THREAD: The role of the 'monitoring mechanism' in the UN Security Council's #GazaCeasefire negotiations >
Back on Monday, the UNSC started discussions on another UAE-provided draft for a #GazaCeasefire resolution. It has still not gone to a vote. News rpts indicate the hold-up is the desire to find wording that does not "force" the US to cast another veto >
And also that one key issue of dissension between the US and the rest is the mention in the current version of a UN-organized *monitoring mechanism* to speed up delivery of aid into Gaza >
That screengrab of the draft resn was from this UN web-page that gives live(-ish) updates of the discussions on this resolution. But it's significant the page hasn't been updated since Tuesday afternoon: news.un.org
So the key aspect of that monitoring mechanism language is that the resolution's supporters want this mechanism to be "independent of all parties". Yes, that includes Israel, which since 1967 has controlled all movements of goods & people into and out of the Strip. >
It does that because, under international law, it is classified as the "military occupying power" in #Gaza. Has been, continuously since 1967. It's used its control of all Gaza's borders to exert massive pressure on the strip's 2.3 million people. >
You can find a lot of solid info on how Israel has used that power at this page on the website of the Israeli human-rights orgn Gisha: features.gisha.org. >
I'll come back with more takes from the Gisha site soon. But I want to note here that in several of the essays I wrote at Globalities.org last month on good (or less-bad) ways to exit the carnage in #Gaza, >
I stressed the need for the UN to seize control of the freight-traffic monitoring mechanism from Israel. This serves two good goals. #1 it should end the abusive cruelty that Israel has operated thru the freight monitoring system. >
#2, it could (should!) serve as a wedge through which the UN *ends Israel's occupation of Gaza once and for all.* See, e.g. this essay I published Nov 17: globalities.org >
(I certainly hope that significant parties to the UNSC discussion see this issue in the same way...) >
Another strong argument for Israel's control of the monitoring mechanism to be ended is that, really, it did not work prior to Oct 7 in terms of preventing the resistance's ability to build large-scale military systems, offensive & defensive. Though it did inflict huge pain on Gaza's civilians >
So before I dive into the info on Gisha's website, it's also key to note that the leaders in both Washington and Israel continue to assume that it is they, and only they, who will decide the future of of Gaza on the 'Day After' this carnage ends. >
See e.g. this piece today by the WaPo's CIA-adjacent David Ignatius: washingtonpost.com >
Here's an excerpt that illustrates their thinking:
I won't even go into the many glaring contradictions, inconsistencies, & gross misjudgments that little this piece... though it is interesting to see the "magical thinking" in which David's well-placed sources like to engage. >
Or, there is this from Haaretz's smart, well-connected columnist Amos Harel yesterday: haaretz.com >
Here's a little excerpt from that one:
Two fascinating tidbits there: One, that Washington is giving strong "recommendations" to the Israeli leadership on how to wage this war. Making it, I would say, deeply complicit in the whole war campaign. >
And two, Harel repeating something he and others have written about quite a lot recently, namely that Netanyahu fears his government may collapse when he ends the war. >
But anyway, the key thing I want to underline is the degree to which officials (& most commentators) in both Israel and DC seem to simply *assume* that they will be the only 2 parties determining when & how the war ends. >
But now, the other 14 members of the UNSC are starting (I think) to tell Washington that they want the UN to have a direct role in that matter. >
I wrote a lot on Globalities.org, back in October & November, about the fact that the global balance of power has shifted significantly since the 1990s, an era when a hegemonic US could almost effortlessly usurp the role of sole arbiter on matters of war and peace in the Arab-Israeli theater >
Indeed, how in 2004-05, Washington was even able to enlist the UN as a *junior partner* in that hideous, DC-led body the "Quartet". So now >
Will it be possible for the multipolar networks that will very soon be replacing the US-dominated unipolar world system to find a way for the UNSC to grab back control of the whole Arab-Israeli dossier? I sure hope so-- for the sake of all humanity! >
But meantime, here are few more bits of information about how the freight-crossing monitoring mechanism has been working (or, by Israel's deliberate intention, NOT working) in recent times >
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