It’s a mad mad mad mad world: US is the lone vote in the UN Security Council against a ceasefire in the Israel/Palestine war
My title is a riff on this 1963 movie. The film was a comedy, but what we’re seeing in the world these days isn’t funny. It’s a pathetic inversion in which we have a country with a history such as Algeria’s asking that Israel stop fighting the entities that invaded its borders, and murdered and tortured its civilian citizens when there already was a ceasefire in effect.
And to top it all off, the US was the only country voting against that resolution although the Security Council is made up of powers such as France and the UK, the latter of which at least abstained and therefore was only semi-cowardly and semi-destructive of Israel’s right to defend itself. Other Security Council permanent members (I should probably put “security” in scare quotes) are China and Russia; ’nuff said about that. The way the council is structured is that there are also ten non-permanent members elected by the General Assembly for two-year terms, and at the moment those members consist of Algeria, Ecuador, Guyana, Japan, Malta, Mozambique, Republic of Korea, Sierra Leone, Slovenia, and Switzerland. An interesting cast of characters, all of whom voted for the ceasefire.
More Orwellian inversion:
Before the vote, Algeria’s U.N. Ambassador Amar Bendjama, the Arab representative on the council, said: “This resolution stands for truth and humanity standing against the advocates for murder and hatred.”
But don’t think that the US was really standing up for Israel; such things are relative:
U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said the United States understands the council’s desire for urgent action but believes the resolution would “negatively impact” sensitive negotiations on a hostage deal and pause in fighting for at least six weeks. If that happens, “we can take the time to build a more enduring peace,” she said.
The proposed U.S. resolution, Thomas-Greenfield said, “would do what this text does not — pressure Hamas to take the hostage deal that is on the table and help secure a pause that allows humanitarian assistance to reach Palestinian civilians in desperate need.”
The US is asking for a temporary ceasefire in order to help obtain the release of the hostages. I assume that Thomas-Greenfield and her mentors in the Biden administration know this is unrealistic. Or perhaps they are in some sort of hazy pipe dream. Hamas has been adamant in stating that it has tons of demands before the hostages are released, and those demands include Israel’s surrender and Hamas staying in power and being rewarded. The Biden administration is continuing to try to walk a tightrope that offends neither of its flanks, Israel-haters and Israel-supporters.
The US resolution also strongly supports another pipe dream, the 2-state solution.
The rest of the nations have a range of motives for voting for the Algerian resolution or not opposing it. Among them are being overtly on the side of Hamas and wanting Israel’s destruction, just wishing Israel would go away and shut up, being secretly at least sort of pro-Israel but wanting to placate its own large Muslim population (that would be the UK, for example).
None of these votes on resolutions are anything but theater at the moment because the UN has no way to compel Israel to obey. Netanyahu has made it clear that the Israelis are uninterested in suicide and that the UN can go pound sand. But the UN has long been trying to isolate Israel among the nations of the world, and that campaign is well advanced.
The UN, of course, has anything but clean hands in this business. Not only did it participate in the original partition that established the nation of Israel – something I think was a good thing, but which I’m pretty sure the UN as an institution and most of its member nations regret – but it has been instrumental in fomenting the vicious hatred of the current population of Palestine towards Israel and Jews, through the tender ministrations of UNRWA and its murder-inciting propaganda.
The resolution rests on several fictions. The first is that such a vote matters. The second is that Hamas would abide by a ceasefire if one were implemented. But the third and most important is the idea of the suffering Palestinians as being separate from Hamas. But Hamas is not a rogue group; it is in charge of the government of Gaza and was elected by the people of Gaza, who strongly support it. The people of Gaza also strongly support the massacre of October 7. What’s more, the only reason they are at risk is that Hamas wishes them to be, by placing Hamas’ military in civilian and even humanitarian venues such as hospitals.
All of this is ignored by the UN and so many of its member countries, even those Western ones that should know better – because it is inconvenient (and depressing, actually) to think how dire the situation is and how difficult it would be to fix it. Better to pretend, and blame Israel.
thats a touch of dark comedy, the Algerians lecturing anyone about anything, the eradicateurs who per their name, eradicated nearly all opposition, including the GIA which are the Algerian branch of the Brotherhood,
many of the top officers were Soviet trained, their spokesman Brahimi lectured the Iraqis and later the Syrians about counterinsurgency etiquette, the Syrians saw the irony
the FLN welcomed certain German expatriates like those described in Sansal’s the German Mujahid to do their fighting, when they fought the French,
The UN is a truly awful organization whose true power is thankfuly somehwhat limited. But the UN’s awfulness also demostrates why we can’t have a monolithic world government that wouldn’t be hideously corrupt, tryrannical, and evil. Or at least we can’t have one anytime soon. Maybe if we ever get to worldwide post scarcity in a hundred years or so it might be possibe, who knows?
Just read that Prince William is putting in his 2 Pence.
The UN has been a joke, a dangerous joke for a long time.
Netanyahu ‘is soooooo mean!‘ 😉 – gotta love & respect the man tho. Israel will come out of this with a lot more power over the Gaza & West Bank than before the sneak attack, IMHO.
That was a fun movie. Not sure how the police knew all of what was going on.
neo,
You’re preaching to the choir, to the already converted. Mind you, yours is an excellent sermon, spot on, as eloquent as it is elegant.
That’s true of all of your posts. Also true is that they will not change anything.
I like them, but who, what, am I? Just a pair of ragged claws scuttling across the floors of silent seas. Or something.
Conservatism, or whatever we call what we espouse, has failed. It conserves nothing. All the eloquent, elegantly written posts on conservative blogs come to nothing. They will disappear like tears in the summer rain. The wicked do prosper. We are doomed.
IrishOtter:
Well, you’re a real cheerer-upper 🙂 .
Although I have to say there are times I feel despair of that sort, too. But I do what I can.
I’ve heard the mermaids singing …
Well, I’m in a mood today. The trials of the past few months wear me down sometimes. I hear “drums in the deep”: “Doom-boom, doom-boom.”
I read just minutes ago that some 7.2 million illegals have entered the country (so far) under the Biden administration:
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/illegal-immigrants-biden-admin-amount-greater-population-36-states
“”The end comes, and then drums, drums in the deep … they are coming.” Boom-doom, boom-doom.
I’ll feel better tomorrow, I’m sure. I’ll do what I can.
IrishOtter:
Always good to take a break and have some fun or do something totally unrelated to politics and the world situation.
neo;
True dat. I recently started writing a long-contemplated epic novel, based on true story (and a historical paper I wrote), set in the Bronze Age. I’m thinking that the more I write, the more fantastical and mythopoetical it will become. Already having fun with that. In a few days I will be herding sheep with my border collie — a major outing, and stepping-stone, on my recovery path. That will also be fun . . . and soul-satisfying.
Hope springs eternal,
Thanks for your encouraging words.
IrishOtter49:
Now you know I am a fiend for attribution…
_____________________________________
‘It is grim reading,’ [Gandalf] said. ‘I fear their end was cruel. Listen! We cannot get out. We cannot get out. They have taken the Bridge and second hall. Frár and Lóni and Náli fell there. Then there are four lines smeared so that I can only read went 5 days ago. The last lines run the pool is up to the wall at Westgate. The Watcher in the Water took Óin. We cannot get out. The end comes, and then drums, drums in the deep. I wonder what that means. The last thing written is in a trailing scrawl of elf-letters: they are coming.’
–J.R.R. Tolkien, “The Fellowship of the Ring” (Book Two, Chapter Five)
_____________________________________
Feel better.
If the Balrog don’t get us, then the AI will.
IrishOtter…sometimes, I find hope in re-reading some thoughts from the French author Georges Bernanos, who was writing in exile after the defeat of the French Army:
“No one knows better than I do that, in the course of centuries, all the great stories of the world end by becoming children’s tales. But this particular one (the story of England’s resistance) has started its life as such, has become a children’s tale on the very threshold of its existence. It mean that we can at once recognize in it the threefold visible sign of its nature. it has deceived the anticipations of the wise, it has humiliated the weak-hearted, it has staggered the fools. Last June all these folk from one end of the world to the other, no matter what the color of their skins, were shaking their heads. Never had they been so old, never had they been so proud of being old. All the figures that they had swallowed in the course of their miserable lives as a safeguard against the highly improbable activity of their emotions had choked the channels of circulation..They were ready to prove that with the Armistice of Rethondes the continuance of the war had become a mathematical impossibility…Some chuckled with satisfaction at the thought, but they were not the most dangerous…Others threatened us with the infection of pity…”Alone against the world,” they said. “Why, what is that but a tale for children?” And that is precisely what it was–a tale for children. Hurrah for the children of England!
Men of England, at this very moment you are writing what public speakers like to describe in their jargon as one of the “greatest pages of history”….At this moment you English are writing one of the greatest pages of history, but I am quite sure that when you started, you meant it as a fairy tale for children. “Once upon a time there was a little island, and in that island there was a people in arms against the world…” Faced with such an opening as that, what old cunning fox of politics or business would not have shrugged his shoulders and closed the book?”
Thanks, guys.
huxley, I knew you’d know the source of my quotes. Well done!
David+Foster: That’s a great quote. I was unfamiliar with it, and with the author. I’ll check him out. As it happens, I am currently reading about the 1940 campaign in the West, a subject I find endlessly fascinating. A “strange victory” and, equally, a “strange defeat” (both quotes are titles of books on the fall of France). On the part of the Germans, one of the most brilliantly executed military undertakings in the history of war; on the part of the French, one of the greatest debacles.
It’s a morally deficient, cowardly world not a mad world.
In demonstrating the unmitigated gall to accuse Israel of being advocates for murder and hatred, Algeria’s Ambassador reveals himself, his government and people to be the real advocates for murder and hatred.
Every member of that council knows it. In remaining silent in the face of that false witness, they make themselves complicit in it.
“The Biden administration is continuing to try to walk a tightrope that offends neither of its flanks, Israel-haters and Israel-supporters.”
Yes and in doing so they’ve alienated both sides. The Democrats need the Israeli-haters’ votes and they need the Israeli-supporters’ votes and money.
“All of this is ignored by the UN and so many of its member countries, even those Western ones that should know better – because it is inconvenient (and depressing, actually) to think how dire the situation is and how difficult it would be to fix it. Better to pretend, and blame Israel.”
The Western UN members DO know better. The situation is dire but only because they lack the will to fix it. Instead, we are witness to western civilization slowly committing suicide. The western left in its delusion, imagines that Islam will be satisfied with the elimination of the little Satan and that, a racist China will be satisfied with less than a full cup of revenge for it’s century(s) of humiliation.
IrishOtter49:
They burned Joan of Arc. I never forget that.
We’re lucky. I never forget that.
Not to mention Jesus.
IrishOtter:
That sounds wonderful.
Wish I had a border collie and some sheep to herd.
huxley:
Yes indeed. In November I was pulled back from death three times in the space of two weeks. Now I’m taking short walks with my border collie. I know I’m lucky. And blessed.
Years ago I visited the house in Domrémy where Joan was born and raised. It was a sturdy house, stone-built: clearly Joan and her family were not impoverished peasants.
I stood on top of the hill in the field by that house where Joan had her vision — and where I experienced something very close to a spiritual revelation.
Re: Joan
IrishOtter49:
Not to put too fine a point on it, several thousand miles west something happened to me.
IrishOtter…”As it happens, I am currently reading about the 1940 campaign in the West, a subject I find endlessly fascinating”
I am also very interested in this campaign; wrote about it considering both the military and social/political aspects of the defeat:
https://chicagoboyz.net/archives/69437.html
neo:
It is indeed wonderful. I couldn’t imagine living without a border collie as a companion. I’m on my third one.
On YouTube there’s avideo posted under my real name of my participation in my very first border collie sheepherding trial. It was a first also for my BC, who was just two years old. It’s fun and funny to watch, because of the circumstances. I didn’t know what I was doing, not really, and at one point I froze. But my BC was a real prodigy, a natural talent: so much so that people in the herding community often offered to buy her from me. When I froze, she just took over. She knew what to do, and she did it, saving a chaotic situation that had developed because of my paralysis, and driving the sheep into the pen.
We took first place in our class in that trial — first place her first time out. It was glorious — a moment of pure grace.
It’s interesting to realize Joan of Arc’s family was, for its time, middle-class.
But they were.
Make France Great Again!
Two other books which I think are enlightening re the disaster of 1940…
A Balcony in the Forest, Julian Gracq. The main character of this book is one of the “middle-aged reservists” who were sent a Class B troops to defend the Ardennes. Briefly reviewed in my review batch here:
https://chicagoboyz.net/archives/56542.html
Flight to Arras, Antoine de St-Exupery. St-Ex was a recon pilot in 1940, and the book compresses into a single day his conversations with himself about why he needs to probably die in a campaign he knows is already lost. A difficult book to review, which is why I haven’t written one yet, but very, very worthwhile.
huxley…”make France great again”
A Frenchman offered some thoughts along those lines.
https://www.thefp.com/p/save-france-working-class-protest-macron
Much of it is relevant to the US as well.
David+Foster:
Great article. Thanks for the head’s up.
I’m particularly interested in the conjoined battles of Hannut and the Gembloux Gap, which as you know was at the time history’s largest armored battle — and which the French won. I’ve written about Hannut/Gembloux in the context of my writings about Bronze Age chariotry and chariot warfare, especially in the Battle of Kadesh. Examining the tactics employed by the Germans and the French, as influenced by their respective tank technologies, are useful in describing and understanding the conduct of chariot warfare.
David: I have done several readings of Flight to Arras. I’ve currently got the Amazon Audible version in my listening queue.
huxley:
Yes, I too was struck by the fact that Joan’s family was comfortably situated by the standards of the day. I’m guessing they might even have owned the land adjacent to their house. And the house itself was cozy and secure, with a second floor no less. Put in running water and wire it for electricity, and you’d have a decent B&B.
Gotta go now. Very tired, as I usually am at the end of the day (since my health scare). Will check back here tomorrow.
Btw, I love France and the French.
“Un peuple extraordinaire.”
neo: Wish I had a border collie and some sheep to herd.
Well, you have a blog, and a quick and wide ranging mind,
… and us … 🙂
[We may not really be sheeple, but we generally show up here most days.]
@ Neo > “The US resolution also strongly supports another pipe dream, the 2-state solution.”
Perhaps the world is mad because its leaders have had too much acquaintance with the source of their pipe dreams.
https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/pipe-dream.html
And the second phrase ineluctably led me to this movie reference.
(I don’t think Rob Words included that pentasyllabic word among his bleached and skunked ones, thank goodness.)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075194/
(Deliberately cryptic links, so you can have the fun of checking your intuitive deductions.)
In spite of everything, one MUST listen to J.R.R. Tolkien…and take his genius—and humanity, and hope—to heart.
BTW, ever see a border collie herd nursery schoolers?
(The next best thing after sheep, I guess…)
Mad, Mad, Mad, Bad, Utterly Dishonest and Dangerous…(oh, and let’s not forget Insane…especially since it’s intentionally so…)
Compare and contrast:
“The 2030 Agenda: The Totalitarian Trojan Horse”—
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/2030-agenda-totalitarian-trojan-horse
Remember: Room 101 is for our own good!
“VDH: Delusions, Alternate Realities, & The Biden Consortium”—
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/vdh-delusions-alternate-realities-biden-consortium
(Since, of course, Slavery is Freedom…)
File under: The Deception WILL SET YOU FREE. Endless, Limitless, Inexorable—GLORIOUS—Deception…! (But ONLY if the deception is performed by THE RIGHT PEOPLE; and ONLY if the they deceive for the sake of… HUMANITY….)
Related:
“What Americans don’t get about Israelis fighting for their lives;
“They fail to understand a traumatized nation facing genocidal foes—one that is united behind a war whose aim is the preservation of their very existence.”—
https://www.jns.org/what-americans-dont-get-about-israelis-fighting-for-their-lives/
H/T Powerline blog.
+Bonus, from—trigger warning(?)—Benny Morris:
“Gaza in the Minds of Israelis;
“A new collection of essays, published just before October 7th, captures the complexity of the current war”—
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/gaza-in-the-minds-of-israelis
https://melaniephillips.substack.com/p/the-duke-of-gaza
“The US is asking for a temporary ceasefire in order to help obtain the release of the hostages.”
Sometimes the stupidity of supposedly highly educated, highly intelligent people amazes me.
How about this instead: “The US is asking for the immediate release of the hostages, as well as the surrender of anyone and everyone involved in the October 7 attack at any level to face justice. After those demands are met, a temporary cease fire might be in order which may then result in a more permanent peace.”
That’s the only formulation that makes any sense at all.
Related:
” ‘I see the hand of Lord Cameron in all this’: William’s call for an end to Israeli war in Gaza may have been requested by the Foreign Secretary, royal biographer Tom Bower claims;
“Prince’s words are the strongest yet by a senior royal in response to the conflict”—
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13108499/I-hand-Lord-Cameron-Williams-call-end-Israeli-war-Gaza-requested-Foreign-Secretary-royal-biographer-Tom-Bower-claims.html
Key grafs:
“…Speaking on GB News, Mr Bower told Nigel Farage: ‘I see the hand of Lord Cameron in all this, who somehow has shifted into the side of telling Israel to stop to seek peace. But of course what Lord Cameron doesn’t understand is you can’t have peace with Hamas, which is dedicated to the destruction of Israel and the murder of every Jew that lives in Israel.
” ‘There is no peace possible with people who are intent on the Final Solution Mk II and so I think it’s been a disaster for Prince William to get involved in this.
” ‘I think that his officials in Kensington Palace should have warned him to stay out of it, because it can only end badly.’…”
Irish Otter
I do think that we are done. I am trying to look past that and prepare as I may for what that will look like. My faith does not permit sliding into despair. I just view this as the eternal weakness of humans, and, the lust for money and power that has gone on forever. I’m Eastern Orthodox so we have a playbook for dealing with what’s coming. We are no strangers to really bad times.
“When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.” – Jonathan Swift
Richard Cook:
Could you provide a summary of the Eastern Orthodox playbook? I’m interested.
Is he trying to be stupider than his brother
Perhaps it’s more like solidarity…
Or he may be in a semi-comatose—AKA Yikes!—state due to his father’s cancer…
(IOW, he’s “on deck”—don’t know what the cricket term is…next up?)
Whatever, he’s in a tricky situation…though Cameron is the last person he should be listening to. (OTOH, this is all mere conjecture on Farrage’s part….)
Melanie Phillips was actually quite fair to the prince. He didn’t outright call for an Israeli loss. He danced around it. But it’s clear that Prince William lives in the British aristocratic bubble, and gets news, if at all, from the BBC. He and his father have both been vocal about CO2 suppression policies which are negative for the well-being of the British people (and all other people).
I think he’d have to do more to be as dumb as his brother, through, miguel.
Rufus T Firefly:
I had wondered where “A Confederency of Dunces” came from after reading that sublime novel of the same name.
IrishOtter
We have a long history of being persecuted by Islam and invaders and communists. Monks and Saints and the secular have left behind accounts of living the spiritual (and physical) struggle. Mother Maria of Paris during WW2, St. John of Damascus, apologist to the Muslims when he lived in a land conquered by Islam are examples. These accounts have diffused in the Church over the centuries and is part of our life blood.
The physical world is temporary and transient. Our existence here is temporary. The emphasis is always on the eternal and loving your enemies. Consistently developing your spiritual life with your father confessor and working towards union with God which we call thesis. Besides this we have The Church that guides us (no independent interpretations of the Bible, the Holy Fathers and the Church have done that. I surely do not trust my own interpretation of a book written thousands of years ago, by a culture that uses language differently than we do and whose culture is radically different.). If you boiled it down, using the Church and Holy Tradition our emphasis is the experience of God in our lives as we work towards theosis using as a guide my priest and the Church Fathers. We have been around since 33 ad.
Please forgive my rambling. If I am not clear please let me know.
PS. My priest has already planned for persecution and has entrusted certain of us what to do when this happens to preserve the church. And I don’t mean the building.
Thanks. Interesting.
US to Israel:
Unconditional surrender for me, but not for thee.
@ Richard Cook > “Our existence here is temporary.”
I’ve seen that expressed as “We are not mortal beings occasionally having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a mortal experience.”
om,
A wonderful novel. Such a shame about John Kennedy Toole.
AesopFan
Indeed. We also describe ourself as a hospital for souls emphasizing care of the soul and repentance and confession.
I am navigating a spiritual jungle. I remember the old African movies where Bwana guided the Great White Hunter in the jungle. My priest is my Bwana in the spiritual jungle. He tells me “don’t go that way it’s quicksand, go that way!”