ON MONDAY, the United Nations Security Council voted by 13 to 0 to pass a US-drafted resolution that effectively puts president Donald Trump in supreme control of Gaza.
This resolution is being called the second stage of Trump’s ‘peace plan’ with the establishment of an International Stabilisation Force (ISF) in the Gaza Strip.
US ambassador Mike Walz said the ISF will be ‘a strong coalition of peacekeepers, mainly from Muslim-majority nations like Indonesia and Azerbaijan.’
Walz added that this force will ‘deploy under a unified command’ and would begin its activities ‘while Israel phases out it presence.’
According to the resolution, which passed with both China and Russia abstaining, the international force will be deployed under a unified command to secure Gaza, along with overseeing its ‘demilitarisation’ and responsibility for taking aid through safe corridors.
The ISF, which this resolution puts in charge of Gaza for a period of two years, will be overseen and answerable to a ‘board of peace’.
This board will report to the UN Security Council but will not be subordinate to the UN or bound by any past UN resolutions on Zionist genocide.
Heading this board will be Donald Trump, who has assumed supreme control over two million Palestinians. Trump declared on social media that this ‘board of peace’ will ‘be chaired by me, and include the most powerful and respected Leaders throughout the World.’
No-one has been named as members apart from Trump.
Russia and China, who could have vetoed the resolution, abstained after criticising the proposal over concerns about this board taking control of the Gaza Strip and the complete absence of any Palestinian participation in this plan.
While Trump was boasting on social media that the UN vote will lead to peace ‘all over the world’ it was immediately condemned by the Palestinian resistance movement.
In a statement Hamas said: ‘Assigning the international force with tasks and roles inside the Gaza Strip, including disarming the resistance, strips it of its neutrality, and turns it into a party to the conflict in favour of occupation’.
The statement concluded: ‘Any international force, if established, must be deployed only at the borders to separate forces, monitor the ceasefire, and must be fully under UN supervision.’
Islamic Jihad issued its own sharp rejection, warning that it opens the way for foreign control over Gaza while entrenching Zionist occupation and insisted that the Palestinian ‘right to resist occupation is guaranteed by international law’.
Craig Mokhiber, a former senior UN human rights official, condemned the vote, saying it was ‘a day of shame for the United Nations’.
He continued: ‘Not a single member of the Council had the courage, principle, or respect for international law to vote against this US-Israel colonial outrage.’
He noted that ‘this proposal has been rejected by Palestinian civil society and factions, and defenders of human rights and international law everywhere,’ before adding that the ‘struggle for Palestinian freedom will continue.’
Having failed to defeat Palestinian resistance despite launching a genocidal war that has killed over 71,000 Palestinians, mainly women and children, US imperialism is attempting to involve Arab and Islamic states to come to the rescue of a defeated Zionist regime.
This ‘peace board’ and its ‘stabilisation’ force will be expected to do what the Zionist military failed to do – disarm Palestinian resistance fighters and create the conditions for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza under the domination and exploitation of US capitalism.
The working class in the US, UK, Europe and across the world have the power to put an end to imperialist wars, and support the Palestinians in their fight against occupation and for their right to an independent state of Palestine.
Now is the time for the millions of workers across the world to take action by demanding their trade unions call general strikes to bring down their capitalist governments and go forward to workers governments that will end all support for the Zionist state and immediately recognise the independent state of Palestine.
This is the way forward.