Whoever said that UN supports Israel and US must be utter morons. The United Nations is now preparing a draft resolution that basically treats Israel like a pariah while giving terrorists within Hamas the go-ahead to continue their illegal activities.
UNITED NATIONS (AFP) - The UN Security Council debated a draft resolution demanding an immediate withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and the release of detained Palestinian officials but the United States described it as "unbalanced".
Experts from the 15-member council met behind closed doors to discuss a draft, presented by Qatar on behalf of the UN’s Arab Group, which also calls on Israel, as the occupying power, to abide by its obligations under the Geneva Convention on the protection of civilians in time of war.
The UN debate took place as Israel thrust deep into the Gaza Strip in its largest and deadliest operation in months, reoccupying areas evacuated 10 months ago. Twenty Palestinians and an Israeli soldier were reported killed Thursday
The Israeli army created a buffer zone in northern Gaza as it widened its offensive against the Palestinians, upping the pressure on the embattled Hamas-led government to free a captured soldier and stop rocket attacks.
The draft demands that "Israel, the occupying power, immediately cease its aggression against the Palestinian civilian population in the occupied Palestinian territory, withdraw its forces to positions outside the Gaza Strip and release all the Palestinian officials it has detained."
It also expressed "grave concern about the dire humanitarian situation of the Palestinian people and calls for the provision of emergency assistance to them."
The text urged the Middle East diplomatic quartet — the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations — to take immediate steps, "including confidence-building measures between the parties" to ensure the resumption of the peace process.
"The Security Council cannot remain silent while they see this massive tragedy take place, this massive Israeli onslaught against Gaza," Palestinian UN observer Ryad Mansour told reporters.
"One can say that the great majority of members of the UN do condemn this aggression by Israel and demand the cessation of hostilities, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and the release of all (detained Palestinian) elected officials," he added.
He pointed to expressions of support from the Organization of the Islamic Conference and the nonaligned movement.
But the text in its present form appeared doomed in view of opposition from the United States, a veto-wielding permanent member, because it does not mention the Palestinian rocket attacks and the capture of the Israeli soldier that triggered the tough Israeli response.
US Ambassador John Bolton said he concurred with his French colleague, Jean-Marc de La Sabliere, that the draft "is not balanced".
Okay, let’s analyze this step-by-step.
1) The UN recognizes Israel as a state WITHIN the Green Line border
2) Israel painstakingly withdrew from the Gaza Strip barely a year ago, surrendering the Gaza Strip back to Palestine. Thus, on the Western side, they have retreated to UN-recognize borders.
3) Since then, Hamas terrorists have been launching attacks from Gaza Strip into the UN-recognized Israeli territories, targetting civilian populations all the time. But has the UN condemned this act? No. In fact, for the past year, Hamas has launched OVER 1000 ROCKET ATTACKS on UN-recognized Israeli territories!
4) Gaza is no longer an "occupied territory". A military maneuver into Gaza does not constitute "reoccupying" Gaza. Furthermore, the incursion into Gaza is the result of Hamas rejection towards an Israeli ultimatum, which also involved defiant rocket attacks into Israel, including the targetting of schools.
5) "Dire humanitarian situation"? Let’s see what this means.
When Israel left Gaza, they left behind intact infrastructures including greenhouses and other facilities that can be used for Palestinian self-sustenance and even an agricultural economy. What did Palestinians do? They destroyed everything. The Fatah-led government of the day then threatened the world community indirectly, demanding in no uncertain terms that if Europe and the US doesn’t provide $10 billion in aid to rebuild the Gaza strip, the outbursts of violence towards Israel could be unpredictable. This is nothing but a demand for ransom - give us $10 billion, or we’ll continue attacking Israeli civilians.
Dovey philantropists like Bill Gates even spent millions of his own money to build new greenhouses and other facilities in the Gaza Strip. Months later, everything was destroyed (again) and the Hamas government demanded for more "aid" from foreign countries (again).
6) This draft UN resolution does not at all mention about a compulsory cessation of Qassam rocket attacks, and doesn’t condemn at all the positioning of Hamas terrorists in civilian areas to intentionally use civilians as human shields.
7) Neither does it mention about the illegal underground tunnel built by Hamas from the Gaza strip into Israeli territory, with which they conducted terrorist raids and kidnappings.
The UN Arab Group also mentioned in this draft that there is a "massive tragedy" taking place - what tragedy? Of Israel purposely destroying empty buildings to rattle Hamas while avoiding civilian casualties at the same time? Of Israel choosing to send in troops for risky door-to-door operations to minimize civilian casualties rather than bombing the shit out of Gaza Strip and killing all terrorists and civilians alike? The Israeli Defense Forces is a professional military outfit that is transparent and open to investigation by international bodies, and who abide by professional military codes of conduct. They must never be equated with terrorist militants such as Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and Al-Aqsa Martyr’s Brigade. These terrorist groups violate every known rule of military conduct and actively target civilians, and thumb their noses at international law all the time.
Yes, the silly UN resolution is one-sided, and this selective myopia is truly mind-boggling.
The usually-leftist Time magazine, surprisingly, made an objective observation of what’s going on. Looks like liberals have a limit to their patience as well. This time around, common sense prevailed.
Remember What Happened Here
Gaza is freed, yet Gaza wages war. That reveals the Palestinians’ true agenda
By CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER
Israel Invades Gaza. That is in response to an attack from Gaza that killed two Israelis and wounded another, who was kidnapped and brought back to Gaza …which, in turn, was in response to Israel’s targeted killing of terrorist leaders in Gaza…which, in turn, was in response to the indiscriminate shelling of Israeli towns by rockets launched from Gaza.
Of all the conflicts in the world, the one that seems the most tediously and hopelessly endless is the Arab-Israeli dispute, which has been going on in much the same way, it seems, for 60 years. Just about every story you’ll see will characterize Israel’s invasion of Gaza as a continuation of the cycle of violence.
Cycles are circular. They have no end. They have no beginning. That is why, as tempting as that figure of speech is to use, in this case it is false. It is as false as calling American attacks on Taliban remnants in Afghanistan part of a cycle of violence between the U.S. and al-Qaeda or, as Osama bin Laden would have it, between Islam and the Crusaders going back to 1099. Every party has its grievances–even Hitler had his list when he invaded Poland in 1939–but every conflict has its origin.
What is so remarkable about the current wave of violence in Gaza is that the event at the origin of the "cycle" is not at all historical, but very contemporary. The event is not buried in the mists of history. It occurred less than one year ago. Before the eyes of the whole world, Israel left Gaza. Every Jew, every soldier, every military installation, every remnant of Israeli occupation was uprooted and taken away.
How do the Palestinians respond? What have they done with Gaza, the first Palestinian territory in history to be independent, something neither the Ottomans nor the British nor the Egyptians nor the Jordanians, all of whom ruled Palestinians before the Israelis, ever permitted? On the very day of Israel’s final pullout, the Palestinians began firing rockets out of Gaza into Israeli towns on the other side of the border. And remember: those are attacks not on settlers but on civilians in Israel proper, the pre-1967 Israel that the international community recognizes as legitimately part of sovereign Israel, a member state of the U.N. A thousand rockets have fallen since.
For what possible reason? Before the withdrawal, attacks across the border could have been rationalized with the usual Palestinian mantra of occupation, settlements and so on. But what can one say after the withdrawal?
The logic for those continued attacks is to be found in the so-called phase plan adopted in 1974 by the Palestine National Council in Cairo. Realizing that they would never be able to destroy Israel in one fell swoop, the Palestinians adopted a graduated plan to wipe out Israel. First, accept any territory given to them in any part of historic Palestine. Then, use that sanctuary to wage war until Israel is destroyed.
So in 2005 the Palestinians are given Gaza, free of any Jews. Do they begin building the state they say they want, constructing schools and roads and hospitals? No. They launch rockets at civilians and dig a 300-yard tunnel under the border to attack Israeli soldiers and bring back a hostage.
And this time the terrorism is carried out not by some shadowy group that the Palestinian leader can disavow, however disingenuously. This is Hamas in action–the group that was recently elected to lead the Palestinians. At least there is now truth in advertising: a Palestinian government openly committed to terrorism and to the destruction of a member state of the U.N. openly uses terrorism to carry on its war.
That is no cycle. That is an arrow. That is action with a purpose. The action began 59 years ago when the U.N. voted to solve the Palestine conundrum then ruled by Britain by creating a Jewish state and a Palestinian state side by side. The Jews accepted the compromise; the Palestinians rejected it and joined five outside Arab countries in a war to destroy the Jewish state and take all the territory for themselves.
They failed, and Israel survived. That remains, in the Palestinian view, Israel’s original sin, the foundational crime for the cycle: Israel’s survival. That’s the reason for the rockets, for the tunneling, for the kidnapping–and for Israel’s current response.
If that history is too ancient, consider the history of the past 12 months. Gaza is free of occupation, yet Gaza wages war. Why? Because this war is not about occupation, but about Israel’s very existence. The so-called cycle will continue until the arrow is abandoned and the Palestinians accept a compromise–or until the arrow finds its mark and Israel dies.
Why should we take notice of thse events? Simple. Look through every instance of terrorism, extremist sermons and calls for Holy War. What is the main supposed source of the grievances?
The Arab-Israeli conflict.
When attacks are carried out against revellers in Bali, when bombers in Britain killed plenty of commuters, when terrorists in Canada planned attacks against it, what were their common excuse? Besides the Iraq War, they pointed out the the Israel-Palestine conflict.
The Iraq War is a temporary excuse, much like the Afghanistan War. These wars did not and will not last long, but the Arab-Israeli conflict is a convenient long-term excuse for terrorists to justify their actions.
If this conflict can be stopped, we would be depriving terrorists of their main excuse and that is when their true motives will be revealed - the unconditional conquest of the rest of the world, the ‘liberation’ of dar-al-Harb.
Truly, The Beautiful Game unites people the world over in a common interest. Within a short space of a few weeks, everyone puts their problems aside and just enjoy a simple game. We’ll have Malaysians rooting for French, English people supporting Brazilians, Germans cheering on Iranians.. How strange it is, that a simple game is more effective in blurring racial and geographic boundaries than most ideologies.