Security Council rebuffs Guterres bid to fix his Gaza mistakes
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has failed in his bid to get the Security Council to demand an immediate ceasefire in Gaza that would have helped paper over some appalling decisions by Guterres both before and after October 7.
Guterres had invoked article 99 of the UN Charter for the first time since 1971 in his plea to the Security Council:
“I urge the Council to spare no effort to push for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, for the protection of civilians, and for the urgent delivery of lifesaving aid,” he said, recalling also the importance of the two-State solution, based on UN resolutions and international law, with Israel and Palestine living side-by-side in peace and security.
“This is vital for Israelis, Palestinians, and for international peace and security. The eyes of the world – and the eyes of history – are watching,”
Guterres’ failure to facilitate Gaza’s civilian population being moved to safe havens outside Gaza where lifesaving aid is readily available – instead of keeping them corralled in Gaza – has been inhumane and incomprehensible.
Guterres has remained silent as Arab countries adamantly refuse to take any Gazans. UNRWA camps outside Gaza remain closed to Gazans.
I criticised Guterres on 2 November for:
“… preferring to keep Gaza’s civilian population entrapped in Gaza rather than calling on the UN’s 193 members – especially the 57 OIC (ed: Organisation of Islamic Conference) member states – to take the Gazan civilian population into their countries whilst Israel wipes out those responsible for this unimaginable massacre and abduction.
Guterres and the OIC have seemingly agreed that the liquidation of the Gazan murderers is not an imperative for the maintenance of world peace and harmony – leaving the civilian population in Gaza to serve as human shields protecting these Gazan monsters and impeding Israel’s attempts to rid the world of them.”
Gazans continue to pay the price for Guterres’ poor judgement. The sooner Guterres takes urgent action to remove Gaza’s children, women, the sick, wounded and elderly to safe havens outside Gaza – the better.
Guterres continuing refusal to acknowledge article 80 of the UN Charter has turned the United Nations into a bastion of Jew-hatred.
Article 80 preserves the right of the Jewish people to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) and Gaza as authorized by articles 6 and 25 of the 1922 League of Nations Mandate for Palestine – shredding Guterres non-stop mantra that Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) are illegal in international law.
Guterres stands condemned for what occurred on October 7 by not earlier invoking article 99 to urge the Security Council to consider the circuit-breaking Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine solution (HKOPS) published on 8 June 2022 to replace the failed two-state solution adopted by the Security Council on 23 December 2016 in Resolution 2334.
HKOPS asserts:
- “Jordanians and Palestinians are as similar as any people can be. They are Sunni Arabs from the same neighborhood. Merging them will not create any long-term ethnic or sectarian fault lines.”
- No Arab or Jew will have to leave his current home.
I requested Guterres on many occasions during the 16 months following HKOPS publication to bring HKOPS before the Security Council for consideration to replace the UN’s failed two-state solution – pointing out the rapidly deteriorating situation in Gaza and Judea and Samaria (West Bank). Guterres never acknowledged my emails. Had Guterres so acted – October 7 may well have been averted.
Guterres’s continuing insistence on stressing the importance of the two-state solution will only serve to ensure the continuation of the 100-year-old unresolved Jewish-Arab conflict – not its resolution.
Guterres should hang his head in shame and resign.
Please join my Facebook Page: “Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine supporters”
Author’s note: The cartoon — commissioned exclusively for this article — is by Yaakov Kirschen aka “Dry Bones”- one of Israel’s foremost political and social commentators — whose cartoons have graced the columns of Israeli and international media publications for decades.
David Singer is a Sydney lawyer and a foundation member of the International Analysts Network
