"Once again, President Joe Biden came to the rescue of Israel at the U.N. Security Council. The administration’s decision to veto a resolution sponsored by Algeria calling for an immediate ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hamas was condemned by most members of the world body, as well as many in the president’s own Democratic Party. But it was lauded by both the State of Israel and its supporters.
It was the third time since the start of the current conflict that Washington had cast the sole 'no' vote on a resolution that would have halted the fighting. Any resolution that forces Israel to stop its counter-offensive into Gaza before the complete defeat of the terrorists who began the current conflict with the largest mass murder of Jews since the Holocaust will enable Hamas not merely to survive but essentially to win the war it started.
So, as with the president’s statements supporting the goal of eliminating Hamas, as well as the continued flow of much-needed U.S. arms and ammunition to the Israel Defense Forces, it would appear that Biden truly does have Israel’s back.
But as welcome and necessary as the veto was, no one should be deceived into thinking that Israel can rely on Biden to give it the time it needs to finish the job of defeating its genocidal foe and thus ensuring its security.
A U.S. plan to save Hamas
As the speech explaining the veto (the vote was 13 in favor, one against and one abstention) given by U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Greenfield-Thomas made plain, the administration has clearly abandoned its initial stand on Hamas. Greenfield-Thomas said the reason for the veto was because it would interfere with the negotiations that the Americans are pursuing in cooperation with Hamas’s ally, Qatar, for a deal that would grant the terrorists a six-week ceasefire in exchange for the release of the remaining Israeli hostages still being held captive by the Islamist killers...
Should Hamas still be standing when the war ends, it would inevitably achieve even greater popularity among Palestinians, who have repeatedly told pollsters that they support the Oct. 7 atrocities and Hamas’s platform of waging jihad against the Jewish state. The Islamists would have proven that not only was it justified to use violence to promote their aims, but that the international community would be prepared to excuse even the most horrendous of crimes to prevent Israel from prevailing in an armed conflict. What’s more, the American promise to use the end of the war to resume a diplomatic effort to force Israel to accept a Palestinian state in not just Gaza but in Judea and Samaria, as well as part of Jerusalem, would be rightly seen as Hamas having earned not just a reprieve but a reward for their actions...
Equally important is this administration’s devotion to the United Nations itself. As Anne Bayefsky of Touro College and Human Rights Voices rightly points out, the problem is the idea that the world body is the proper venue for settling this or any dispute. The American resolution 'denies the Jewish member state its U.N. Charter legal right of self-defense,' said Bayefsky.
It also 'purports to create a ‘maritime corridor’ to Gaza and foil Israel’s ability to thwart the Iranian weapons supply chain to the terrorists killing Jews,' she continued. But more importantly, the willingness of the United States to let the United Nations be the arbiter of this conflict inevitably works to Israel’s disadvantage. 'It buys into the lie that the U.N. is playing the role of do-gooder in this conflict, instead of telling the truth that it is encouraging lethal antisemitism—murdering Jews inside Israel and beyond. It is simply dead wrong for the United States to use the U.N. as a sword of Damocles hanging over Israel’s head.'...”