SNA (Tokyo) — The US government stands alone among the world’s major nations in supporting the continuing massacre of the civilian population of Gaza. Even closely allied governments such as Great Britain and Japan proved unable to stomach the Biden administration’s veto of a UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire and the unconditional release of all Israeli hostages.

The United Kingdom abstained, while Japan joined thirteen other nations in supporting the ceasefire resolution, which had been submitted by the fundamentally pro-Western United Arab Emirates regime.

“We do not support calls for an immediate ceasefire,” explained US Deputy Ambassador Robert Wood. “This would only plant the seeds for the next war because Hamas has no desire to see a durable peace, to see a two-state solution.”

Left unsaid is that, after sixteen years serving as the prime minister of Israel, it is apparent that Benjamin Netanyahu also has no interest in a two-state solution, and recent US administrations have not made any serious diplomatic effort to use their leverage to advance negotiations in this direction.

Additionally, there is inescapable “genocidal logic” behind Wood’s notion that a ceasefire would “only plant the seeds of the next war.” This only makes sense if his meaning is that every Hamas fighter and political supporter must be physically eliminated. While no one is able to conduct scientific public opinion polls inside Gaza at the current juncture, there is plenty of anecdotal evidence to suggest that Hamas has seen its level of support among Palestinians rise sharply under the Israeli military assault.

Meanwhile, as the US government finds itself alone in offering political and diplomatic cover for ethnic cleansing or genocide, it has left the lane wide open for Washington’s great power rivals to assume the role of responsible interlocutors.

For example, Chinese Ambassador Zhang Jun remarked at the UN Security Council meeting that “only a ceasefire can save lives and avoid a bigger human catastrophe. With the constant bombing and shelling, there is no safe zone there. The war in Gaza has claimed the lives of over 17,000 innocent civilians. Over one million people have fled from the north to the south, only to find there’s nowhere to hide and nowhere to go. This human catastrophe is too great for words to describe, and any waiting or delay means more death.”

The curious situation at the moment is that Beijing’s diplomats are now expressing opinions on the Gaza conflict which are closer—according to most polls—to what the majority of Americans believe than are the views expressed by diplomats serving the US Biden administration.

This article was originally published on December 11, 2023, in the “Japan and the World” newsletter. Become a Shingetsu News supporter on Patreon and receive the newsletter by email each Monday morning.