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'Peace is a choice': Pakistan as chair, UNSC resolution cites terrorism among 'persistent scourges'
The UN Security Council has adopted a draft resolution to settle disputes peacefully and urged member states to utilise mechanisms outlined under Article 33 of the UN Charter, including negotiation, enquiry, and mediation.
'Peace is a choice, and the world expects the Security Council to help countries make that choice', the UN Chief Antonio Guterres said during a debate on promoting international peace.
Interestingly, the resolution said that terrorism 'remains a persistent scourge' at a time when Pakistan is the council chair for the month of July. Pakistan's Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs, Ishaq Dar, is the council president this month.
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Indian Express
an hour ago
- Indian Express
Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: If Gaza's corpses can vanish from our conscience, what else are we becoming blind to?
The silence and denial around the moral catastrophe unfolding in Gaza only seems to grow in proportion to the scale of atrocity being inflicted on the Palestinian people. It is as if humanity is in moral regress. The fragile gains of international law — those slivers of humanitarian sensibility that once insisted atrocity on this scale must be unacceptable — are being steadily eroded. There are signs of progress. The facts of what is happening in Gaza are more widely acknowledged, and the debate over how to legally and morally name the horror has intensified. Yet, paradoxically, the atrocity is also being made more invisible. Any ceasefire now will already be too late. The world will assuage its conscience only after mass death and destruction, and call the wreckage 'peace'. But the silence around Gaza demands deeper analysis. Perhaps it was always naïve to believe that humanity was capable of sustained moral progress. As Bruce Robbins argues in Atrocity: A Literary History, moral indignation in the face of atrocity is historically rare. For much of human history, violence was treated like the weather — brutal, routine and morally unremarkable. Killing civilians was normal, and even the victims did not always think of themselves as morally wronged — only defeated. Often, mass violence was invested with redemptive meaning. Even rulers with moral qualms about violence applied those doubts selectively. As a character in one of the few novels to confront moral culpability during wartime — Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five — says, 'So it goes.' Robbins's powerful meditation exposes the many ways humanity evades confronting atrocity. Moral demands rarely override the narcissism of group identities. Even when atrocities are condemned, the critique is hemmed in: It must not destabilise existing hierarchies. Conservatives often fear mass violence not because of its human toll, but because it might disrupt order. Societies struggle to indict themselves; self-accusation is psychologically intolerable. Literature is saturated with violence, but most writers ultimately find it difficult to indict their own societies in the face of atrocity. We are increasingly in a world in which moral concern is no longer trusted. It is pathologised. Those who speak of atrocity are seen not as conscientious objectors but as the sort of people who feel superior in feeling bad about these things. They use it to make others feel bad. The function of atrocity talk is performing superiority, virtue-signalling, making others uncomfortable. Humanity's moral conscience, in the face of tribal loyalty, is shrinking terrain. Yet there is still something alarmingly distinctive about Gaza. Is there any precedent for this — where state after state not only denies the horror, but also actively expects silence? The US is effectively policing speech on Gaza, not just within its borders but globally. UN officials are being sanctioned with barely a murmur of protest from the international community. In India, criticism of Israel is now tantamount to being seen with the 'wrong side'. The states of West Asia now extensively regulate criticism of Israel. Australia is considering adopting a definition of anti-Semitism that, as Richard Flanagan noted in The Age, would render some of the most morally courageous Jewish voices — Joseph Roth, Tony Judt, Omer Bartov — effectively anti-Semitic. Much of Europe has already made Israel its 'reason of state'. While some states are complicit, through sins of omission or commission, in failing to push back against the atrocities in Gaza, it seems that much of the world is becoming complicit in drawing a veil of silence over them. One of the most important moral lessons of the Holocaust is being forgotten: That 'never again' must be a universal ideal. To defend that principle is not to deny the Holocaust's specificity, but to protect its moral legacy. To reduce it to a licence for state violence is a betrayal of its memory. Anti-Semitism is a real and urgent problem. But its political weaponisation now threatens to empty the term of moral content. The most reactionary forces invoke it not to combat hate, but to silence criticism, stifle reflection, and protect impunity. Most Western democracies are now sacrificing their democracy and civic freedoms — not for the Jewish people, but for the policies of the state of Israel. In West Asia, too, the discussion of Palestine is hemmed in by state repression. Fear of retaliation, of being seen on the 'wrong side', chills public discourse. Even social movements seem unable to articulate a language of universal principle: That no one should be targeted for who they are; that the mass killing of non-combatants is never justifiable. We are trapped in a nihilistic moment, where only one question matters: Which side are you on? Not: What are the limits of power, the principles that must bind all states and actors? This tribalism is not new; nor is hypocrisy. But rarely in recent memory has there been such a drastic foreclosure of moral reflection. It is as if we now believe that vindication will not come from being humane, but from letting power operate unrestrained, whatever form that power takes. The horror in Gaza is so palpable that explanation or contextualisation often feels obscene. These are now tools of evasion, not illumination. The evasions and silences are linked to the broader civic failures of democracy. In a powerful essay in Harper's Magazine, 'Speaking Reassurance to Power', Pankaj Mishra connects the silence over Gaza to the collapse of civic courage in democracies. He writes that 'for all its claims to superior virtue, the American intelligentsia manifests very little of the courage and dignity it has expected from artists and thinkers in less fortunate societies'. Mishra sees this failure as rooted in complicity: The American intelligentsia, too close to the machinery of imperial power and too dependent on the largesse it doled out, was often disabled from speaking truth. It was meant to offer reassurance. Or rather the criticism that it permitted was costless. But the disquieting thought he offers is whether the willed silence over Gaza, and the relative lack of resistance to authoritarianism, are linked. They both speak of an easy adjustment to the realities of power. But this is not only America's problem. Across democracies, we are witnessing the ease with which civic discourse renders mass death invisible. If Gaza's corpses can vanish from our conscience, how much easier it will be to ignore the quiet, shadowy encroachments of our own states, which are increasingly going after whoever they choose. What the silence and inaction over Gaza is saying is: Only brute power rules. As Vonnegut said, 'So it goes.' The writer is contributing editor, The Indian Express
Time of India
an hour ago
- Time of India
Pak steeped in terrorism, says India as Islamabad rakes up J&K in UNSC
UNSC NEW DELHI: A "serial borrower" from the IMF, Pakistan is steeped in fanaticism and terrorism, said India at the UN Security Council (UNSC) as Islamabad brought up the Jammu & Kashmir issue in an open debate it organised under its July presidency of the council on peaceful settlement of disputes. The meeting ended with the unanimous adoption of a Pakistan-sponsored resolution urging member states to effectively utilise mechanisms for pacific settlement of disputes as outlined in the UN Charter Article 33, including "negotiation, inquiry, mediation, conciliation, arbitration... or other peaceful means of their choice". The resolution did not name J&K or any other issue. In the debate presided over by Pakistan deputy PM and foreign minister Ishaq Dar, the US representative doubled down on President Donald Trump's ceasefire claims, saying that the US leadership delivered "de-escalations between Israel and Iran, between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda, and between India and Pakistan". After Dar raised issues related to J&K and New Delhi's decision to place the Indus Waters Treaty in abeyance, Indian ambassador P Harish responded by asserting that it ill behoves a member of the council to offer homilies while indulging in practices that are unacceptable to the international community. "The Indian sub-continent offers a stark contrast in terms of progress, prosperity and development models. On the one hand, there is India which is a mature democracy, a surging economy and a pluralistic and inclusive society. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like American Investor Warren Buffett Recommends: 5 Books For Turning Your Life Around Blinkist: Warren Buffett's Reading List Undo At the other extreme is Pakistan, steeped in fanaticism and terrorism, and a serial borrower from the IMF," said Harish, adding that zero tolerance for terrorism is one of the fundamental principles that need to be respected while promoting international peace and security. The open debate on unresolved disputes was one of the signature events that Pakistan was organising under its presidency of the council, the other being the upcoming meeting on UN-OIC cooperation. The resolution on pacific settlement of disputes was generic in nature, as it is unlikely it would have found unanimous support from the council by explicitly mentioning or talking about disputes. Pakistan had through the resolution urged full use of all Chapter VI mechanisms of the UN Charter for peaceful resolution of disputes between nations, hoping to spotlight the J&K issue. While Article 33 of the Chapter states that the parties to any dispute shall seek a solution by, among other things, mediation and arbitration, it also says the parties can seek a solution through "other peaceful means of their own choice". For India, its emphasis on bilateralism in line with the Simla and Lahore Declarations conforms to other peaceful means. Apart from Pakistan, Turkiye was the only country to bring up the J&K issue in its remarks in the open debate. In his remarks, Harish highlighted the fact that the Chapter begins with a recognition that it is the 'parties to a dispute' who must first of all seek a solution by peaceful means of their own choice. "National ownership and consent of parties are central to any efforts to achieve peaceful resolution of conflicts," he said. Harish also said that there should be a serious cost to states who violate the spirit of good neighbourliness and international relations by fomenting cross-border terrorism, while mentioning the Pahalgam terrorist attack and its condemnation by the council that underlined the need to hold perpetrators, organisers, financiers and sponsors of terrorism to justice. "India launched Operation Sindoor targeting terrorist camps in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir (PoJK), which was focused, measured, and non-escalatory in nature. On achieving its primary objectives, a cessation of military activities was directly concluded at the request of Pakistan," he said.
India Today
4 hours ago
- India Today
PM Modi to hold talks with UK PM Keir Starmer, Russia, Ukraine delegations meet in Istanbul
In this edition of World Today, the focus is on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's two-day visit to the United Kingdom, his fourth to the country. A historic Free Trade Agreement (FTA), the result of three years of negotiations, is set to be signed, which is expected to take bilateral trade to $120 billion by 2030. PM Modi will hold talks with his British counterpart Keir Starmer and is also scheduled to meet King Charles III. The show also covers the crucial meeting between Russian and Ukrainian delegations in Istanbul, the first direct talks since June. Other major stories include India's sharp response to Pakistan at the UN Security Council over cross-border terrorism, with Ambassador P. Harish stating, "At the other extreme is Pakistan, steeped in fanaticism and terrorism and a serial borrower from the IMF." Also featured are allegations of treason by the Trump administration against former President Barack Obama and a racially motivated attack on an Indian student in Adelaide, Australia.
