Editorial | Allow debate on Gaza

Mostly, private members’ bills get short shrift in Jamaica’s Parliament. Which, unfortunately, appears to be happening with the resolution tabled by the Opposition on December 12, calling for Jamaica’s reaffirmation of support for the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza war.

The resolution was not treated as an urgent matter for debate on the day it was laid by the People’s National Party’s Angela Brown Burke. At the House’s next sitting a week later, the Government feinted and parried, without giving a clear indication of when it might reach the order paper. Parliament then recessed for the Christmas holidays, without giving a date when it will resume.

It is possible that by the time Parliament reconvenes, there will have been a pause of some kind in the Gaza fighting, causing the Government to argue that the resolution is superfluous. There will probably be contentions in some quarters that this is not an issue of sufficient national relevance for a debate in Parliament. Those arguments are misplaced.

First, it would not be unique for Jamaica’s legislature to debate, and take a stance, on a matter of global impact but without apparent direct effect on the island. Almost annually, the House passes a resolution condemning America’s continued economic embargo on Cuba. The latest of these was on October 25 – days before the annual United Nations vote on the same question – when the Jamaican Parliament rejected “the legality and desirability of this decades-old blockade against Cuba” and recommended “renewed dialogue between the United States and Cuba, and for the lifting of the United States embargo against Cuba”.

Additionally, a parliamentary debate would provide the Holness administration the opportunity to clarify its position and to remove lingering doubts over what many people perceived as Jamaica’s wavering on its long-standing support on a two-state solution in the context of the existing United Nations resolutions.

But more importantly, the war in Gaza raises among the most profoundly moral questions of the times, from which Jamaica ought not to shirk. Jamaica can at once support Israel’s right to exist within secure borders; support its right to defend itself; can condemn Hamas’ terrorist atrocities of October 7, when its fighters crossed into Israel and killed 1,200 people and took over 200 hostage; and yet, we can be appalled and outraged at how indiscriminately Israel has waged its war on Gaza, which, in fewer than 12 weeks, has killed over 20,000 people – mostly women and children; displaced more than one million people; and flattened (or irreparably damaged) most of the buildings in the narrow strip, including hospitals and schools.

Jamaica’s perceived ambivalence towards, if not formal retreat from, its long-standing policy on the Palestinian issue has been fuelled by presumptions of a deepened relationship between Prime Minister Andrew Holness’ administration and Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. This perception gained strong hold after Mr Holness’ visit to Israel in 2017, followed by Jamaica’s abstention that year in a UN General Assembly vote that declared “null and void” Israel’s decision to make the disputed city of Jerusalem its capital. This was compounded when Jamaica failed to vote on the October 27 General Assembly resolution calling for an “immediate, durable and sustained humanitarian truce” in the current conflict. The Government blamed logistical problems and ongoing consultations at the time of the vote between policymakers in Kingston and its diplomats in New York, who, it said, helped draft a Caribbean Community statement on the issue that reflected similar sentiments.

That Jamaica joined even more countries in voting for a second General Assembly resolution on December 12, calling for a humanitarian ceasefire, has not fully assuaged its critics.

HUMANITARIAN RELIEF

After weeks of resisting any UN resolution demanding a ceasefire and insisting that Israel be permitted room to prosecute its war to destroy Hamas, the United States did not exercise its veto last week to kill a Security Council resolution promoting “urgent and extended humanitarian pauses and corridors throughout the Gaza Strip for a sufficient number of days to enable full, rapid, safe” humanitarian relief to Gaza’s two million people, who are trapped in a narrow strip of land.

Having initially cut off fuel, water and electricity to the territory, Israel has since allowed a limited amount of aid, but far too little to put a dent in a grave humanitarian crisis.

There are possibly statements and assertions in the Opposition’s resolution that the Government cannot abide by. But it can set the record straight in an open and frank debate. And amendments can be made to the resolution.

More importantly, the declarations in the document are fundamentally sound: a state for the Palestinians and one for Israel on the basis of standing UN resolutions, which is within the borders that existed before the 1967 war. Which would mean that Israel would have to withdraw from the West Bank and remove its settlements.

This debate would also be an opportunity for Jamaica to clearly define its foreign policy that has grown increasingly murky in recent years, including its position, as a country in the Global South, on navigating the existing international order. And given the deadlocks and logjams at the Security Council, Kingston may highlight ideas for reforming the United Nations.

There are therefore good reasons for Speaker Juliet Holness to permit the debate. She might even call the House back early for it to take place.