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New York Times Misreports Gaza UNSC Resolution
To no ones surprise the very same New York Times which relied on lying witnesses to falsely claim that Hamas had raped Israeli women is also lying about a ceasefire resolution for Gaza that yesterday passed the United Nations Security Council.
U.N. Security Council Calls for Immediate Cease-Fire in Gaza as U.S. Abstains
The United Nations Security Council on Monday passed a resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire in the Gaza Strip during the remaining weeks of Ramadan, breaking a five-month impasse during which the United States vetoed three calls for a halt to the fighting.
The resolution passed with 14 votes in favor and the United States abstaining, which U.S. officials said they did in part because the resolution did not condemn Hamas. In addition to a cease-fire, the resolution also called for the “immediate and unconditional release of all hostages” and the lifting of “all barriers to the provision of humanitarian assistance.”
UNSC resolutions are legally binding documents under international law. They therefore use a very specific language. If the UNSC 'calls upon' someone to do something it is the legal equivalent of asking 'pretty please'. It has no real consequences.
However, UNSC Resolution 2728 which passed yesterday on a 14 to 0 vote with the U.S. abstaining, does not 'call upon' Israel or Hamas to do this or that.
It demands them to do something:
The Security Council, …
…
1. Demands an immediate ceasefire for the month of Ramadan respected by all parties leading to a lasting sustainable ceasefire, and also demands the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages, as well as ensuring humanitarian access to address their medical and other humanitarian needs, and further demands that the parties comply with their obligations under international law in relation to all persons they detain;
2. Emphasizes the urgent need to expand the flow of humanitarian assistance to and reinforce the protection of civilians in the entire Gaza Strip and reiterates its demand for the lifting of all barriers to the provision of humanitarian assistance at scale, in line with international humanitarian law as well as resolutions 2712 (2023) and 2720 (2023); …
Soon after the resolution passed the U.S. falsely claimed that it is not legally binding:
Heidi Matthews @Heidi__Matthews – 22:45 UTC · Mar 25, 2024
The U.S. is unilaterally claiming that Security Council resolution 2728 is non-binding and therefore has no impact on its policy or the legality of Israel’s continued war. This is not so obvious… 🧵
…
How do we figure out the will of the UNSC (the 14 members that voted in favour)? We turn to the principles of treaty interpretation contained in the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. We try to figure out the 'ordinary meaning of the text in light of its object & purpose'.
This could be a looong discussion. But for now, note that para 1 of the resolution uses exhortatory language: "*Demands* an immediate ceasefire". "Demands" looks a lot more like it creates an obligation than, for example, language of "emphasizing", "calling upon", "urging", etc.
Finally, many of the states who spoke at the session today noted their understanding of the resolution as binding. (I'd have to go back to the transcript for a fuller picture, but several so noted). …
Verfassungsblog – On Matters Constitutional agrees:
In conclusion, the resolution is – despite statements to the contrary – legally binding and creates a legally binding request for an immediate ceasefire during Ramadan and a legally binding request to immediately release all hostages.
The obvious elephant in the room is enforcement: who is to enforce the Security Council resolution in the current situation? It ultimately falls to the parties of the conflict to heed the Security Council’s call, and to the Council itself to enforce its requests. Given the experience of the past months, this is no cause for enthusiasm. Yet, the fact that the Council could agree on the text, after five vetoes on the matter, is, perhaps, a shred of hope.
By using the 'calls for' wording instead of the 'demand' used in the real resolution the New York Times is deceiving its readers about the obligations the resolution created.
The Washington Post is, in comparison, using the correct language:
The latest resolution, demanding an end to fighting during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan and the release of all hostages, was backed by 14 nations including China and Russia. The United States abstained, allowing it to pass.
While the language is correct even the Washington Post report is still a bit deceiving. The U.S. and Israel have tried to combine the two issues of a ceasefire and of a hostage release into one issues. The ceasefire would depend on the hostage release and vice versa.
But the UNSC resolution has explicitly separated those issues into two different demands and has added the immediate provision of food as another one.
It demand that both sides cease fire. It demands that both sides release hostages. It does not connect the two items.
“Pramila Patten, the UN’s special envoy on sexual violence in conflicts, for one, says there is convincing evidence of rape and torture. This is well documented from many news sources including the UN website.”
LOL, appeal to authority, and an authority that hasn’t even conducted an investigation, let alone a trial. OK.
Comments by the head of the UN team have made it clear the UN mission to Israel was the product of an Israeli public relations campaign. By United Nations Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict Pramila Patten’s own admission, the team was only dispatched following “pressure” by Israeli government-linked lobbying groups. Her personal schedule reveals its priorities: 15 days in Israel, and just two in occupied Palestinian territory.
And while the report says the UN team specifically declined to include “accounts collected by Israeli intelligence bodies, including those related to interrogations of alleged perpetrators, despite some being offered,” its authors go on to concede that “the mission team benefitted from the full cooperation of the Government of Israel,” noting that UN researchers were only able to visit the sites of 7 October attacks at the Nahal Oz military base, kibbutz Be’eri, the Nova music festival location, and Road 232 “with the support of the Israeli authorities.”
What’s more, the UN team openly admits it “held several rounds of meetings to review information” from the Israeli army, Israeli security service Shin Bet, and the Israeli National Police’s Oct. 7 investigation unit, Lahav 433. Further meetings were held with Israeli President Isaac Herzog and various Israeli functionaries.
But after their multi-week guided fishing expedition, the UN representatives came back mostly empty-handed.
Ultimately, they found only that there were “reasonable grounds to believe” that sexual violence occurred during the Palestinian strikes on October 7 – the lowest evidentiary threshold used by the researchers.
While the UN special representative on sexual violence, Pramila Patten, claimed to have found “clear and convincing information” that sexual violence later occurred to Israelis captured on October 7, she declined to name the victims or perpetrators and refused to say whether there was any pattern connecting the incidents.
At a press conference following the report’s publication, Patten stressed that the mission “was neither intended nor mandated to be investigative in nature” but noted that despite repeated calls for those affected to come forward, her team had been unable to locate a single victim of sexual assault by Palestinians.
Passages within the report and comments made by UN officials suggest the researchers had an easier time debunking Israeli claims than proving them.
“In the medicolegal assessment of available photos and videos, no tangible indications of rape could be identified,” the report concluded. [see embedded direct copies of UN report]
Open source material apparently proved no more fruitful to its authors than the Israeli-provided information. [once more, see openly available excerpts/screen grabs]
“While the mission team reviewed extensive digital material depicting a range of egregious violations, no digital evidence specifically depicting acts of sexual violence was found in open sources,” they noted.
What evidence the UN team did find indicated that, on at least one occasion, Israeli authorities went out of their way to stage a hoax rape scene. In the case of “a girl found separated from the rest of her family, naked from the waist down” in the aftermath of the strike on Kibbutz Be’eri, they wrote that it was “determined by the mission team that the crime scene had been altered by a bomb squad and the bodies moved, explaining the separation of the body of the girl from the rest of her family.”
[Once again see actual grabs of UN report – NOT investigation]
Speaking after Patten, Chloe Baszanger-Marnay, the leader of the UN Team of Expert on Rule of Law and Sexual Violence in Conflict, told reporters:
“On [Kibbutz] Be’eri, just to clarify, what we found was that there were two allegations we looked into that were unfounded. And they’re very well described in the reports and you’ll recognize them because they were highly publicized in the press. The rest, we could not verify. So… no, we could not verify any sexual violence in Be’eri at this point.”
Patten interjected: “There was an allegation that there were objects like knives that were inserted into the genitalia of a woman… the team reviewed the photos and we did not find anything like that.”
She even took a swipe at ZAKA, the ultra-Orthodox Israeli “rescue” group which helped host her visit, and which was responsible for many of the discredited claims of atrocities by Hamas on October 7.
“Inaccurate, unreliable conclusions, forensic conclusions were drawn by untrained volunteer first responders,” Patten declared, clearly referring to ZAKA. “We give some examples in the report, such as interpreting an anal dilation as anal penetration, when, according to our experts, when [there’s] extensive burn damage, this is what you get – anal dilation. And the position of the body as a result of severe burn damage, again being interpreted as a sign of sexual violence, with spread legs, etc. So that also, it may not be in Be’eri, but it is a fact that we found many instances of unreliable, inaccurate forensic interpretations by untrained people.”
Regarding the supposed perpetrators of sex crimes on October 7, the UN team “did not make any finding as to any pattern because we did not look into attribution,” Patten told reporters.
The UN report itself openly blamed the Israeli government for the team’s inability to determine who may have committed alleged sex crimes, noting that “the lack of access and cooperation by the Israeli authorities with the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem and Israel (IICOI) and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) despite their timely requests to investigate the events of 7 October and their aftermath resulted in the unavailability of United Nations sourced or verified information on sexual violence linked to the attacks committed by Hamas and other armed groups.”
This apparent refusal to pin the blame for apparent sex crimes on Hamas has been met with contempt by Israeli media figures.
During a March 6 interview about her report with Israel’s Channel 12 News, a visibly frustrated host badgered Patten for failing to conclude that Hamas was responsible for systematically sexually assaulting Israeli women.
“May I just ask, why not put the responsibility and blame the atrocities quite simply on the perpetrators and say, ‘it was Hamas who did it?’” the host demanded.
Patten replied that the mission of her visit to Israel was “only for the purpose of gathering and analyzing information,” not for attributing alleged crimes to any perpetrator.
“It is pretty clear who did it, after talking to survivors who returned – it wasn’t the Belgians who did it,” chortled the host.
“I think it’s up to your government to give access, and that was one of my first recommendations,” Patten responded.
The UN representative was referring to supposed Israeli survivors of sexual assault whom she was unable to meet during her visit, but who absolutely exist, according to Israel’s government.
You haven’t a leg to stand on. Rapes happen in war and battles. This wasn’t a war or battle. No rapes – ZERO – can be found. Admit it, or prove rapes otherwise.
Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Mar 27 2024 5:44 utc | 128
Almost sounds like the US.
Alon Mizrahi | without equality there’s no freedom
@alon_mizrahi posts on twitter 11:49 PM · Mar 24, 2024:
“As an Israeli in this dark disgusting inhuman time, there are many things I see and hear and can tell you about and are worthy of research and serious consideration, but there is one part of it that is so uncanny, so disheartening, so extraordinary, that I can hardly describe it, and you won’t get it. Because it’s so hard to believe, or conceptualize.
I’m referring to the total and complete lack of public debate in Israel about any of this. Try to get this to your head: for Israelis, the genocide is not happening. The war is not real. Even the low-intensity conflict with Hizbullah up north is not real. How can I explain something that doesn’t exist? But it doesn’t. Can you believe it?
No one argues about any of this, and no one weighs the pros and cons of any single part of it. It is not talked about.
Israel has captives in Gaza, but no one knows why, or as part of what. It is not talked about. It is forbidden to talk about this, or about starvation, of the scale of death and destruction in Gaza.
Moreover: it is forbidden to talk about Palestinians in general, so they are never mentioned, and haven’t been mentioned in 20 years at least in Israeli media. So if you try to talk to Israelis about Palestinians, they will not know what you’re referring to. They will think you only say it because you hate them.
Could you believe it, that the most crucial element of a society’s situation can be disappeared from its conversation, its consciousness and its politics.
But for Israelis, Palestine and Palestinians don’t exist, I’m telling you. If they ever do exist, it is in the moment before being shot to death by a soldier or police officer – and then they die, and vanish once more.
There is no genocide, no Gaza, no Palestine, no occupation, no starvation, no dead children, no pregnant women in unimaginable distress. None of it exists. It is all, 100% of it, ancient antisemitism’s new clothes.
You cannot truly comprehend it. It is too much to believe, I know it. I live it and can’t believe it. But it’s true. Israel’s management of consciousness has become so expert, its propaganda skills, so profound and total, internalized so fully, that Israelis have no idea – no idea at all – where, when, and how they exist. Absolutely zero idea.
And it is this component of Israel that will stay with me, and I will marvel at, and continue to always think about, and grapple with. This is the truly incredible part of it. If you told me this, or if I read it in a book, I would not believe the extent to which thought control is possible. But now I do.”
Posted by: JAB | Mar 27 2024 6:26 utc | 134
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