Journalist Elijah Magnier slammed the US for its disavowal of the Security Council’s ceasefire resolution while also criticizing Israeli conduct in Gaza. “They know they are doing [war crimes],” said the analyst.
The Biden administration made waves on Monday when its delegation to the UN abstained during a Security Council vote calling for a ceasefire in the besieged Gaza Strip. The act was significant as the US has vetoed three previous resolutions with similar language.
The passage of the statement raised hopes that violence could finally come to an end in the enclave as Israel’s nearly seven month-long operation has left over 32,000 Palestinians dead, most of them thought to be civilians.
But the US immediately backpedaled in the hours since, insisting the Security Council resolution is “non-binding.” The Biden administration’s statements have caused analysts like Elijah Magnier to conclude the country is using the UN merely to manage its relationship with Israel, damaging the authority of international law and threatening world peace in the process. The journalist offered his thoughts during a discussion on Sputnik’s Fault Lines program Tuesday.
“First of all the resolution was [drafted] with the word ‘permanent’ ceasefire, and then the Americans rejected the word ‘permanent’ and changed it with a ‘lasting’ ceasefire,” explained Magnier. “And there’s a big difference between a ‘lasting’ ceasefire and a ‘permanent’ ceasefire. A lasting ceasefire implies a cessation of hostility that is intended to be stable and enduring, but not necessarily to be part of a comprehensive peace agreement that addresses all the issues that the Israelis and the Palestinians have been fighting about since 1948.”
“It also requires a mechanism of verification of the ceasefire that has not been put in place,” he noted. “The Americans came out after the meeting of the Security Council with something so absurd by the US ambassador saying, ‘well, this resolution is non-binding.’”
The statement was made by White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby during a press conference after the vote. The Biden administration has taken pains to insist the United States’ relationship with Israel hasn’t changed in light of the UN resolution. But Magnier said such statements do great damage to the power and legitimacy of international law.
“If you look at Article 25 of the UN charter, all members of the United Nations agreed to… accept and carry out the decision,” said the journalist, noting that Security Council resolutions are intended to be binding and enforced by members. “Every single US official came out to say, ‘oh, this is a non-binding resolution,’ undermining international laws.”
“If these laws are not implemented we live in the world of the jungle, we don’t live in an institution and we don’t live in international law.”
The veteran war correspondent, who has reported from Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Sudan, Afghanistan, and Yugoslavia, said the erosion in international cooperation seriously threatens the world’s ability to peacefully resolve global conflicts.
“At this point I think the whole world needs something to happen because the Second World War brought the United Nations,” Magnier said. “Do we need a third World War to change the world constitution and start putting a mechanism in place where all countries should abide by international laws? Because it seems the Americans are cherry picking who can implement international laws and who cannot.”
“When the United Nations Security Council is told by a permanent member, i.e., the US, that this binding resolution is non-binding, then we have a serious problem worldwide,” he added.
Israeli newspaper The Times of Israel crowed about the United States’ obstruction in an article published on Monday, writing, “it demonstrates the highly limited influence the UN has when weighing into conflicts around the world.”
But Magnier said the passage of the resolution is a blow to Israel, which carefully attempts to manage its international reputation despite frequently criticizing the UN and disregarding its resolutions.
“The Israelis give a lot of importance for their image,” said the reporter. “This is why when the United Nations is accusing Israel and asking for a ceasefire, that is a demand that the Israelis can ignore, but with consequences… But nothing is going to force the Israelis to implement a resolution when they have already disregarded 64 other United Nations resolutions agreed [to] by the Americans, not abstained by the Americans, in relation to Palestine, and they have never implemented.”
The correspondent claimed the sadism and brutality of the Israeli military is unprecedented during his time as a journalist.
“In my field experience, with 35 years of war, I have never seen an army taking pictures, taking videos, posting videos on social media and showing all the war crimes that [they] are doing, laughing and [not] giving a damn about world opinion or about international laws,” Magnier claimed. “They are committing war crimes, they know they are doing it. They’re committing crimes against humanity… and they say, ‘we don’t care what you think. One day you will forget.'”
Video has circulated of Israeli soldiers stripping men down to their underwear and rifling through women’s panty drawers after forcing their way into Palestinian homes. Recent footage of the IDF firing on and killing three unarmed Gazan civilians drew widespread condemnation online.
“People [in Gaza] spend all their time in the middle of the month of Ramadan just begging for a bowl of soup or a bowl of meat once a day at the end of the day, and they have no strength to continue,” said Magnier. “And this is happening in the south. In the north it’s ten times worse.”
