Austin becomes latest US official to visit Israel as Biden administration presses for strategy shift from Netanyahu
CNNDec 18, 2023
UN Security Council Passes Gaza Resolution
The Facts
The UN Security Council passed a UAE-sponsored resolution on Friday calling for "safe, unhindered, and expanded humanitarian access and to create the conditions for a sustainable cessation of hostilities," as well as "the protection of civilians, calls for urgent and extended humanitarian pauses and corridors throughout the Gaza Strip for a sufficient number of days." The resolution also called for the release of hostages held in Gaza; the vote passed with two abstentions from the US and Russia.
The vote was initially scheduled to be held on Monday but was delayed four times due to negotiations with the US regarding the resolution's wording and the mechanism for delivering and monitoring humanitarian aid. The US — which vetoed a resolution on Gaza earlier this month — argued that a UN-created monitoring mechanism for aid delivery would slow the process down, and Israel is currently undertaking monitoring. A US official said that Israel "can live with" the resolution and an Israeli official said that Israel was "grateful for the US efforts to address the most problematic elements in the proposed resolution."
The Spin
Pro-establishment narrative
Though, of course, Israel has a right to dismantle Hamas' military capabilities, it must wage this war in a humane way. The amount of civilians being killed will only galvanize Palestinians against peace and push them into the arms of Hamas. A more thorough and surgical campaign is now needed to eliminate Hamas's leadership in Gaza, as Israel is losing global support.
Pro-Israel narrative
Though this has been a tragic war, Israel cannot allow Hamas to survive. Though it seems that the Biden admin. wants to pressure Israel into a ceasefire, Israel must push back against such short-sighted thinking. Israel is a sovereign country and has the right to defend itself from terrorism and pursue its own interests. Hamas's military capabilities must be eliminated so that the group can never launch a terrorist attack like Oct. 7 again.
Pro-Palestine narrative
Israel continues to demonstrate that its war is not against Hamas but against the Palestinian people as a whole. Nowhere in Gaza is safe, and Israel has effectively rendered the north of the strip unlivable. Israel is killing Palestinians at an unprecedented rate and clearly wants to make the Gaza Strip unlivable. Though the US, Israel's biggest ally, wants to minimize the war's intensity, it must instead exert more pressure to end the war completely.
Nerd narrative
There's a 35% chance that at least 500,000 Palestinians will be displaced from Gaza before December 31st, 2025, according to the Metaculus prediction community.