Description
Since 2023, the United Nations and the UN Security Council have repeatedly convened to debate ceasefire resolutions and humanitarian pauses in response to Israel’s escalating assault on Gaza. Various drafts and the ultimate failures to negotiate reflect deep fractures in global politics and efforts towards genocide prevention. This research conducts a qualitative content analysis and comparative analysis of the UN ceasefire documents and mediator statements issued between 2023 and 2025. It examines how shifts in political discourse, rhetorical framing, and linguistic patterns have both reflected and reinforced the global power imbalance that allowed the mass violence in Gaza to persist. While extensive scholarship has examined the structural causes and historical grievances of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, limited attention has been paid to how the linguistic framing contributes to delays in achieving a sustainable ceasefire. Hence, by tracing how the semantics of “ceasefire,” “pause,” and “self-defence” evolved across diplomatic texts, the research highlights how language has functioned as a tool of obstruction rather than resolution. Ultimately, this research argues that the failure to prevent genocide in Palestine cannot be separated from the politics of language embedded in international diplomacy and the United Nations as a whole.
