Diplomatic games and genocide

Antony Blinken apparently told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week that, “You need a coherent plan, or else you’re going to be stuck in Gaza.” According to the US Secretary of State, Netanyahu’s genocidal actions will either consolidate Hamas in Gaza or lead to anarchy and more “terrorism”. Blinken needs to refer to the definition of genocide and link it to what Israel is doing in Gaza. The diplomatic status quo is long gone.

Nevertheless, the diplomatic games continue. At the UN Security Council, the US abstained from a vote on a draft resolution calling for a ceasefire during Ramadan. The resolution itself didn’t call for much; the timeframe is too short. And yet, even for a short period, the US cannot bring itself to vote to stop Israel killing more Palestinian civilians. Not even in a non-binding resolution.

The absurdity of the UNSC and the US abstaining because the vote did not condemn Hamas is reminiscent of petty quarrels between children.

“Certain key edits were ignored,” US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield offered by way of explanation. The resolution wasn’t supposed to be about the US, and certainly not about Israel. But, of course, at the Security Council, and during every diplomatic interaction, why shouldn’t the focus be on appeasing Israel instead of preventing genocide? Why not request Israel to stop killing Palestinians for what remains of Ramadan, for just two weeks? Let Palestinians live for two weeks longer, while starving to death of course, and kill them later. That is the essence of the latest UN resolution. And nothing embodies it more than the US.

Still playing the alienation game, Netanyahu immediately cancelled the scheduled visit of a delegation to Washington after the US failed to veto the resolution. The gimmick makes it seem as if Blinken’s warning was the lead-up to a rupture in US-Israeli diplomatic relations, when nothing could be further from the truth.

Israel wants to complete the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians in Gaza. The US has no objection to this; it only objects, in fact, when the international clamour gets too loud, and the intention is only to soothe outraged diplomats temporarily, which buys Israel more time for the next phase of its genocide.

Blinken did not consider whether any Palestinians will be left in Gaza after the genocide. Nor did he explain what he meant by “stuck in Gaza” in terms of Israeli colonialism. More settler-colonial expansion, perhaps? Israel’s extreme far-right settler society is already talking about building settlements in Gaza. If the world knows that, surely Blinken knows that, and more.

What the US has exposed in its support for Israel’s genocide is that there is no longer any pretence of supporting a hypothetical Palestinian state. Blinken knows that Gaza is the bulwark in terms of its representation of historic Palestine. He also knows that the US can stop Israel, but it won’t. And the louder that Israel’s actions speak for themselves, the more that diplomacy becomes both absurd and superfluous, because what excuse can really be termed as credible when the only way to stop Israel’s genocide is by taking direct action to stop it? Ending the supply of US and German arms and ammunition to the apartheid state would be a good first step.

Diplomatic games and genocide