India’s abstention at the UN General Assembly on the Jordanian-sponsored resolution over the weekend, seeking a humanitarian pause in the Israeli bombardment of Gaza, continues to reverberate. The country seems largely divided between the realist school – which believes that might is right, a view led by the US-Israel alliance – and those who pursue the moral high ground, which remains aghast at the unprecedented number of deaths in the conflict so far.
On the face of it, the Modi government seems to have taken the safe way out by abstaining and not voting against the resolution. Just like the US and Israel did, despite the fact that PM Modi had tweeted his and India’s “solidarity with Israel” within hours of the 7 October massacre.
But the truth is that in the UN system, abstentions don’t count. So the resolution, even if it was a non-binding one, which means that no country would be forced to follow through, and which passed with a two-thirds majority, is really a toothless one. Even if as many as 120 countries voted in favour, 14 against, and 45 abstained.
How nations voted
India, as is known by now, was the only country in South Asia that abstained. Bangladesh, the Maldives, and Pakistan co-sponsored the resolution. Even Bhutan, considered to be India’s closest friend, voted in favour.
France broke from its Western allies by voting in favour of the UN resolution. China and Russia, expectedly, did likewise. The UK, America’s closest ally, abstained – as did Germany and Japan.
The US was the only permanent member of the Security Council that voted alongside Israel. Look who else voted in favour: Nauru, Fiji, Guatemala, Micronesia, Marshall Islands, Croatia, Czechia, Austria, Papua New Guinea, Tonga, Paraguay, Hungary and Israel.
Clearly, the US is so aware of its own power that it cares little for global opinion.
It’s also really interesting that the Democratic Party, led by US President Joe Biden, seems okay with watching the slaughter of innocent people in Gaza; there isn’t much that differentiates them from the Republicans. What a far cry from the tears it has shed in the past over human rights violations across the world, including in Jammu and Kashmir. Clearly, the power of the US-Jewish lobby that controls the levers of politics and finance is in full play.
Also read: India’s support for Israel is the right choice. But taking a middle path would be wiser
Should India have abstained?
To reiterate, this was not a binding UN resolution, so no party will be censured. The realist school also believes the UN is a paper tiger, so who cares even if most of the world voted in favour of the humanitarian pause for Palestine?
Moreover, this lot believes that India’s abstention was the right thing to do, not just because it was in line with its several abstentions on the Russian invasion of Ukraine last year, but because the resolution didn’t name Hamas as the perpetrator of the 7 October violence. As the Indian deputy permanent representative at the UN pointed out in her explanation of the vote, India remains anguished about the continuing loss of life, but couldn’t possibly vote in favour of a pause because it didn’t go far enough in condemning the “malignancy” of “terrorism.”
Talk about twisting your foreign policy through hoops. Moreover, the realist school misses the larger point, which is that this is a moment in history when it is important to stand up and be counted on pushing for the end of war. Like most of the world has done.
Certainly, the Modi government has shifted much closer to Israel in the last five years. In 2018, India voted along with 120 countries in the UN deploring Israel for using “excessive, disproportionate and indiscriminate force” against Palestinians. It condemned the “use of live ammunition against civilian protestors, including children…”
So, what has changed in the last five years? Why is the Modi government much more willing to be seen today as standing in favour of Israel than it was earlier, and as a result, willing to stomach the death of more than 8,000 Palestinians so far? Clearly, the “abstention” in 2023 is a change from “voting along the resolution” in 2018.
Certainly, the Modi government made a considered decision when it “abstained”, but refused to vote “along with” Israel and the US this weekend. Despite his “solidarity” tweet for Israel within hours of the 7 October Hamas attack, the PM understands that Tel Aviv’s horrifyingly disproportionate response isn’t going down well with folks at home – not just the Congress party.
That is why Modi, one day after the vote, called the Egyptian president Abdel Fatah El-Sisi, whose response to the crisis will be instrumental in how things evolve.
India also understands well the hypocrisy of the Arab world. If they were so concerned about the fate of the Palestinians, they would have surely done something — they had 75 years to fix the problem. Just in the last couple of years, the UAE has kissed and made up with Israel, and the Saudis were also about to do so.
Moreover, the Gulf monarchies have such total control over their restive streets that there is no danger of them rising up against the wishes of their respective sheikhs – no wonder the Americans have used these sheikhs to create alphabets soup that most recently spell I2U2 (India-Israel-US-UAE) or IMEEC (India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor).
Much more worrying is the unhappiness of people in Middle Eastern nations like Egypt, Tunisia, Jordan, and Lebanon against their autocratic rulers. Never forget it was a vegetable seller in Tunisia who lit the spark that snowballed into the Arab Spring more than a decade ago. Of course, these Arab elites have, over the decades, cruelly and successfully put down those democratic protests and demonstrations, citing the fear of Right-wing Islamist radical organisations like the Muslim Brotherhood, thus keeping themselves in power.
Still, the burgeoning death toll in Palestine these past few days is moving the stoniest of hearts. Israel has gone ahead with its invasion of Gaza, but it’s not clear how this will unfold – remember that Hamas still holds Israeli hostages as crucial leverage.
It now seems the UAE is contemplating another resolution at the UN, this time a binding one. No matter. The realist school is right to the extent that few care about these speeches from the podium of a fancy UN auditorium. But when horrifying images of dying and dead men, women, and children fill your screens night after night after night across the world – something will have to give, something should give.
The realist school is probably right. Tomorrow’s another day. With another resolution at the UN and an emergency meeting of Arab states next week, little is likely to change.
The question remains: Did India do the right thing by abstaining on the Jordanian-sponsored resolution?
Jyoti Malhotra is a senior consulting editor at ThePrint. She tweets @jomalhotra. Views are personal.