A thin debate: comparing the conflicting political narratives of the UN security council and general assembly on the Gaza Strip from 2006 to 2018

Abstract

The UN reform movement calls for the UN Security Council to be changed. The underlying assumption is that it will create thicker decision-making that will allow more views on the causes of, dynamics of, and solutions to conflicts. This paper adopts a comparative analysis of three cycles of narratives in the UN Security Council and emergency sessions of the UN General Assembly when both bodies debated the same issue of violence in the Gaza Strip. The findings reveal that, unlike its public image, the emergency sessions of the UN General Assembly were used to make the analysis thinner and less descriptive. Another finding is that it was predominantly Arab, Muslim, and revisionist Latin American countries that influenced the majority to adopt the thin narrative.