Who will save the Security Council?
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It has been almost a week since the UN Security Council approved the unilateral Gaza peace plan. It has already become clear that it is incapable of bringing any peace to the Palestinian victims. The ceasefire that was supposed to be implemented immediately has not been implemented even for a day. Since the ceasefire announced on October 11, Israel has killed 338 Palestinians, at least 69 of whom are children, until November 23. In other words, Israel has violated the ceasefire at least 395 times in 44 days. Amidst these flagrant violations of the agreement, the Security Council has signed a ready-made plan that would pass its own responsibility for ensuring global peace to the violators, and is sitting in the gallery watching the genocide continue. The Security Council has overturned itself by approving the colonial plan devised by US President Donald Trump in consultation with the criminal state of Israel, completely excluding the Palestinian side. The US is the same country that had been vetoing ceasefire resolutions in the same Security Council for two years, while Israel was constantly engaged in genocide. The Security Council, which had been helpless and watching everything, not only signed the new colonial plan - it also hid in its own shell, unable to raise a single whimper against the blatant violations of the agreement.
It is not just the ceasefire that Israel is violating. There are still obstacles to delivering essential aid. Only a fifth of the deliveries to Gaza under the agreement have been made, that is only 117 loads per day, instead of the 600 that were supposed to be delivered. In reality, neither the ceasefire nor the subsequent ‘peace’ plan has served any purpose other than to cool the public anger that has risen around the world against the genocide. Before it was submitted to the Security Council for consideration, 36 world-class human rights experts had outlined the fundamental principles that should underpin any plan. These principles included items such as that any peace plan must respect international law, ensure the right to self-determination, and recognise and take action against the occupiers. The UN's own special representative, Francesca Albanese, had outlined the essential elements of a peace plan based on international law and the decisions of world courts. The fact that the Security Council has been able to adopt a plan that does not meet any of these criteria of justice and international order means that the institution has become so irrelevant. The right to self-determination for Palestine has been a firm position of the United Nations General Assembly, the Security Council, and the International Court of Justice. It has been more than a year since the world court ruled that Israel must end the occupation and withdraw from Gaza and the West Bank.
The plan which the Security Council has now ratified is in direct contradiction to all of this. What right does the UN have to adopt a plan that says nothing about ending the occupation or ensuring Palestinian autonomy? In addition to remaining silent on Palestine's right to self-determination, it imposes this plan on external forces and administrative systems, including Israeli partisans, and returns Palestine to the colonial era. This is against Article 24(2) of the UN Charter. While the ceasefire has not been implemented, the only thing that has happened in Palestine through the ‘peace’ plan is that the severity of the conflict has decreased. And that without any other participation from the UN except the Israeli servitude. By adopting the ‘peace’ plan, the UN Security Council has also rejected the Geneva Conventions, which emphasise the right of any occupied people to resist and fight for freedom. This plan disarms the defence of the oppressed people, not the evil forces of genocide. It is a license to expand and strengthen the occupation – it is a denial of even the possibility of ending the occupation. It is a rejection of the Geneva Conventions, the UN Charter, international decency and common justice. It only serves to ensure that all crimes and violations of the law are sanctioned by the Security Council. Even if the Security Council were a subsidiary of the Zionist regime, nothing more would have happened. This committee couldn't even save itself.
