Peace: Not In our Time

"Any parallel or alternative attempts to seek peace are, in fact, efforts to achieve a lull instead of an end to the war. [Those who support our cause must] put pressure on [Russia]."

"Do not divide the world. Be united nations. And that will bring us peace."

"When some propose alternatives, half-hearted settlement plans, so-called sets of principles, it not only ignore the interests and suffering of Ukrainians who are affected by the war the most, it not only ignores reality, but also gives Putin the political space to continue the war."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy

UN Photo/Loey Felipe

Volodymyr Zelenskyy (at podium and on screens), President of Ukraine, addresses the general debate of the General Assembly’s 79th session

 

Speaking before the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday, Ukraine's president appealed to global leaders to take a firm stand alongside his country, not to seek "a lull" rather than a "real, just peace", at a time when two years have passed since the Russian 'special military action' invasion of Ukraine and the third year has begun of unremitting warfare, the constant bombing of Ukraine's territory and the slow and steady advance of Putin's territorial plans, at the dreadful price of thousands of human lives, both Ukrainian and Russian.

President Zelenskyy is only too well aware of the pressure he faces from his allies in the West, as well as some of his own fellow Ukrainians, anxious to have him negotiate a ceasefire. Yet he well understands that such a ceasefire will inevitably work in Moscow's favour; no withdrawal of forces, no return of Ukrainian sovereign territory to its rightful owners, no reparations from the wholesale destruction of civilian infrastructure in towns and cities shelled indiscriminately by the Russian military. 

 

Above all, it would give Russia the opportunity to rest, regroup, re-plan, recruit and return refreshed to the battlefield.

As fr as Volodymyr Zelenskyy is concerned, no alternative exists to the peace formula he presented two years earlier that seeks the expulsion of all Russian fores from his country, Russian accountability for war crimes, release of Ukrainian prisoners of war and deportees, nuclear safety, energy and food security assurances. Russia has not yet addressed the UNGA's annual gathering of presidents, prime ministers, monarchs and allied high officials.

Only low-level Russian diplomats have been dispatched to represent Russia on the world stage to hear out Zelenskyy's speech. High-level meetings at the General Assembly are absent the presence of Russian President Vladimir Putin, this year;  his foreign minister Sergey Lavrov is mean to present Russia's address. From Moscow, Dmitry Peskov attacked Zelenskyy's remarks at the Assembly when the Security Council was told Russia needs to "be forced into peace", by the Ukrainian president.

According to Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, that claim represents "a fatal mistake", as "a profound misconception which, of course, will inevitably have consequences for the Kyiv regime". This year's UN General Assembly sees the war in Ukraine moved aside from stage central while the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, and escalating developments along the Israel-Lebanese border now share the spotlight.

Ukraine officials rejected a proffered Chinese and Brazilian peace plan. President Zelenskyy addressed that as well: "You will not boost your power at Ukraine's expense", he remarked heatedly. Both Ukraine and Russia are locked in a grinding battle along their contiguous border, a 1,000 kilometre front line. With Ukraine facing down Moscow's territorial expansion ambition under the thin guise of 'saving' Ukraine from neo-fascism, and Russian-speakers in east Ukraine from Kyiv's malign intentions.

 

Russia's intimidating tactics veer off into not-too subtle threats highlighting its huge nuclear arsenal. 

Shortly after Russian President Vladimir Putin alluded to a shift in his country’s nuclear doctrine, Sergey Lavrov accused the West of using Ukraine as a tool to try "to defeat" Moscow strategically, "preparing Europe for it to also throw itself into this suicidal escapade."

"I’m not going to talk here about the senselessness and the danger of the very idea of trying to fight to victory with a nuclear power, which is what Russia is."

Russia's Minister of Foreign Affairs addresses the UNGA meeting on September 28, 2024  AP

Disentitling Israel at the International Level

"Given the current circumstances on the ground, we believe that this resolution is not a step in the right direction, as it risks potentially sowing further divisions."

"[The resolution] fails to address the immense security challenges Israel faces, including Hamas's use of the Gaza Strip as a launching pad for its rampage of killing of Israelis, while systematically using the Palestinian civilians as human shields."

"[This] assembly has once again failed to acknowledge this issue with today's vote."

Czech Republic Ambassador to the UN Jakub Kulhanek

The final result of a vote during the emergency session on the legal consequences of Israel’s actions in the Palestinian territories is shown at United Nations Headquarters in New York on Sept 18, 2024. (PHOTO / AFP)

Israel, that tiny sliver of land that the world community gave its permission to allow Jews to call its homeland, representing a fraction of its historical ancestral land base and which has been forced by its neighbours -- furious at its presence in land they claim is consecrated to a divine entity of a much later entry to the pantheon of the world's religions -- to militarily respond whenever a neighbouring country or irregular terrorist militia feels impelled to challenge its presence, suffers the ongoing indignity of UN accusations of human rights abuses.

 

It has been made manifestly evident that any time Israel responds to the never-ending violent assaults from its neighbours by militarily protecting itself and its citizens from their deadly force, the international community takes umbrage at the most technologically sophisticated, moral armed force in the world daring to project its determination to foil every such attack's purpose; its destruction. Israel's drubbing of its enemies when it has been provoked beyond endurance is never applauded as just, but consequentially condemned as 'just too much'. 

Israel, unique enough as the homeland of the world's great dispersal of Jews throughout history, and a modern giant of technology and innovation whose inventiveness in every sphere of human endeavour gifts itself and the world at large with forward looking human enterprise -- enriching science, medicine, agriculture, technology and education -- still becomes an object of accusatory slander; that classic syndrome of doing everything right, interpreted as disproportionately engaged in defending itself.

The United Nations General Assembly saw fit to pass 14 resolutions in condemnation of the Jewish state, fully double the entire number of condemnations of all other countries combined, in 2023 alone. Global human rights violators barely register for a chiding by the UN. Rather, countries like Iran, Venezuela, China, Saudi Arabia, North Korea and Syria are either entirely bypassed for censure for their human rights violations, or face a single resolution of condemnation in an entire year.

There were 140 resolutions raised against Israel between 2015 and 2022 where the General Assembly focused on Israel; a number more than double passed against all other countries in the world combined. That states committing human rights violations barely risk a nod from the UN is commonplace. For the second time in the year that is moving toward the anniversary date of October 7 reflecting a sadistically savage pogrom by Islamist terrorists against Israel, 124 countries of the General Assembly voted in favour of the latest resolution, with 14 against and 43 abstaining.

The call was for Israel to withdraw its forces from Gaza in its pursuit of the Hamas terrorists who slaughtered over a thousand Israeli civilians, raped and mutilated Israeli girls and women before murdering them relentlessly, destroyed farming villages, setting homes on fire with entire families burning to death, and taking 240 infants, elderly, women, men, soldiers hostage back to Gaza. Many of the hostages were tortured, many murdered, and all have been kept in inhumane conditions and subjected to violations of humanity.

At no time has a resolution been tabled before the General Assembly demanding the dismantling of Palestinian terrorist groups, requiring their weapons to be set aside, that the hostages be released back to Israel, and that hostilities on the part of the terrorists cease and desist. Israel only, in its resolve to destroy the death cult that continues to ravage Israel with the clear intention of murdering as many Jews as possible -- anywhere, is held to account and judged inadequate in its response to the nonsensical and obviously biased opinion of the UN. A UN which would never impose retaliatory restrictions on any other country that had suffered such a massive loss.

Conflicts of massive offence are treated as inconvenient incidents, but Israel's right of self-defense is placed under the microscope of special 'contexts'. Terrorist entities calling openly for the destruction of Israel and the concurrent death of Jews are given no notice; it is Israel which must withdraw and make reparations. Countries like Canada which at one time could be relied upon to vote against such unjust resolutions now prefer to withhold their vote as though a national morality of 'neutrality' reigned.

Whereas a handful of courageous and morally decisive countries like the Czech Republic, clearly understanding the level of deception and hypocrisy involved will have none of it, and hold the United Nations and its anti-Israel cliques to account for their jaundiced hateful interpretation of a situation they cannot bring themselves to condemn, to the point of supporting the right of existence of a member nation which has endured the unendurable by those who wish it ill.

 

"In my speech at the General Assembly, I condemned the hypocrisy and bias in the United Nations, which since October 7 has passed two resolutions that failed to mention Hamas and its responsibility for the massacre last October."

"I reiterated that anyone who supports this circus is a collaborator. Every vote you cast in support of this circus fuels the violence."

"This empty show is not just an insult to the victims of October 7. It is an insult to the hostages."

Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon