International pressure for the freedom of Palestine must be raised

Once again, the White House has extended the lifeline to the settler occupation state by using the veto at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to drop a draft resolution demanding an immediate, permanent and unconditional ceasefire in Gaza. The 14 other members of UNSC supported the draft resolution, tabled on September 18. Only Washington decided that Palestinians could be allowed to remain without a roof or borders, and that the massacres could be covered under the pretext of the right to "self-defence" and in the so-called religious vision of "the land of Israel," embodying the idea of the global Zionist movement: "a land without a people for a people without a land."

The US veto is not a passing diplomatic measure or a surprise, but an explicit declaration that the United States is a historic partner in the aggression against the Palestinian people and the crimes related to them. It not only provided Israel with weapons, even the prohibited ones, and secured the political cover for the crime of the 21st century, but also used its authority in the Security Council to protect Israel from any international accountability. Thus, Washington, for the millionth time, does not bear the status of an "alleged mediator" but an original party in the continuation of crimes.

Israeli air strikes hit Beach camp in western Gaza City. Photo: REUTERS

The US administration insists that any ceasefire must be linked to the release of "hostages" and ensuring the "security" of Israel, the state that practises terrorism, while it does not believe that the lives of more than two million Palestinians under siege, subjected to starvation and killing, deserve security first and all the conditions associated with international law and human rights. It does not seem to believe that the Palestinian people deserve the enforcement of UN resolutions and the conditions of freedom, dignity, security, and national independence. This equation reveals the essence of American policy that Israel's security is above international law and above the principle of peoples' right to life and self-determination, and strengthening its advanced role in serving the colonial project of the entire region.

At the moment of the vote, the US was isolated while faced with almost complete consensus among the members of the UNSC. This isolation reflects not just a diplomatic division, but also the decline of Washington's "moral" position that it has claimed over the years. The world has come to see that the US veto is used as a weapon to green light and even partner in the Gaza genocide and the settlement occupation, as well as sustaining the reality of rolling annexation and apartheid in the rest of the Palestinian territories. The world also sees that the international system has been abducted to serve the interests of a superpower and its racist settler ally, Israel, although both are living in multifaceted crises. This calls for the continuation and escalation of the international pressure represented by the global intifada for the freedom of Palestine, and building and strengthening political alliances with the countries of the Global East and South.

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The US veto puts an end to any illusion that Washington may be a mediator in a peace process. It cannot shrug off the responsibility of being a party to the aggression leading to ethnic cleansing and displacement of Palestinians, using its force to perpetuate the occupation. It covers the project of displacement, starvation and destruction in Gaza and all other areas of the Occupied Palestinian State, which the countries of the world are increasingly recognising today, as well as the need to embody this recognition by taking boycott, accountability and sanctions measures leading to the immediate cessation of the genocide and ending the occupation first. This requires the Arab and Muslim peoples to reconsider their relations in a way that precedes the results and decisions of the summit held in Doha a few days ago, which did not rise to the need to consider what is happening; This is not just about the rights of Palestine, but also the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Arab countries as well. This requires peoples to put pressure on their governments to adopt independent policies that elevate their dignity first and form solidarity with Palestine.

Yousef SY Ramadan is the ambassador of Palestine to Bangladesh.

Views expressed in this article are the author's own. 

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