U.S. Said It Was Calling for a Gaza Ceasefire, But Its U.N. Resolution Didn’t Say That: Phyllis Bennis
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
March 22, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/3/22/ ... transcript
At the U.N. Security Council, China and Russia have vetoed a U.S. draft resolution on the war in Gaza. The U.S. resolution appeared to call for a ceasefire, but it was written in a way to make the resolution unenforceable. Our guest Phyllis Bennis says this was mere “wordplay” and a “convoluted” attempt by the Biden administration to play both sides, as it comes under increasing internal and external criticism over its close relationship with Israel. Bennis is a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies and an international adviser to Jewish Voice for Peace. She has written several books on U.S. foreign policy and the Middle East. When it comes to dissent over U.S. support of Israel, “the pressure is mounting in ways that I’ve certainly never seen,” she says, adding that it’s imperative for the public to continue pushing for more action, as “it’s crucial that the weapons sales be cut” and a real ceasefire be reached immediately.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is back in Israel, where he just met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. This comes as the United States has introduced a U.N. Security Council resolution for a ceasefire in Gaza.
Despite mounting international pressure, Israel is continuing its war on the besieged territory. The Israeli military raid on Al-Shifa, Gaza’s largest hospital, has entered a fifth day. Hundreds of Palestinians have been reported killed or detained by Israeli forces. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to go ahead with an invasion of Rafah, where more than half of Gaza’s entire population has sought refuge.
Blinken spoke Thursday from Cairo, Egypt.
SECRETARY OF STATE ANTONY BLINKEN: The need for an immediate, sustained ceasefire with release of hostages, that would create space to surge more humanitarian assistance, to relieve the suffering of many people and to build something more enduring.
AMY GOODMAN: A vote at the U.N. Security Council on the U.S. proposal could come as early as today, but the language of the resolution has been criticized for not going far enough. A group of nonpermanent members of the U.N. Security Council has drafted a separate resolution calling for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire. Up until now, the U.S. has repeatedly blocked calls for a Gaza ceasefire.
On Thursday, Blinken also spoke about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
SECRETARY OF STATE ANTONY BLINKEN: Children should not be dying of malnutrition in Gaza, or anywhere else, for that matter. A hundred percent — 100% of the population of Gaza is experiencing severe levels of acute food insecurity. We cannot, we must not allow that to continue.
AMY GOODMAN: Joining us now from Washington, D.C., is Phyllis Bennis, fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies. She also serves as an international adviser to Jewish Voice for Peace. Her new article in The Hill is titled “Gaza shows food airdrops often take lives instead of saving them.” She also recently wrote a piece for Al Jazeera headlined “What lies behind the Biden administration’s changing 'ceasefire' language.”
Well, let’s start there. Phyllis, if you can talk about what the U.S. has introduced into the U.N. Security Council? It could be voted on today. And also what could be voted on are the — is the resolution that has been adopted by or sponsored by eight of the elected members of the Security Council.
PHYLLIS BENNIS: Thanks, Amy.
You know, what we’re looking at here is a lot of playing with words. What is different is the language of the Biden administration — we heard it yesterday from Secretary of State Blinken, we’re hearing it from President Biden, we’re hearing it from others — using the word “ceasefire,” saying “immediate ceasefire” in some cases. We’re seeing The New York Times is saying that the U.S. is introducing a resolution at the Security Council calling for an immediate ceasefire.
That’s not the case. What the U.S. resolution calls for — and we should be clear: There has not been a formal distribution of what the U.S. is actually going to put on the table for the vote this morning. There’s at least three different versions circulating around. But they’re all about the same on the critical description. It’s in the first paragraph. The first operative paragraph of the resolution uses the language of an immediate ceasefire, but it doesn’t actually call for a ceasefire. What it does is recognize the importance of a ceasefire, and then says, “And therefore, we should support the negotiations that are underway in Doha, in Qatar.” These are the negotiations that have been underway for weeks. They are mainly focused on the release of hostages, as well as the parameters of a short-term ceasefire, probably six weeks. But the key thing is that the U.S. draft does not call for an actual Security Council call for a ceasefire.
The language of the eight of the 10 elected members of the Security Council is much simpler and much more direct. It says explicitly that the Security Council demands an immediate ceasefire, respected by all parties, leading to a sustainable ceasefire, period, full stop. The U.S. language is very convoluted. It’s various versions of “The Security Council determines the imperative of an immediate and sustained ceasefire to protect civilians on all sides,” and then says something about “And therefore, we unequivocally support the negotiations that are underway.”
So it takes all of the authority out of the Security Council, makes the council into essentially a group of cheerleaders for the existing negotiations that are underway and takes away any additional pressure that an actual Security Council demand for an immediate ceasefire would have, because Security Council resolutions, as you know, Amy, and I think most of our listeners know, is part of international law. It’s enforceable. It doesn’t mean that it would be enforced, but it’s a very powerful signal, something that an acknowledgment of the importance of a ceasefire is simply not that. It’s not that.
AMY GOODMAN: Do you think that the United States introduced this ceasefire resolution because the group of eight of the unelected [sic] members of the Security Council are introducing their resolution? And if that went forward, could the U.S. afford to veto it?
PHYLLIS BENNIS: I think that the U.S. resolution has been in preparation for quite some time. The resolution by the eight of the 10 elected members is a new development. This emerged only in the last several days. So I don’t think it’s directly in response to that.
It is clearly in response to the massive escalation of political pressure, both from governments and from civil society, certainly here in the United States, but also around the world, where there is demand, there is outrage at the United States’ position at the United Nations, which has been a consistent pattern, that’s gone on for months now, of vetoing in the Security Council any calls for a ceasefire and voting against it in the General Assembly, where it has no veto, and using pressure — economic pressure, political pressure — on other countries to encourage or, in some cases, really pressure them to vote against these resolutions. There is outrage growing. And the U.S. government and the Biden administration, in particular, is very, very isolated as a result.
Here in the United States, we’re seeing a huge escalation in the opposition to the Biden administration insistence on continuing to support Israel, sending military aid, despite the change in language, the recognition of famine that we just heard again from Secretary of State Blinken, the recognition of the humanitarian crisis that is killing people in the level of hundreds every day, and when we’re hearing from the humanitarian experts that the level of famine is at 55% of the entire population of northern Gaza right now, is at the highest possible level of absolute famine, which means, Amy, that even if food began to be delivered on a large scale today, probably hundreds, maybe even thousands, of the most vulnerable people, primarily babies and children and the elderly, would be at risk of dying because their bodies have been so undermined, so destroyed by the lack of food and water for so long. So we’re dealing with an absolute crisis, an absolute human catastrophic crisis. And what we’re hearing is wordplay at the United Nations: How can we use the language of “ceasefire” so that everybody says, “Oh, they’re calling for a ceasefire,” without calling for the ceasefire?
AMY GOODMAN: This is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaking to the Israeli parliament Tuesday about plans to invade Rafah, again, where more than half of Gaza’s entire population has sought refuge.
PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: [translated] We, of course, share this desire to allow an orderly exit of the population from Rafah and the provision of humanitarian aid to the civilian population. We have been doing this since the beginning of the war. But I made it clear to the president, Joe Biden, in our conversation that we are determined to complete the elimination of Hamas battalions in Rafah, and there is no other way to do it except by going in on the ground.
AMY GOODMAN: So, there, he’s speaking to the Israeli parliament. He also addressed Republicans in a closed-door session. And there’s a question whether the House speaker will be inviting him to address a joint session of Congress. Phyllis Bennis, if you can talk about what Netanyahu is doing, the significance of the calls for there to be new elections by none other than the majority leader in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, a real change from the way he has embraced the Israeli leadership?
PHYLLIS BENNIS: You know, Amy, this is something that has a long history in the United States. Over the last 15 years or so, there has been a significant shift in how support for — the long-standing U.S. support for Israeli military, its military support, its economic support, its political and diplomatic support — how all of that shakes out in Washington. It’s become a much more partisan issue, something that groups like AIPAC and other parts of the pro-Israel lobby have always wanted to avoid. They always wanted it to be a bipartisan consensus to support Israel. And it no longer is. The polls have been showing that for years now, that there’s a massive shift underway. It’s particularly generational, but it’s also between parties, where on the Democratic party side, support for Israel has diminished profoundly, and on the Republican side, it’s been a complete embrace of all things Israel.
What we’re seeing now is a continuation of that, certainly, with the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives, following what happened in 2015, when the Republican leadership in the House at that time invited Netanyahu, who was the prime minister then, as well, to address a joint session of Congress in order to pressure President Obama and oppose the Iran nuclear deal that was then being discussed. And it was one of these things that was diplomatically outrageous. It had never happened before. There was no consultation with the White House. Usually, when a head of state comes, they’re invited by the president. Not this time. Netanyahu ignored the White House, came at the invitation of the Republican leadership of the House and gave what amounted to a campaign speech in the U.S. Capitol, as if it was his own capitol, calling on the members of Congress to vote against their own president in the interest of his country. And in response, over 60 members, mainly of the progressive and especially the Black Caucus of the Congress, protesting the racism of Netanyahu towards President Obama, boycotted the speech — something that had never happened before.
We’re seeing, essentially, a repeat of that now, where he is emerging as a partner of the Republican opposition that is demanding more support for Israel, more money for Israel, more arms for Israel, at a time when the Biden administration itself, despite its change of language, is continuing to send more weapons and more money, trying to get Congress to approve $14 billion more in military aid to Israel without any conditions — in violation of U.S. law.
And what we’re seeing is a real shift on the political parameters. You mentioned earlier the diplomats and former military leaders in the United States who are calling for reevaluation of the U.S. aid to Israel, saying that it must be conditional, it must not continue at this level. And we’re seeing that coming from all kinds of new places, from funders of the Biden campaign. The pressure is mounting in ways that I’ve certainly never seen in decades of doing work on this issue.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to quote from the over a hundred Democratic donors and activists who’ve written to President Biden’s campaign, warning the president’s support for Israel’s assault could cost him the election, saying, quote, “Because of the disillusionment of a critical portion of the Democratic coalition, the Gaza war is increasing the chances of a Trump victory.” You have former diplomats, people from the Pentagon, the State Department, the White House, like Clinton’s national security adviser Anthony Lake — you know, deep establishment people — saying that this has to change. Yet President Biden seems to be, to say the least, dragging his feet on this. The whole issue —
PHYLLIS BENNIS: Absolutely.
AMY GOODMAN: — of weapons, sending weapons to Israel, we just learned in that Washington Post exposé over a hundred shipments of weapons through this time just under the threshold where it would have to be approved by Congress. We’re wrapping up, Phyllis, and then we’re going to talk to a doctor who particularly deals with child nutrition and hunger in Gaza. She just got out of Gaza. But we want to have your final comment on what this would mean. Yet at the same time you have senators like Van Hollen, Merkley — both went to Rafah — and others who are saying, “Cut the weapons sales.”
PHYLLIS BENNIS: It’s crucial that the weapons sales be cut.
One of the things I just want to point out in the last moments, this issue of Chuck Schumer coming out against Netanyahu, there’s a move to isolate Prime Minister Netanyahu right now. And it’s certainly appropriate. Part of the reason he’s still in power is to stay out of jail. It’s a very personal crusade on his part. But we have to be very clear that the people who are likely to replace him, if he were to either resign or be recalled in an election, they all support this war. So we should not have the illusion, that I’m afraid people like Chuck Schumer and others might have, that anybody who’s not Netanyahu should be and would be welcomed with open arms in Washington with more weapons, more hundreds of smaller weapons shipments that wouldn’t necessarily have to be approved by Congress. This is a very dangerous reality. We have to be very clear that this is a systemic decision by the Israeli leadership. This is not a one-man show in this horrific genocidal war that is being waged in Gaza. And we have to be careful not to fall into that trap of putting it all on one person and thinking that if one person is replaced, somehow that’s an answer.
AMY GOODMAN: Phyllis Bennis, fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, serves as international adviser for Jewish Voice for Peace. We’ll link to your articles in The Hill and Al Jazeera.
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“Children Are Dying”: Doctor Just Back from Gaza Describes Severe Malnutrition, Preventable Infections
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
March 22, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/3/22/ ... transcript
As Israel continues its relentless assault on Gaza, causing mass famine, injury and death, we get an update on the malnutrition and mental health crises in Gaza from Dr. Nahreen Ahmed, a pulmonary and critical care doctor and the medical director of the humanitarian aid group MedGlobal. She is recently back from a two-week volunteer trip to Gaza, where she says these crises are growing so rapidly “that even if aid was increased tomorrow, we would still be in a severe situation where the amount of food would not be enough in the immediate term.” It is a “horrific experience for all involved,” she concludes.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, as we continue our coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza. The World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned Thursday the future of an entire generation of Palestinians is in serious peril.
TEDROS ADHANOM GHEBREYESUS: On Tuesday, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification partnership said that Gaza faces imminent famine, because so little food has been allowed in. Up to 16% of children under 5 in northern Gaza are now malnourished, compared with less than 1% before the conflict began. Virtually all households are already skipping meals every day, and adults are reducing their meals so children can eat. Children are dying from the combined effects of malnutrition and disease and lack of adequate water and sanitation. The future of an entire generation is in serious peril.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re joined now by Dr. Nahreen Ahmed. She’s a pulmonary and critical care doctor based in Philadelphia, the medical director of the medical humanitarian aid group MedGlobal. Her first medical mission to Gaza was January. Earlier this month, she returned to Gaza, where she volunteered for two weeks. She left on Wednesday and is joining us now from Gaziantep, Turkey.
Dr. Ahmed, thanks so much for being with us as you’ve just come out of Gaza. Talk about what you’ve seen in terms of child hunger.
DR. NAHREEN AHMED: Yeah. Thank you for having me and for this opportunity to speak about what’s going on.
This was, as you mentioned, my second trip back, and it was pretty clear how rapidly the malnutrition has risen in Gaza. I had the ability to actually go and see what was happening in the north, as well. I’ll start with what’s happening in the south.
MedGlobal has a stabilization center that’s in the south of Gaza that is purely to treat malnutrition. So, the situation is so bad that there needs to be specific centers that are primarily treating patients with malnutrition. As was mentioned before in the broadcast, the most vulnerable population here are children under 5. But we are also seeing that pregnant and lactating women are suffering from this, as well, and there’s a rapid increase in malnutrition across mothers, as well. You can imagine that these two things are connected, as children under 5 or newborn babies are receiving nutrition from their parents, from their mother. And with the fact that mothers are also experiencing malnutrition, we’re seeing that newborn babies are being born at an astoundingly low weight. Infections are happening very rapidly at these young ages as a consequence. And again, mothers are going through the mental health crisis of experiencing the inability to feed their children because of their own level of malnutrition.
The percentages of malnutrition from when I went in January to when I just returned now have doubled. That’s in practically a month’s time. And as was already mentioned, this situation is happening so rapidly that even if aid was increased tomorrow, we would still be in a severe situation where the amount of food would just not be enough in the immediate term. And so, this is what I, unfortunately, witnessed with my own eyes.
AMY GOODMAN: And can you talk about what it means when children in incubators, when a little older children experience malnutrition, how they are able to cope, if they get some kind of aid, they go out of the hospital, being more vulnerable, and especially in the, to say the least, extremely harsh conditions now of Gaza?
DR. NAHREEN AHMED: Yeah. So, I mean, you know, thinking about this, first of all, this is not just a problem that’s solved by the nutrition therapeutic feedings that we’re giving. This is a cyclical problem that, first of all, one, it’s very painful. A child suffering from hunger, this is an extremely painful thing to experience.
Two, the access to food once somebody is released from an inpatient unit is still going to be a problem. We see children chasing after trucks where food distribution is happening. We see children chasing with water bottles to the water distribution trucks. I mean, this is a situation that is also degrading for them, to have to experience finding food and water in this way.
Lastly, you know, when we talk about vulnerability, we’re talking about vulnerability to infections. This is what we’re seeing the most in a hospital in the north of Gaza, where almost every single patient that I saw in the inpatient pediatrics unit was suffering from malnutrition. Each of these children had an infectious complication. Either they were suffering from liver disease from rampant hepatitis A from lack of access to clean water, or they had severe pneumonias that they were even more vulnerable to complications of because of the level of malnutrition, or, you know, diarrheal diseases that were happening for the same reasons. And so, children are dying from infectious processes, as well, the complications of having severe malnutrition. All of these issues are preventable. All of these issues are preventable.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to turn to Hala Ashraf Deeb, a Palestinian who has nothing to feed her children.
HALA ASHRAF DEEB: [translated] What has this child done to suffer from hunger? I cannot find milk for five shekels or a packet of milk from the agency. There, the normal milk is for 150. There is no work. There is no food, no drinks. We are eating plants. We started eating pigeon food, donkey food. We are like animals.
AMY GOODMAN: That is a Palestinian mother in Gaza. The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, is calling the situation in northern Gaza beyond desperate. Maybe that’s why the Israeli government wants them to be — to lose all their funding, the most comprehensive agency for Palestinians there in Gaza. In a post on X, UNRWA said its staff visited Kamal Adwan Hospital, and “fuel and medical supplies were delivered, but aid is just a trickle. Food needs to reach the north now to avert famine,” UNRWA said. You went to that hospital. Can you describe also the difference between January and now? And what about the doctors and the medical staff? How are they dealing with all of this?
I think we just lost Dr. Nahreen Ahmed, so we’re going to go to a break and see if we can get her back. Dr. Nahreen Ahmed is a pulmonary and critical care doctor based in Philadelphia, medical director of the medical humanitarian aid group MedGlobal. She just got out of Gaza and is speaking to us from Gaziantep, Turkey. Back in a minute.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: Nina Simone singing “Mississippi Goddam.” In a moment, we’re going to go to Mississippi, where a so-called Goon Squad, self-described, of police officers and sheriff’s deputies have just been sentenced to years in prison for torturing their victims. But we’re going to see if we can now resume our contact with the doctor just out of Gaza. But first, we’re going to keep looking at the looming famine there. This is Amber Alayyan with Médecins Sans Frontières — that’s Doctors Without Borders — speaking at the United Nations on Tuesday.
DR. AMBER ALAYYAN: The hospitals rely on quota systems for how many drugs they keep in their pharmacies, in their stocks in each department. And they have to choose between whether do I fully stock my operating theater, my ICU or my emergency room. And this is where you have doctors faced with horrific decisions of having to intubate and amputate children and adults without anesthetics in emergency rooms.
Part of the reason for this is the lack of medications or the lack of medications accessible at that time. Part of the reason is that we have internally displaced people living in hospitals, sheltering in hospitals, because they have nowhere safe to go. And what that means is they are staying in hospital beds. So, what does that mean for injured people? They arrive, they get a quick and dirty surgery in an emergency room or in an operating theater, and they have nowhere to be hospitalized afterward, or when they are, they are lost all throughout the hospital, and our teams spend all day searching for the patient that they just operated on 12 hours before.
What does this mean over the long run? The longer this war goes on, the longer these wounds have to rot. And I mean really rot. The infections are getting worse and worse, and it’s horrific. It’s horrific for our providers, and it’s absolutely horrific for these patients.
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Amber Alayyan is with Doctors Without Borders. She went on to describe how the humanitarian crisis in Gaza is impacting women and children.
DR. AMBER ALAYYAN: Two populations are particularly vulnerable. Pregnant and lactating women, who were already facing iron deficiency anemia before the war, which puts them at risk for hemorrhage during birth, with the war, it puts them in a state of undernourishment or malnutrition, potentially malnutrition, which means that they can’t breastfeed their children properly. The milk doesn’t necessarily come in, and it’s definitely not enough. And the other population is children under 2 years, which is the breastfeeding age.
There’s not enough space for us to work closely with the mothers to help them start lactating again. We can’t even access them. And to be able to do that, you have to have day-to-day activities with those women, and that is not something that’s possible for us right now. Those children need to be breastfed. If they can’t be breastfed, they need formula. To have formula, you need clean water. None of these things are possible. What we’re talking about is women who are squeezing fruits, dates into handkerchiefs, into tissues, and feeding — drip-feeding their children with some sort of sugary substance to nourish them.
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Amber Alayyan of Médecins Sans Frontières, Doctors Without Borders, speaking at the United Nations on Tuesday. We’re rejoined with Dr. Nahreen Ahmed, pulmonary and critical care doctor based in Philadelphia, just out of Gaza on Wednesday. She’s speaking to us from Gaziantep, Turkey. If you could go on to talk about, Dr. Ahmed, the mental health situation of the people in Gaza, particularly children?
DR. NAHREEN AHMED: Yeah. The mental health situation is devastating. Prewar, 50% of Gazan children were experiencing some PTSD from prior conflicts. It’s important for us to remember that this is not the first time that they’ve experienced this kind of trauma. Given that 50% of children were experiencing that, we’re up to probably 100%, presumably, of children who are experiencing trauma based on the day-to-day proximity to missile strikes and experiencing what they’re experiencing.
Our team that went with me this last week, in a collaboration with an organization called MeWe International, we actually went to several of our medical access points in shelters across Rafah, and we spoke to women and children about what they’re experiencing, and initiated a community-based approach towards providing mental health support. And this was using things like music, activity, very low cost because it’s so hard to get supplies or — you know, when it comes to mental health, we’re not just talking about medications. We’re talking about the ability to give agency and a voice and empowerment back to people.
And what we heard was the amount of children just unable to dream. That’s what’s the first thing they tell us, that “We have no dreams. We used to have dreams. We have no dreams. We cannot imagine that our lives will ever go back to normal.” We’ve heard children say, “I just want to go home. I want to be back in the safety of my home.” In an exercise that we did with a group of women and children — and this was mothers and their children, caregivers and their children — the number one thing, when asked for people to think — for them to think about a positive — something positive that they could hold onto, they would draw a picture of them returning to their home. This was overwhelmingly the number one thing. And most of these children have been displaced more than one time. And they just talk about how much they miss their home, how much they miss playtime activities, playing with children, going to school. We met so many children and adolescents who just wanted to be back in school. They’re missing that opportunity to have any kind of intellectual stimulation, and it’s causing a great deal of depression, anxiety, and just absolute a horrific experience for all involved.
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Ahmed, we thank you so much for being with us. Dr. Nahreen Ahmed is a pulmonary and critical care doctor based in Philadelphia with the group MedGlobal. She’s medical director of the medical humanitarian aid group. Her first medical mission to Gaza was January. She just left Gaza on Wednesday, speaking to us from Gaziantep, Turkey.