The UN and Israel share direct responsibility for starvation in Gaza

After the Israeli Knesset passed a bill designating the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) as a terror organisation and banning the agency from operating in colonised Palestine, the occupation state’s foreign ministry formally notified the UN of its decision in tones that not only exhibited contempt, but also made it clear that colonialism pulls the strings at the international organisation.

As reports warn of looming famine in Gaza while Israel repeats its daily slaughter and carnage, the Foreign Ministry’s Director General Jacob Blitshtein wrote to the UN General Assembly, saying that Israel will cooperate in the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza “in a way that does not undermine Israel’s security.” Not only has Israel not cooperated with the delivery of humanitarian aid – politicians have implemented a starvation policy since the start of the genocide – but Israel has also undermined its own security and would not sustain itself were it not for the support it receives from the international community’s complicity.

However, the tone struck by Blitshtein was most visible in Israel’s expectations: “Israel expects the United Nations to contribute to and cooperate in this effort.”

This statement sum up Israel’s arrogance.

It also testifies to the UN’s complicity with Israel’s settler-colonial genocidal existence. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres refused to consider a Plan B from Palestinians. Israel created and enforced its own Plan B upon Palestinians and the UN endorsed it by referring to Israel’s security narrative. Whatever rhetorical atonement the UN came up with, and let’s not forget the humanitarian pauses, the UN is to blame as much as Israel for the genocide in Gaza.

How can an international organisation founded by colonial powers and imperialism guarantee the safeguarding of human rights? The UN endorsed Israel’s ethnic cleansing when it recognised it as a state in 1948. It allowed Israel to widen the parameters of what constitutes acceptable violence in international law. It has even accepted Israel committing genocide and refused to intervene.

And based on the imperialist politicisation of humanitarian aid, what are the odds that the UN will not cooperate with Israel over Israel’s own definition of humanitarian aid, since Israel is now defining international law based on its own strategic interests and the UN does nothing but comply tacitly? If Israel can defend committing genocide at the UN, will the UN refuse to accept Israel’s next steps in its starvation of Palestinians? Rhetoric and bureaucracy go hand in hand, and both have a platform at the UN, as does Israel.

So, what becomes of humanitarian aid now? UNRWA was already cooperating from a compromised background, its mandate extended repeatedly because the UN was never going to allow the Palestinian refugees’ legitimate right of return to be implemented; even the wording of Resolution 194 favours Israel colonialism over the ethnically cleansed and dispossessed Palestinians.

How will Israel and the UN now play with Palestinian lives and humanitarian aid when genocide is colonialism’s strongest tool? The World Food Programme has already said that it cannot replace UNRWA in Gaza.

The UN had the most pathetic response to this. “The reaction from the UN system to the bills has been swift and unequivocal,” its website states. “As the news broke on Monday, several of the most senior UN officials, up to and including Secretary General Antonio Guterres, condemned the decision.”

These high-ranking UN officials, no doubt well-fed, are merely starving Palestinians further from their privileged position. Did their “condemnation” stop Israel’s genocide? And how will condemning the Israeli decision feed Palestinians and fend off starvation?

The UN and Israel share direct responsibility for starvation in Gaza