Colombia to Use Uniting for Peace to Get Sanctions on Israel and a Protection Force for Gaza

Trump has a point that the U.N. has been all talk -- it's failed to stop him and Israel. That might change now. Indonesia pledges 20,000 troops or more.

[I wasn’t able to get the livestream covering the U.N. opening on Substack, but it worked on YouTube and X. I really enjoyed talking with Craig Mokhiber, Susan Abulhawa and Torsten Menge. Many thanks to Emily, Roel and Alia of StopGenocide.com for pulling it together.]

The big news however was Colombia’s announcing it was going to be putting forward a Uniting for Peace resolution. Petro wasn’t originally scheduled to speak yesterday, but speak he did.

His extensive comments on Gaza came at the end of his remarkable address:

People can use StopGenocide.com/unga to urge governments to back this. Politicians stating they oppose Israel’s genocide around the world should be pushing for such action. (Thanks to Kelley Lane for video.)

(I am not wild about some of the language he employs, but compared to the genocidal maniacs and head-in-the-sand tools, this is remarkable. It’s as though he is carrying the mantle of Hugo Chávez, he quotes Simón Bolívar in his speech. I’m anxious to read the resolution Colombia is putting forward.)

In a sweeping speech, in which he likened Trump to Hitler, Colombian President Gustavo Petro said at the U.N. General Assembly: “First of all, we must stop this genocide in Gaza.” He outlined actions including a protection force using the General Assembly’s Uniting for Peace process to overcome the U.S. veto, which was just used again last week to block a ceasefire resolution.

Also on Tuesday at the U.N., the president of Indonesia, Prabowo Subianto, a former general, stated that his nation would be willing to contribute 20,000 troops or more, saying: “We are willing to provide peacekeeping forces.”

AntiWar.com reports: “Israel Kills Dozens of Palestinians as It Continues Destruction Campaign in Gaza City“

The Global Samud flotilla “has been attacked 7 times in a short span! Boats hit with sound bombs, explosive flares, and sprayed with suspected chemicals. Radios jammed, calls for help blocked. Immediate international attention AND PROTECTION required!” states Francesca Albanese, U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories. See IPA news release: “Flotilla, After Being Attacked, Sailing to Gaza.”

Mark Seddon, director of the Centre for U.N. Studies at University of Buckingham and a former speechwriter for U.N. Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon told me: “Trump is correct when he says the U.N. is filled with too much rhetoric and not enough action. Exhibit A is that the Security Council is paralysed and the U.N. has failed to stop Israel’s genocide in Gaza -- a genocide that Trump himself has backed. But it seems as though that might be changing.” Last week’s U.S. veto of a ceasefire resolution was the sixth cast by the U.S. in less than two years. Seddon has called for using Uniting for Peace to overcome the U.S. veto.

While the U.N. General Assembly has passed resolutions overwhelmingly calling for a ceasefire during that time, they have not included actions. Petro said: “This genocide cannot be stopped by words alone. ... Not only Gaza and the Caribbean are under attack. Humanity itself is threatened by tyranny reborn in Washington and NATO.”

Also on Tuesday, Victor de Currea-Lugo, special advisor to Petro, held an impromptu presser outside the Colombian consulate in NYC to detail his government’s proposals. The proposed resolution would include a call for economic sanctions, weapons embargo and other measures.

Craig Mokhiber commented: “All states will now have to say yes or no to protection for a people facing extermination. History will record every vote. And so will we.”

Many, including Palestinian civil society have been calling for using Uniting for Peace along these lines. Recently Ubai Aboudi of the Palestinian NGO network outlined their call, stating, a resolution for a protection force is “not a call to war. It is not a call for more fighting.” This has been advanced by a number of grassroots groups including StopGenocide.com.

Raed Jarrar of DAWN told me: “Colombia should submit the official Uniting for Peace resolution immediately to start this process, and the world should vote yes. The process is straightforward: Colombia should call for an emergency special session of the General Assembly under the Uniting for Peace mechanism, and a resolution should be adopted with a two-thirds majority of UNGA. This resolution could authorize an armed, multinational UN protection force to deploy to Gaza and the West Bank to protect civilians, facilitate humanitarian aid, and assist in recovery and reconstruction.

“The UNGA has two other immediate tools it must deploy without delay, following the exact precedent set with apartheid South Africa. First, suspend Israel from the General Assembly, and second, call for comprehensive economic sanctions and arms embargoes on Israel. Both of these measures were adopted by the UNGA against apartheid South Africa... The international community systematically isolated apartheid South Africa through these mechanisms until the regime fell. In addition, the UNGA has already provided the legal framework through its September 2024 resolution adopting the ICJ advisory opinion, which calls on states to implement targeted sanctions and halt arms transfers to Israel. We have the tools, we have the precedent, and we have the moral imperative — the only question is whether we have the political will to use them against Israel’s genocidal apartheid system.”

Trump made no mention of Palestinian suffering in his lengthy address. His claims regarding teleprompters and escalators, widely reported by media outlets, were refuted by U.N. officials, see AP report.

See live coverage and commentary of Tuesday’s U.N. opening with Craig Mokhiber, Susan Abulhawa and Torsten Menge.

Uniting for Peace was used most successfully by Dwight Eisenhower. In late October 1956, Israel, Britain and France invaded Gaza and Egypt’s Sinai after Egypt nationalized the Suez canal. The U.N. then used Uniting for Peace to create a force -- made up of troops from Colombia, Pakistan and Norway, overcoming the British and French veto in the Security Council. By the end of the year, British and French forces were removed. Israel tried to hold on to Gaza and part of Egypt’s Sinai, but was compelled to leave by the Spring of 1957.

President Eisenhower would later report to Congress: “In Egypt the United Nations caused the world to turn away from war. Through a series of resolutions, the General Assembly effectively mobilized world opinion to achieve a cease-fire, and France and the United Kingdom shortly agreed to withdraw their forces. The Assembly’s moral pressure played a powerful part in securing the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Egyptian territory in March of this year.”

See my “‘Uniting for Peace’ is Next Step in Invoking Genocide Convention Process to Protect Palestine“ and related questioning at the U.N.