The United Nations Security Council adopted a resolution — Resolution 2803(2025) — on Monday, November 17, on the situation in the Middle East, specifically on the war between Israel and Hamas. The vote was 13 in favour with two — Russia and China — abstentions.
The resolution was prepared and piloted by the American delegation. From the beginning, its members had made it clear that the resolution had to be accepted by the other 14 members of the Council on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. They had their way in large measure. They made some cosmetic changes to make other members feel that their views had been taken on board. The resolution was an impressive achievement for American diplomacy, which is of course backed by credible threats and usually unreliable inducements, and a personal success for President Donald Trump. He managed to strong-arm the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, into acquiescing to his initiative despite the opposition the latter faced from the diehard anti-Palestine ministers in his cabinet.
It was only a few weeks ago that Trump had talked at the United Nations about the United Nations in a most disparaging manner. What made him approach the same body for his initiative? He was perhaps made to acknowledge by his advisers that without UN endorsement, his initiative would lack legitimacy and would not get any cooperation from the relevant countries.
In brief, the resolution endorses Trump’s 20-point plan for a ceasefire, the disarming of Hamas, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, among other conditions, that had been approved at the Sharm El-Sheikh summit on October 13. It sets up a Board of Peace, with unspecified membership, which, in effect, will be the governing authority in the Gaza Strip. Trump will chair the BoP and supposedly appoint its members. The BoP will be in command of an International Stabilization Force, which will consist of troops provided by countries that might be willing to do so for their own reasons. The ISF has a broad mandate amounting to peace enforcement, as opposed to peacekeeping which requires cooperation from the parties concerned — Israel and Hamas in this case. Since Hamas has declared its strong non-acceptance of Resolution 2803, the ISF will have to use force to comply with the provision on decommissioning Hamas’s military arsenal. The Jordanian king has been categorical; he is not ready to send troops to fight Hamas. Israel will have a veto over which country to invite to contribute a contingent of troops. It has already announced that Turkey will not be acceptable.
Some members of the Council wanted to specify a roadmap for a Palestinian state. The American sponsors accommodated them to some extent and put in this sentence: once the Palestinian Authority carries out reforms to the satisfaction of the BoP, that is the United States of America and Israel, and once Gaza’s redevelopment has advanced, conditions may finally be in place for a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood. Whoever drafted this deserves a special prize for writing a meaningless sentence. Netanyahu has firmly and repeatedly rejected the very idea of a Palestinian state as well as any role for the PA in the governing structure of Gaza.
The US got important Arab countries on board their initiative, including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates and others. Israel and America have been endeavouring for months to get Gaza’s neighbours to accept Hamas members but they totally reject the idea. All these countries have no love lost for Hamas; in fact, they dread Hamas; they have enough troublemakers of their own.
At one stage, Russia had tabled its own draft resolution in competition with the American one. It got nowhere. There was wide expectation that Russia and China would veto the resolution but they only abstained, thus allowing the resolution to be adopted. Why did they do that? Their explanation is that since the PA had endorsed the resolution, they had no choice. The fact is that the P-5 veto-wielding powers try to accommodate one another’s interests, expecting to be compensated on matters that might be much more important for them, such as tariffs. Their vital interests were not on the line in this case.
There is an interesting legal or constitutional issue regarding this resolution. 2803 is evidently a peace-enforcement resolution. It authorises the ISF to take necessary measures — standard UN language for use of force — to disarm Hamas. The second preambular paragraph determines that the situation is a threat to international peace and security. There are two chapters that deal with settlement of disputes. Chapter VI covers dispute settlement through peaceful means; it is titled “Pacific Settlement of Disputes”. It provides for good offices, arbitration and so on to enable the parties to come to an agreement; it is voluntary and not mandatory. If the dispute is not resolved and armed hostilities break out between parties, the item is taken up under Chapter VII, which deals with action with respect to threats to peace, breach of peace and so on. In the absence of a standby force, the Council requests member states to provide troops. India, Nepal, Bangladesh and other countries have been most forthcoming in meeting such requests.
Under Chapter VII, the demands made by the Council are mandatory: all member states are obliged to implement them. If some don’t, they could be sanctioned. Resolution 2803 clearly falls under Chapter VII. Why then did the US not invoke Chapter VII in its resolution?
Saudi Arabia’s endorsement of 2803 is of particular interest. Its longstanding position has been that it will not normalise relations with Israel and join the Abraham Accords unless there is a clear path to the establishment of a Palestinian state. Seemingly, the country now finds the language of the resolution good enough for it to support it. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman knows exactly what he wants. He wants a foolproof security agreement with the US, the right and help to produce and enrich uranium, high-tech American weapons such as F-35 fighter jets and so on. If Trump promises him all his wishes, the Crown Prince would be quite willing to establish diplomatic relations with Israel even if the path to the two-state solution is not that clear.
The PA readily agreed to support the resolution. It has its own scores to settle with Hamas; after all, the PA was thrown out of Gaza by Hamas in 2007.
The Americans still have a lot of work to do. They have to set up the BoP. Who will be invited to sit on it? Some countries might lobby for it. Who will contribute troops to the ISF? The ISF will be under the BoP’s command, not under UN command; this will discourage many countries from responding positively to requests for troops.
Trump’s favourite, Field Marshal Asim Munir of Pakistan, would certainly like to further ingratiate himself with Trump but his people are strongly opposed to Israel. As for India, Netanyahu might wish to have his friend contribute to ISF, but India would be well advised to ponder deeply before taking a decision.
C.R. Gharekhan was India’s permanent representative to the UN and India’s special envoy for West Asia in 2005-09