Reports: Khalilzad Ordered to Keep UN From Stopping Gaza War

The French government is reportedly working with the Arab League on yet another draft resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, while also urging the Israeli government to allow humanitarian aid into the strip. According to America’s ambassador to the United Nations Zalmay Khalilzad, they shouldn’t get their hopes up.

“We did not want them to have false expectations,” Khalilzad told reporters today, and its not hard to see why. Having already shot down two separate Arab proposals to end the violence in the Gaza Strip, America seems unlikely, despite its continued claims to want to quick ceasefire, to allow the United Nations to move on one while Israel wants to continue its invasion.

Indeed, Israeli paper Haaretz is quoting sources at the UN who say Khalilzad had been ordered by the State Department to “torpedo any initiative proposed by the Arab bloc which is designed to grant the Security Council the status of an official arbiter that will have direct involvement with disentangling the Gaza crisis.” And a tangled mess it is.

The civilian toll is soaring and Israel seems unwilling to even consider the possibility of ending the war on any terms at all. The United States has ruled out a return to the status quo, but seems perfectly content to continue with the new status quo that allows scores of Gazans to be killed on a daily basis and cheer Israel on as it continues its attacks. As a permanent UN Security Council member, the United States can keep the UN from condemning the killings forever if it wants to, and it seems that it wants to.