UN Watch’s Legal Advisor Dina Rovner appeared on Chai FM with Howard Feldman to discuss a recent U.S.-vetoed UN Security Council resolution which would have demanded an immediate and unconditional end to Israel’s just war in Gaza without guaranteeing the return of the hostages.
Howard Feldman, Chai FM: Dina Rovner is a Legal Advisor for UN Watch. Dina, good morning. Thank you for joining us. How are you?
Dian Rovner: Good morning. Great. Thank you for having me.
Howard Feldman, Chai FM: Great, great pleasure. So, unfortunately, this type of resolution comes as no surprise, but really is the world filled with idiots? Just what is going on?
Dina Rover: Yeah, well, let me just explain a little bit. You know, this was a resolution that was vetoed yesterday at the UN Security Council. And the main reason why the U.S. said that it vetoed the resolution is that it had a call for an immediate, unconditional, permanent ceasefire, but it didn’t tie that to the release of all hostages in Gaza.
Now, it did call for the release of the hostages, but it just didn’t tie the two together. And not tying those two things together is a fatal flaw in the resolution which is why the U.S. vetoed it.
Howard Feldman, Chai FM: I think it’s not difficult to tie it together, nor is it unreasonable.
Dina Rover: Exactly. And, you know, in June, there was another UN Security Council resolution that was adopted that was basically kind of putting the U.S. ceasefire proposal that was on the table at the time into this UN Security Council resolution. And in that case, the two were clearly tied together.
It talked about the stages of the ceasefire and the release of the hostages was all part of that. And, you know, the U.S., of course voted yes to that resolution. It was the U.S.’s plan. But here that’s not what happened. And I think it’s important that we that we remember how this all started.
It started on October 7th with the Hamas massacre of 1200 people in Israel and the taking of over 250 hostages. There’s still 101 hostages in Gaza who are suffering. They are being starved and tortured by Hamas. And again, you know one of Israel’s main war goals here is the release of the hostages. So, any resolution that doesn’t tie those two things together just can’t go forward.
And I’ll say also, by not connecting the two, the UN Security Council is enabling Hamas because it’s sending the message that Hamas could do whatever they want, commit massacres, take hostages, hide behind their Palestinian civilians, all creating this horrible humanitarian situation in Gaza. And the UN will call for a ceasefire. They’ll also call for the release of hostages. But the two things are not connected to the UN.
Howard Feldman, Chai FM: Right. So that would mean that from tomorrow, they could demand that Israel implement a ceasefire. They could demand the same thing with hostages. But if Israel doesn’t stop, because there isn’t a hostage release, Israel still could be held liable.
Dina Rovner: Yeah, I mean it just strengthens all of these lawfare campaigns against Israel which are trying to get Israel demonized and condemned worldwide for, as you know, committing genocide, intentionally, starving the Palestinians in Gaza, and all of that.
I will say though that it’s important for your listeners to understand that in the resolution, there was originally some language in the resolution that kind of connected it to Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, which would have given the UN Security Council more enforcement power to enforce the resolution.
But as it stands, the language in the resolution was softened and so it’s not under Chapter 7, it’s under Chapter 6. So, it’s not actually legally binding and it didn’t get adopted in the end. But even if it had been adopted, it would strengthen those international lawfare cases against Israel, but it still wouldn’t have been binding legally.
Howard Feldman, Chai FM: Just a final question-the fact is that it’s very clearly obvious that the release of the hostages to a ceasefire does need to be linked. Why would there have been such great support for not linking it?
Dina Rovner: Look, I think that the way they drafted this resolution, they put those two things in the same paragraph. So, maybe for the drafters they considered that it was sufficient, although it clearly wasn’t because it doesn’t condition one upon the other.
Howard Feldman, Chai FM: No, I understand that it’s not good enough. What I don’t understand is why so-called decent countries can’t see that themselves. They’re not stupid.
Dina Rovner: No, you’re right. And I think it’s just part of this push to end the conflict, to end the war. And I’ll tell you as someone who lives in Israel, we don’t want war. We would rather be in peace and we never asked for this war. But unfortunately, when you’re faced with a situation that threatens your existence and your security you have to protect yourself. And that’s what Israel is doing.
And I think what these countries don’t understand is the extent of the threat of Hamas. And as I would say as Ambassador Danny Danon characterized, it was a resolution of appeasement and it wouldn’t bring peace in the end. So, I think these countries are going for the appeasement and they’re not seeing the bigger picture.
Howard Feldman, Chai FM: That is where we leave it. Dina Rovner, Legal Advisor for UN Watch, thank you as always for talking about the UN resolution that was attempted to be passed yesterday.
