Israel Matzav

Security Council members attack US over Israel

In an earlier post, I reported that several members of the Security Council had condemned Israel for authorizing construction of Jewish homes across the 1949 armistice lines. Al-AP reports that all 14 other members of the Security Council also criticized the United States for backing Israel.

[Russian UN Ambassador Vitaly] Churkin, the current council president, said the frustration over the impasse in Israeli-Palestinian talks spilled out in statements from the four European Union council members, the Nonaligned Movement, the Arab group, and the group of emerging powers that includes India, Brazil and South Africa.

Clearly referring to the United States, Churkin said dismissively that one delegation believes things will “miraculously” sort themselves out on their own.

“The call for bilateral negotiations without preconditions would seem a normal thing to ask for,” he said.

But Churkin said the Palestinians are overwhelmed militarily and in every other way by the Israelis and without preconditions they would not get a fair shake in negotiations.

The diplomats — including key U.S. allies in Europe — also criticized the council’s failure to take action against escalating violence by Israeli settlers and urged a speedy resumption of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.

Britain’s U.N. Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant, also speaking for EU members France, Germany and Portugal, said “Israel’s security and the realization of the Palestinians’ right to statehood are not opposing goals.”

“On the contrary they are mutually reinforcing objectives,” he said. “But they will not be achieved while settlement building and settler violence continues.”

South Africa’s U.N. Ambassador Baso Sangqu, speaking on behalf of the Nonaligned Movement of mainly developing countries, said settler attacks against Palestinian civilians increased 50 percent this year and called Israeli settlement construction “the main impediment for the two-state solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

While the United States was not mentioned by name, the diplomats anger was clearly directed at Washington which vetoed a resolution in February backed by the 14 other council members that would have demanded an immediate halt to all settlement building. The Obama administration has also promised to veto any Security Council resolution supporting Palestine’s bid to become the 194th member of the United Nations.

Sangqu's 'statistics' are nonsense, and the hypocrisy of the Security Council members - who focus on Israel to the exclusion of everything else - is rank. But the real issue here is what will happen after November 2012 when similar criticism is heard if Barack Hussein Obama is reelected? Obama, after all, is the big internationalist who, unlike his predecessor, actually believes in the UN.

What could go wrong?

Labels: East Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria construction, UN hypocrisy, United Nations Security Council

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 5:55 PM