Before the Security Council vote began, the United States said that it would vote against it, and the 26 member states of the European Union, which is a close ally of the United States, did the opposite, expressing support for an "immediate ceasefire" between Palestine and Israel.
The draft of the Palestinian-Israeli ceasefire had been submitted to the Security Council by the United Arab Emirates, Russia, and other countries, but it was ultimately failed to pass because the United States refused to allow it. The countries that proposed the draft this time are represented by Algeria from Africa, and the content of the draft has hardly changed, and the core is still the "immediate ceasefire" between Palestine and Israel. The difference is that before the vote began, the United States made it clear that it would definitely vote against it. Therefore, there is a high probability that Algeria's draft will not pass.
Even though the outcome had been predicted, the Security Council was not afraid of the US threat and said that it would start the voting process as scheduled. The advantage of this is that it can not only show the stance of some countries in the Security Council that support an immediate ceasefire, but also further exert pressure on the United States, which will receive one point more international pressure every time it votes against it.
As a matter of fact, in the face of international pressure, the attitude of the United States has changed to a certain extent compared with the past. In this case, for example, the United States has proposed an alternative draft, despite its threats in advance. According to **, the draft has a number of elements that bind Israel's behavior. It is common to explicitly condemn certain acts of allowing Jews to settle in Gaza, and not accept Israel's creation of a "buffer zone" in Gaza. These contents, which are aimed at preventing Israel from encroaching on the territory of Gaza, can also be regarded as leaving a way for the Palestinians.
Of course, the most attractive point of the US alternative draft is that it explicitly proposes a "temporary ceasefire" for the first time. It is important to know that before that, when the representative of the United States spoke at the Security Council or asked for changes to the content of the Palestinian-Israeli draft, he usually used words such as "suspension of conflict." So, in a sense, there is some progress in the U.S. alternative draft. However, it should be noted that this does not mean that the United States will change its attitude of firm support for Israel, but that the United States is somewhat unable to withstand international pressure.
As we all know, after the success of the military operation in northern Gaza, Israel, having tasted the sweetness, has not given up its encirclement and interception of the Palestinians, and has instead focused its offensive on southern Gaza. After about two months of Israeli military strikes, southern Gaza is now in shambles, with Palestinians fleeing to Rafah for refuge. Rafah's border with Egypt and access to humanitarian aid outside of Israel's control provide a degree of security for Palestinians to survive as long as they can escape here. It is precisely because the Palestinians have similar ideas that the population of Rafah has exploded, and the total number now exceeds 1.3 million.
With a total area of just over 60 square kilometres, and more than 1.3 million people crammed here, you can imagine how dire their living conditions are. However, even so, Israel has no intention of stopping, but continues to bomb Rafah and the surrounding area. Recently, there has even been news that Israel is preparing a large-scale attack on Rafah. At this point, the international community could not sit still and called on Israel to rein in its behavior. The reason is that once the Israeli army attacks Gaza on a large scale, it may bring two serious consequences.
The first is the large number of people**, there are more than 1.3 million Palestinians in Rafah, and no matter how precise Israel's boasting of its strikes, it will inevitably result in a large number of people**. In fact, personnel ** is just a euphemism, and in the eyes of Lula, Brazil, Israel's actions in Gaza are more like "genocide", a killing of women and children by well-trained and well-equipped soldiers. Then there is the spillover crisis, as mentioned earlier, Rafah borders Egypt, and if Israel attacks it on a large scale, the Palestinians will inevitably flee to Egypt in order to survive, thus triggering the crisis spillover. Against this background, the United States, which strongly supports Israel, is undoubtedly under tremendous pressure, which is why it explicitly put forward a "temporary ceasefire" for the first time in the alternative draft.
Although the United States has clearly proposed a "temporary ceasefire", it is still far from the expectations of the international community, and the European Union has done much better than it. On the 19th, 26 of the EU's 27 member states reached an agreement to support an "immediate ceasefire" between Palestine and Israel. Moreover, they have expressed the view that a permanent ceasefire in Gaza should be promoted on that basis. Because only if the conflict does not recur can the Palestinians achieve a lasting and stable peace. Therefore, on the Palestinian-Israeli ceasefire, the United States really has to learn from these 26 EU member states.
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