The United States has since October voted against four United Nations Security Council resolutions that called for peace in Gaza.
Top UN officials have called for a ceasefire, but the US government has stood in their way, facilitating further violence.
In January, the highest UN judicial authority, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), ruled that Israel must abide by the Genocide Convention and stop killing Palestinians. But Tel Aviv ignored the Hague’s decision and killed thousands more Palestinian civilians.
By vetoing a fourth Gaza-related Security Council resolution on February 20, and by continuing to provide weapons to Israel, the US government has helped Israel violate an ICJ order.
The resolution that Washington vetoed on February 20 had been introduced by Algeria, and called for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire.
In the session, 13 of the 15 members of the Security Council voted in support of the resolution. The UK abstained, and the US was the only country that voted against it.
US vetoes Algerian-led draft resolution that would have, inter alia, demanded an immediate humanitarian ceasefire that must be respected by all parties
IN FAVOR: 13
AGAINST: 1 (US)
ABSTAIN: 1 (UK)Live coveragehttps://t.co/fLIqiQv9A4 pic.twitter.com/5lqhlix7RV
— UN News (@UN_News_Centre) February 20, 2024
The 13 nations that voted in support of the resolution were permanent members China, France, and Russia, plus Algeria, Ecuador, Guyana, Japan, Malta, Mozambique, South Korea, Sierra Leone, Slovenia, and Switzerland.
United States vetoes latest draft resolution on the ongoing crisis in #Gaza
The text was put forward by Algeria on behalf of Arab States. It demanded, among other issues, “an immediate humanitarian ceasefire that must be respected by all parties”
More: https://t.co/fLIqiQv9A4 pic.twitter.com/Nd1sCDQMEf
— UN News (@UN_News_Centre) February 20, 2024
The US designed the United Nations after World War II by concentrating power in the Security Council and giving permanent seats to the war’s five victors: the US, UK, France, Russia (the former Soviet Union), and China.
The Security Council’s permanent members have veto power, which Washington has abused to advance its foreign-policy interests.
On December 9, the US vetoed another resolution in the Security Council, which had been introduced by the United Arab Emirates and called for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza.
That vote was the same: 13 countries in support, an abstention from the UK, and the US veto.
#BREAKING United States vetoes Security Council draft resolution that would have demanded an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza, and immediate and unconditional release of all hostages
VOTE
In Favour: 13
Against: 1 (US)
Abstain: 1 (UK) pic.twitter.com/hY0YcJ1JKF— UN News (@UN_News_Centre) December 8, 2023
Back on October 18, the US vetoed a resolution that had been introduced by Brazil, which the UN News Agency noted “would have called for ‘humanitarian pauses’ to deliver lifesaving aid to millions in Gaza”.
In this case, 12 countries voted in favor. The US voted against it, and two countries abstained: the UK and Russia.
US vetoes Security Council resolution that would have called for “humanitarian pauses” to deliver lifesaving aid to millions in Gaza
Favor: 12 (Albania, Brazil, China, Ecuador, France, Gabon, Ghana, Japan, Malta, Mozambique, Switzerland,UAE)
Against: 1 (US)
Abstain: 2 Russia, UK pic.twitter.com/y4tiAbRMUQ— UN News (@UN_News_Centre) October 18, 2023
Why did Russia abstain on this resolution that had been introduced by Brazil?
This was because two days before, on October 16, there was a vote on a stronger competing resolution that Russia had introduced, which called for a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza.
This had been the first resolution concerning Gaza to be introduced in the Security Council since the war began on October 7.
In this first resolution, five countries voted in support of the ceasefire: China, Gabon, Mozambique, Russia, and the UAE.
Four countries voted against it – the major imperial powers that had colonized much of the world: France, Japan, the UK, and the US.
Six countries abstained: Albania, Brazil, Ecuador, Ghana, Malta and Switzerland. (Brazil only abstained because it had introduced its own competing resolution, which was voted on two days later, and vetoed by the United States.)
The Western powers killed a UN Security Council resolution that proposed a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza
The resolution was proposed by Russia
5 countries voted for the ceasefire:
???????? China
???????? Gabon
???????? Mozambique
???????? Russia
???????? UAE4 voted against:
???????? France
???????? Japan
???????? UK
???????? US… pic.twitter.com/6UMfoRRqQH— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) October 17, 2023
US helps Israel violate ICJ ruling
The US veto of the Algerian resolution on February 20 is particularly scandalous, because Washington did it after the top legal authority on Earth, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), located at the Hague, ruled in January that Israel had to stop killing Palestinians.
The Hague stated that there is sufficient evidence to investigate Israel on charges of genocide.
The ICJ was very clear in its ruling. It ordered (emphasis added):
Israel must, in accordance with its obligations under the Genocide Convention, in relation to Palestinians in Gaza, take all measures within its power to prevent the commission of … (a) killing members of the group; (b) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.
Since this ruling, Israel has killed thousands of Palestinians in Gaza, and injured tens of thousands more.
ICJ’s Israel genocide decision: Historic victory for Palestinians and Global South
The United States has also continued to send weapons to Israel, to help it kill Palestinians – and violate the Hague’s ruling.
Israel’s war on Gaza is one of the deadliest in modern history
Meanwhile, the UN World Health Organization (WHO) reported on February 5 that roughly 100,000 Palestinians in Gaza had either been killed or wounded by Israel, or were missing – trapped under the rubble of the buildings that Israel had destroyed with US weapons.
Furthermore, the WHO estimated that “60% of the 27,019 fatalities reported by the enclave’s health authorities have been women and children… with more than 66,000 now injured and requiring medical care that remains difficult to access”.
As of February 21, Israel had killed more than 29,000 Palestinians, according to the health ministry in Gaza.
The Gaza health ministry’s data has proven to be consistently accurate. Israeli intelligence agencies have used its casualty figures for their own analysis.
Moreover, despite US President Joe Biden’s misleading claims to the contrary, multiple medical experts published peer-reviewed scientific articles in the leading medical journal The Lancet, scrutinizing the data from the Palestinian health ministry and concluding that it is accurate. If anything, the death toll is conservative, and actually understates the number of Palestinians who have been killed by Israel.
In fact, the most mainstream of media outlets in the US, the Associated Press, or AP, published a report in January titled “Israel’s military campaign in Gaza seen as among the most destructive in recent history, experts say”. It wrote (emphasis added):
The Israeli military campaign in Gaza, experts say, now sits among the deadliest and most destructive in recent history.
In just over two months, researchers say the offensive has wreaked more destruction than the razing of Syria’s Aleppo between 2012 and 2016, Ukraine’s Mariupol or, proportionally, the Allied bombing of Germany in World War II. It has killed more civilians than the U.S.-led coalition did in its three-year campaign against the Islamic State group.
The Israeli military has said little about what kinds of bombs and artillery it is using in Gaza. But from blast fragments found on-site and analyses of strike footage, experts are confident that the vast majority of bombs dropped on the besieged enclave are U.S.-made. They say the weapons include 2,000-pound (900-kilogram) “bunker-busters” that have killed hundreds in densely populated areas.
The Wall Street Journal reported in December that the US has sent Israel these 2,000-pound bunker buster bombs during the war.
The newspaper noted that, between October 7 and December 1, the US had delivered to Israel 15,000 bombs and 57,000 artillery shells.
In fact, the Biden administration has repeatedly bypassed Congress, using extraordinary measures to ship more weapons to Israel.
While US officials claim that they supposedly want a ceasefire in Gaza, the Wall Street Journal reported on February 17 that the US plans to continue shipping Israel tens of millions of dollars worth of additional weapons.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell condemns Israel’s “slaughter” in Gaza
Even the European Union, which strongly supports Israel, has publicly criticized its atrocities in Gaza.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell admitted in a press conference on February 13 that Israel is carrying out a “slaughter” in Gaza.
Borrell highlighted the “illogical” hypocrisy of the US, arguing, “If you believe that too many people are being killed, maybe you should provide less arms in order to prevent so many people being killed”.
The top European diplomat stated:
I don’t pretend to be in charge of the foreign policy of the US. I have enough with the foreign policy of European Union. But let’s be logical.
How many times have you heard the most prominent leaders and foreign ministers around the world saying too many people are being killed? President Biden said this is too much on the top; it is not proportional.
Well, if you believe that too many people are being killed, maybe you should provide less arms in order to prevent so many people being killed. It’s not logical.
…
They [Palestinians] are going to evacuate. Where? To the moon? Where are they [Israel] going to evacuate these people?
So if the international community believes that this is a slaughter, that too many people are being killed, maybe they have to think about the provision of arms.
And by the way, today [February 13], a court in the Netherlands has said, has ordered the government to stop exporting the spare parts of the F-35 fighters to Israel, in order to be sure that the International Court of Justice ruling is being implemented.
So I don’t know; every member state is an owner of its foreign policy. But this is a little bit contradictory to continue saying that there are too many people being killed, too many people being killed; please take care of people; please don’t kill so many.
Stop saying please, and do something.
Canada continues to arm Israel as well
The Canadian government has been equally hypocritical. Canada’s Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly tweeted on February 10, “We are deeply concerned by reports of an Israeli military operation in Rafah. It would have devastating impact, putting the lives of Palestinians and foreign nationals, including [Canadians], seeking refuge in grave danger and making the vital delivery of humanitarian aid dangerous”.
However, local news outlet The Maple reported that the Canadian government has approved $28.5 million worth of new permits for military equipment exports to Israel during its brutal war on Gaza.

Cure E Us
2024-02-21 at 22:53
Sure they did. That’s all they have left to offer the world: obstruction, subterfuge and belligerence.
The United States of America is a facade. It is little more than a holding company that maintains perverse wealth for the ruling class, while facilitating tax evasion through their off-shore system and secrecy jurisdictions.
The USA seems like the: Usurped Stupefied of Affliction
Carolyn L Zaremba
2024-02-24 at 14:02
I must say I agree.
Eric Arthur Blair
2024-02-22 at 08:27
There are some acts so unimaginably sickening and despicable that even a LEMSO (Lying Establishment Media Sewer Outlet) rag like the Guardian is forced to admit the reality of such EVIL. Such was the delayed, agonising murder of 6 year old girl Hind Rajab, preceded by prolonged horrific emotional and mental torture inflicted by sadistic Israelis.
First the Israeli Demonic Force snipers shot and killed her uncle, aunt and two cousins in their car. Little Hind, trapped with her dead family, pleaded on a phone to be saved by an ambulance. The IDF delayed murdering Hind so they could to use her as bait. The IDF promised safe passage to the ambulance but when it arrived they shot and killed the two ambulance officers. Whether the IDF then shot Hind was unclear, but her decomposed body was found in the car wreckage days later.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/10/im-so-scared-please-come-hind-rajab-six-found-dead-in-gaza-12-days-after-cry-for-help
This tactic has been SOP by the IDF for decades. The IDF committed MANY such “double tap” murders of Palestinian civilians then medics in 2018 during the peaceful “march of return” to the border fence by the Gazans.
The IDF now want to slaughter more than a million people they forced into the tiny area of Rafah, people suffering from starvation, dehydration, disease and hypothermia, 70% of whom are women and children.
https://www.greanvillepost.com/2024/02/17/one-more-despicable-tragedy-to-remember-missing-6-year-old-gaza-girl-hind-rajab-found-dead-with-massacred-family/
George Galloway commentary (from 14 minutes onwards)
https://podbay.fm/p/the-mother-of-all-talk-shows-with-george-galloway-662476/e/1707691714
God DAMN the foul Israelis, the foul war criminal Zionists committing heinous genocide.
God Bless and free, free, free the Palestinians.
God Bless the righteous anti-Zionist Jews who shout “not in my name” and “never again genocide for ANYONE”
Eric Arthur Blair
2024-02-22 at 23:06
The Israelites claim to be the Chosen “children of God” but their actions PROVE that they are in fact the Spawn of Satan.
Cure E Us
2024-02-23 at 16:58
Israel and Netanyahu are constructs of the United States. Just as Netanyahu must perpetuate war with the (US’ stigmatized as terrorists) Palestinians, to maintain stranglehold on career and avoid prison, the United States must also promote conflict to forestall inevitable Eastern ascension. That’s right, a few virulent-deluded tycoonocrats are underwriting their Israeli mercenary’s wholesale slaughter and devastation of: babies, mothers, youngsters, fathers, aunts, cousins, animals, hospitals, homes, infrastructure, and just about anything else you can imagine. And for what justification? It’s really all about the oil and other resources; the preservation of a fictitious/arbitrary rules-based order; and the retention of a beachhead for a schemed invasion, along with a fantastical/theoretical Ben Gurion Canal.
When I think of the nearly unprecedented atrocities perpetrated by Israel: https://www.aljazeera.com/program/newsfeed/2024/1/14/100-days-of-israels-relentless-war-on-gaza, and the sponsorship/complicity of the USA: https://news.antiwar.com/2024/02/22/14-billion-us-aid-package-for-israel-crafted-to-prepare-for-multi-front-war-not-just-gaza/, I think it just may be over for the both of them. The United States and Israel are dangerous, deranged and demented.
JonnyJames
2024-02-22 at 12:25
I recall some observers claiming that the US would not dare use the veto after the ICJ ruling. However, there was no evidence whatsoever that the US would alter its long-standing unconditional support and protection of Israel. The vast majority of us would like to see an end to the genocide, but thinking that the US would suddenly diverge from decades-long policy was wishful thinking and/or a naive belief in the power of the rule of law.
Sadly, power comes from the barrel of a gun (brute violence); there is only power and interests. (As much as I wish this were not the case)
Cure E Us
2024-02-22 at 12:32
Muchas gracias para la ilustracion, senor Ben!
The United States justifies the preservation of its usurped beachhead (Israel) by governing and condoning its enforcer’s (Israel) barbarism against innocent women and defenseless children, such as this: https://twitter.com/ajplus/status/1760048539135066575
Carolyn L Zaremba
2024-02-24 at 14:04
What are you doing to stop it? Just giving up or acting politically to rid us of these monstrous capitalists? Wishing never did anything.
Cure E Us
2024-02-24 at 23:23
What are you doing to stop it? Just giving up or acting politically to rid us of these monstrous capitalists? Wishing never did anything.
Many people have been trying to stop it:
Former President of the United States John F. Kennedy’s decision (on October 2, 1963) to begin the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Vietnam; and his assassination (55) days later.
At the Height of the Cold War, John F. Kennedy and Fidel Castro Were Exploring Ways To Normalize U.S.-Cuba Relations. https://www.cigaraficionado.com/article/jfk-and-castro-7300
Some entity doesn’t want the American public, and the world, to have peace. Who could that be?
Martin L. King jr. had a dream; however, the monstrous capitalists had other ideas. Why was MLK jr. assassinated? Listen (about 6 minutes) to what Noam Chomsky had to say about MLK jr.: https://youtu.be/7fhwTq21KRw
JonnyJames
2024-02-25 at 13:18
Carolyn: Your smart-ass comment does not address my point about brute violence no one said anything about giving up – that’s YOUR view. Please direct your anger to those who deserve it, and don’t shoot your allies.
TomB
2024-02-23 at 01:44
My question is this: why hasn’t there been a request for outside military assistance from the member states that voted for the resolution; and, secondly, why has there been no move made to issue arrest warrants for what are clear violations of international law? I think it’s definitely past time to stop jawing this to death and start taking some firm action against these war criminals.
JonnyJames
2024-02-26 at 11:43
International law is only used by the imperial hegemon in its own interests – it has been rendered a cruel joke.
The US and Israel have made it clear: anyone who tries to interfere in imperial foreign policy will be bombed into the Stone Age. Any questions?
And if that fails, the Samson Option kicks in.
Cure E Us
2024-02-26 at 12:33
Re: Why hasn’t there been a request for outside military assistance from the member states that voted for the resolution; and, secondly, why has there been no move made to issue arrest warrants for what are clear violations of international law?
I agree, and have had similar thoughts, TomB.
I think the East knows that time is on its side (as West continues decline). Right now, the East (and ME) is doing some ‘egg-shell walking.’Russia, for example, is capable of ending that conflict (Ukraine) in a much shorter time-frame; but, I think they are careful not to be seen as too aggressive, and hence, pushing U.S. backs-to-the-wall, and possibly leaving Washington with few alternatives (Washington has precedence in use of nuclear weapons and has stockpile of particularly nasty weapons (include:Bio-Warfare) they may employ in preemptive strike). The East- and ME- would prefer not to provoke hegemon – chaos is most effective weapon of West. If they are patient, East, and play their narrative objectives, world public blowback may dissuade United States from destructive path its on. Who knows for sure?
Eric Arthur Blair
2024-02-26 at 23:34
US airman immolates himself:
Aaron Bushnell yelled ‘Free Palestine!’ then lit himself on fire near the Israeli embassy in Washington, DC.
His last words:
“I am an active duty member of the US airforce and I will no longer be complicit in genocide. I am about to engage in an extreme act of protest, but compared to what Palestinians have been experiencing at the hands of their colonisers, it’s not extreme at all. This is what our ruling class has decided will be normal. Free Palestine!”
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/2/26/us-airman-who-set-himself-on-fire-outside-israeli-embassy-dies
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2024/2/26/suicide-vs-genocide-rest-in-power-aaron-bushnell