President Joe Biden's decision to have the United States abstain, and thus allow passage of the United Nations Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza was the right call. The resolution demands an immediate ceasefire and the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages. By allowing the resolution to pass the U.S. has staked out a position in favor of ending this horrible war, and in opposition to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's prioritization of his political well-being over the current and future good of Israelis and Palestinians alike.
Since the horrific attacks of Oct. 7 and the subsequent Israeli retaliation on Gaza, the U.S. has maintained its traditional role of backstopping Israel at the UN by vetoing three previous ceasefire resolutions. Biden has also continued to provide Israel with military aid, and, in an unprecedented move, sent U.S. aircraft carriers to the region to ensure that a wider conflict did not break out. All this despite hostility toward the Biden administration and the Israeli government's abnegation of its responsibility for providing food, water, and medical care to those whose land it occupies.
It's true, without the U.S. running diplomatic interference, there would be more than enough UN resolutions criticizing Israel to fill a very large storage facility. And even if you believe these are essentially toothless, the fact remains that the UN does express world opinion. The Obama administration's abstention on a UN resolution demanding a halt to Israeli settlements is still used by the right to "prove" that Democrats don't really support Israel. The resolutions matter because world leaders think that they matter, and in this case, they do.
But as pollster and analyst Dahlia Scheindlin said this week, this Israeli government has never excelled at taking responsibility, let alone feeling shame. Providing diplomatic cover for this Israeli government was not helping the situation on the ground or doing the Biden administration any good; if anything, it demonstrated that despite Netanyahu's worst provocations, he thought they had a blank check signed by Joe Biden.
It was past time to disabuse him of this notion. Anyone who thought that the UN abstention would make Netanyahu change his position was naive. Instead, he responded by canceling the previously scheduled Israeli visit of two of his ministers, Ron Dermer and Tzachi Hanegbi, to Washington to discuss the impending invasion of Rafah. Dermer is perhaps even less popular than Netanyahu in Washington. So, why cancel when it clearly means that there is no possibility for American understanding or support for the invasion of Rafah, which Netanyahu insists that he will pursue?
Netanyahu did so because, although he refuses to heed the constant Israeli (and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer's) calls for new elections, he is also already in full campaign mode. And he has decided that his primary opponent this time is not Benny Gantz, Yair Lapid or Yair Golan, but instead it is Joe Biden. Netanyahu is shifting from his claims that he is the one leader who can "manage the Americans" to a new claim, that he is the one leader who can defeat the Americans.
Netanyahu has pushed Joe Biden, a lifelong self-proclaimed and proven Zionist, to the point where he has been forced, and I do mean forced, to clarify that supporting Israel's prime minister is no longer the same thing as supporting Israel. He has been forced to let the world see the daylight between the U.S. and Israel. And, if Netanyahu does as he insists he will and invades Rafah, I believe that Biden will be forced to halt the shipping of offensive weapons to Israel (he will still supply Iron Dome and other defensive measures). If this happens, it's not on Biden. No, if this happens, it is the single largest failure of any Israeli prime minister.
By abstaining and allowing the passage of the UNSC ceasefire resolutions, Biden has made it clear that this war needs to come to an end. Every bit of sympathy that Israel rightfully garnered in the aftermath of the horrors of Oct. 7 has been squandered in the service of a prime minister desperately trying to save his job, along with the fascists and fanatics who enable him. He has even turned against the understandably desperate families of the hostages and now uses their plight as just another political talking point.
Despite the original and very real justifications for this war, the government of Israel is now responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocent people and the imminent starvation of so many more. Given that truth, abstaining from a common-sense and balanced UN resolution should be only the first step in constraining a government that has lost all semblance of legitimacy.
It is up to us, those who love Israel and want to see it survive and prosper, those who know that can only happen when there is justice and equity for Palestinians as well, to also take responsibility for the actions of a country we have loved all our lives. We must tell our American leaders that we will not countenance mass starvation and casualties in the name of non-existent "security." We must make clear that we actively oppose an Israeli government that disregards and dishonors every Jewish and humanistic value.
Hadar Susskind is an Israeli-American, an IDF combat veteran, and the president and CEO of Americans for Peace Now.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
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