Dec. 7—The barbaric, agonizing destruction of Gaza by an Israeli government with no long-term thought to its own interests, calls upon us all to demand an end to geopolitics and its replacement by a paradigm of international and human affairs informed by love for the uniquely creative potential of the human individual.
“We are uniting together in this moment to call for a ceasefire, the release of all hostages, and a commitment towards a long-term political solution that ensures the freedom and collective safety of Israelis and Palestinians,” reads a letter signed by hundreds of professionals at Jewish organizations in the U.S. “When we read in Beresheit (Genesis) that God created human beings in God’s image, we learn that each and every human life is sacred. Jewish tradition teaches that every death is another world destroyed…. Over 17,000 worlds have been destroyed in this war, and many more hang in the balance.”
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres’s invocation of Article 99 of the UN Charter, to demand that the UN Security Council insist on a ceasefire in Gaza, received new support today from the European Union, when EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell posted on X this morning: “I ask the EU members of the UN Security Council and like-minded partners to support UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres’s call. The UNSC must act immediately to prevent a full collapse of the humanitarian situation in Gaza.”
The 22 Arab League member states at the United Nations, in coordination with those of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, are preparing a new ceasefire resolution to present to the UN Security Council. The resolution will be introduced by the United Arab Emirates, currently a member of the UN Security Council.
The pressure is having an effect! The UN’s news website reports that the UN Security Council will hold an emergency meeting at 10 a.m. EST on Friday, Dec. 8, to discuss the Israel-Palestine situation, which Guterres said threatens “potentially irreversible implications for Palestinians as a whole and for peace and security in the region.”
The UN played an important role in peacefully resolving the Suez Crisis of 1956. Will the people of the world help it to rise to the occasion today?
Or, will the U.S. and U.K. be allowed to prolong the devastation, by vetoing the ceasefire resolution?
Every minute’s delay in ending the fighting means more lives lost.
Although the U.S. and U.K. seem dead-set against any UN measures to limit Israel’s actions, the political cost, both internationally and domestically, of the United States continuing to arm, finance, and protect the Netanyahu government’s barbaric war to eradicate Palestinians and Palestine has risen enormously as Gaza nears total destruction.
Will you mobilize to make those political stakes for the Biden administration unbearable?
