UNITED NATIONS:
The balanced Jordanian-led resolution calling for a “humanitarian truce” in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict survived a last-minute Western attempt to tilt the draft in Israel’s favour as it collapsed due to some hard work by its sponsors and a compelling speech by Pakistan’s top diplomat Munir Akram.
Canada, backed by the United States, moved an amendment ahead of the vote in the UN General Assembly that would have the draft unequivocally reject and condemn “the terrorist attacks by Hamas” in Israel which started on October 7 and the taking of hostages.
In return, Canadian Ambassador Robert Rae, on behalf of the amendment’s sponsors, said if that language was worked into the Jordanian text, they would all vote for it. The offer to back the resolution was meant to gather support for the Israeli push to seek international condemnation of Hamas,
Significantly, India, now a strategic ally of Israel, voted for the amendment which failed to muster the required two-thirds majority, having received 88 votes in favour to 55 against, with 23 abstentions.
During the lunch break the resolution’s sponsors lobbied with delegates to ensure that it retained sufficient support for passage in the 193-member Assembly.
Ambassador Akram, the permanent representative of Pakistan to the UN, spearheaded the effort to defeat the amendment as the Assembly prepared to take action on it.
In a well-reasoned speech, he appealed to all member states not to support the Canadian amendment which, he called, one-sided, unequal and unfair.
While the Canadian envoy insists on naming Hamas, he does not feel the need to name Israel for killing 7000 Palestinians and injuring 17,000, the Pakistani envoy told delegates in the crowded General Assembly hall. “Only Hamas. Is this balance?”, he asked.
“If you are fair, if you are equitable, if you are just, you will not blame one side and not the other. If you were to go back to the issue of who started this (conflict), we all know who started this — It is 50 years of Israeli occupation and the murder and killing of Palestinians with impunity that started this.
