On December 2nd, 2023 Vice President Kamala Harris remarked on the “conflict” between Israel and Hamas as written in the White House briefing. And to clarify in the briefing, it has been singled out that Israel has the right to defend itself. The outstanding remark that stands to be questioned is that from the beginning of the briefing, it is emphasized that, “We cannot conflate Hamas with the Palestinian people”. To differentiate the ideas of Hamas independent from that of the Palestinian people is necessary to maintain actualized responses. But from the point of non-conflation with the organization and the civilians of the de-facto governing body, where did the policies of the US align in the repetitive use of the statement that Israel has the right to defend itself. This right isn’t provisioned to be an inherent right, although this right in the UN charter has been clearing the way for other countries to play a role in conflicts, independent of the nature of the conflict but moreover to serve the interests of the nations involved in a way of appeasement and profit.

The “war” did not remain between Israel and Hamas, and the people of Palestine were in fact conflated with Hamas in Israel’s retaliation. In the department press briefing on October 1st, 2024, spokesperson Mathew Miller spoke of Hamas being unwilling to engage in talks of ceasefire with no fault in the efforts of the US and further stated that “it’s because the terrorist organization that Iran has sponsored for years and years and years has refused to come to the table. So if Iran wants to use the breakdown of ceasefire talks as an excuse for its actions today, it needs to point to the terrorist group that it controls. It’s Hamas that has been responsible in recent weeks for the breakdown of those talks”. In stark contrast to the responses of Mathew Miller, the timeline of ceasefire talks as put forward by Al Jazeera focuses on Israeli Prime Minister, Netanyahu and his reluctance to put an end to the attacks. In June, Netanyahu had admitted that he wants a partial-deal to return Israeli captives but not put an end to a horrifying war. Netanyahu has repeatedly rejected proposals put forward by the UNSC and it has been condoned by the US in exercising Veto. The extension of any truces was met with collapse. On March 26th the US abstained from the UNSC ceasefire proposal which passed with 14 out of the 15 members of the council in favour. UNSC resolutions are put forward as binding and that is provisioned by Article 25 of the UN charter which was ratified by the US. The US state department spokesperson Mathew Miller had then proceeded to tell reporters, “It is a non-binding resolution”. Palestine remains a non-member observer state of the UN. Before the vote for the Monday resolution, the word ‘permanent’ was removed from the resolution to gather consensus for a ceasefire at least for the month of Ramadan. Russia had emphasised the need for using the word in the resolution because otherwise there would be enough holes in the resolution left, for Israel to resume its military operations after Ramadan.

The researchers at Brown University had estimated that the Biden administration provided 17.9 billion dollars in addition to the military assistance annually already received by Israel since the beginning of the war that is now an inadequate terminology and should be replaced with genocide across media. The former State Department official Mike Casey said that the US government “receive all of our reporting, they have everything we write and they just disregard it”. He had told Al Jazeera that, “we ignore Palestinian suffering. We accept the Israeli government narrative of events even if we know it’s not true, and we really pursue Israel’s interests. We do not pursue our own interests.” The interests of the US appear to be self-interest and foreign policy.

Mathew Miller’s response to a statement regarding; what the Secretary’s op-ed in foreign affairs today has written, and Mr Miller’s attempts to point out the encouragement from the US towards Iran not to launch escalatory strikes is most unfortunate, was met with the witness of countries in the middle east that welcome US engagement stating that the US is “the only country that can play this diplomatic role. There’s no other country in the region or the world that can play a role in trying to de-escalate this conflict and so they want us to stay at it, and we’ll continue to stay it”. The US has vetoed efforts made by the UNSC for the fourth time under Biden’s administration since the war began, on grounds of it being an “unconditional” ceasefire. The hostages could be relieved after ceasefire as stated by Majed Bamya, the state of Palestine’s deputy UN envoy. Gaza’s Health Ministry reported that a total of 45,854 Palestinians have been killed since October 7th, 2023. The UNSC’s veto system has proven to be flawed. And its blatant disregard by Israel has been tolerated, and condoned by the US. “This was true a year ago; this is even more true today. A ceasefire doesn’t resolve everything but it is the first step towards resolving anything,” Majed Bamya had said. “The world should not grow accustomed to the death of Palestinians, to seeing Palestinian children starving, to seeing mothers carrying their children from one place to another, forcibly displaced,”. “The fact we are Palestinians does not make that less shocking or less outrageous. Maybe for some we have the wrong nationality, the wrong faith, the wrong skin colour — but we are humans and we should be treated as such.”

The Hindu had published a news article updated on the 25th of December titled “Pope calls for ‘arms to be silenced’ in Christmas appeal”. There was a UN resolution called for Ramadan, and now for Christmas. It appears that to put an end to genocide the world must appeal for it in times of celebration, and that too for the duration of the holiday or festival using it to negotiate peace. It seems as though no one made another negotiation for ceasefire as a New Year’s resolution, as Israeli military strikes commence just as new ceasefire talks begin, with threats to banish UNRWA.

A wait might befall the rest of the world as genocide obliterates a nation-state. A wait for another religious holiday may be the only window for at least a short-term resolution for a ceasefire. Wait till Easter, perhaps?

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