostilities to allow safe and unhindered humanitarian access, and for urgent steps towards a sustainable cessation of hostilities” over Gaza. It also would authorize the UN secretary-general, Antonio Guterres, to “exclusively” inspect humanitarian aid entering Gaza. Israel claims Hamas diverts these goods for its terrorist goals. Israel and America note that the terrorist organization is not named in the proposed resolution. Earlier in the day, a senior Western diplomat told the Sun that America was ready to veto the text. Yet, now Washington seems eager to avoid being a lone veto, negotiating text tweaks instead. Israel is leery of any council resolution, and especially those that would put the UN in charge of security-related issues. The UN, for one, is charged with ensuring no military presence in southern Lebanon. It has failed at every turn, a point that is punctuated regularly by Hezbollah’s rockets, missiles, and explosive-laden drones launched at Israel daily. There were at least three incidents Tuesday. Accumulated over decades during which Israel has become a favorite United Nations punching bag, mistrust of the UN was further exacerbated after the October 7 Hamas terrorist attacks. Jerusalem’s UN ambassador, Gilad Erdan, is the first Israeli envoy to call for the resignation of a secretary-general, citing Mr. Guterres’s statement that the Hamas attack “did not happen in a vacuum.” Israeli revulsion over that and other UN statements is almost universal at this point. Last week, family members of the 130 remaining hostages held by Hamas conducted a tense meeting with Mr. Guterres, accusing him of inaction and of siding with the terrorist group. As it fights in Gaza, the Israel Defense Force encounters growing evidence of Hamas’s sway over the international organizations that operate in the Strip. IDF troops say they are most cautious when approaching UN Relief and Work Agency facilities. Hamas fighters take cover and launch attacks from these installations, where antisemitic indoctrination has festered for decades under UN supervision.This week, the IDF was busy dismantling an elaborate terrorist tunnel infrastructure in northern Gaza. Tunnel entrances are mostly discovered “beneath schools, hospitals, mosques, UN facilities, and civilian institutions,” a military spokesman said in a statement. Mr. Guterres and UN bodies constantly scold the IDF for attacking such facilities. Yet, Israel released Tuesday a video featuring an interview with the director of the Kamal Adwan hospital, Ahmad Kahlout, exposing him as a Hamas operative.Arrested December 12, the medical administrator says Hamas combatants “hide in hospitals because they believe that a hospital is a safe place” and that “they will not be harmed if they are inside a hospital.” Hamas recruited and trained him in 2010, he adds, and since then he’s been promoted to the rank of brigadier-general.Hamas uses the hospital in the Shejaiya neighborhood as military headquarters and for sheltering fighters. Hostages were hidden there before ambulances transported them out. Twelve hospital employees — “doctors, brothers, paramedics, clerks, staff members” — are members of Hamas’s military wing, the Ezz a-Din al-Qassem, Mr. Kahlout says.Even as Israel is fighting to dismantle terrorist infrastructure built in part with funds from world humanitarian assistance, the Security Council on Tuesday mulled ways to increase that aid, and to put the UN in charge of distribution. The UAE proposal would call on Mr. Guterres to “exclusively monitor all humanitarian relief consignments to Gaza.”According to the proposal, the secretary-general would notify the Palestinian Authority and Israel, assuring them that the goods are indeed humanitarian. Israelis could also inspect to ensure that no military aid is contained in the deliveries — but only as long as it doesn’t “unduly delay the provision of humanitarian assistance.”Council members scolded Israel Tuesday over alleged responsibility for humanitarian suffering in Gaza. In a moment of absurdity, the Russian ambassador, Vassily Nebenzya, attacked Israel for “unprecedented” attacks on civilians. After vetoing numerous resolutions on Ukraine, he also criticized America’s “stubborn and egotistical policy” of vetoing Israel-related resolutions. Russian cynicism aside, America seems averse to yet again veto a resolution at the risk of undermining the council’s ability to fulfill its role as guarantor of international peace and security. Meanwhile, Israelis note that the council has already contemplated three Gaza-related resolutions, while it is yet to address attacks at the Red Sea, which menace global freedom of navigation.

Negotiations Grow Tense at UN Security Council, as Biden Administration Scrambles To Avoid Vetoing an Anti-Israel Measure

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