Can you believe an American newspaper criticizing the UN?
One of the only voices of reason here in D.C.
On Friday, the U.N. Security Council approved on a 14-0 vote a badly flawed resolution calling for a cease-fire in Gaza. Instead of vetoing the measure, as it should have done, the United States abstained, even though the resolution failed to mention Hamas’ practice of launching missiles into Israel.
Instead, the measure “condemns all violence and hostilities directed against civilians and all acts of terrorism” - implicitly equating Hamas attacks targeting Israeli civilians with Israeli strikes against Hamas gunmen operating out of densely populated civilian areas in Gaza. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice explained the abstention by stating that Washington supported the text of the resolution, but objected to the Security Council’s refusal to give Egyptian mediators a chance to broker a Gaza cease-fire. The resolution marked a retreat by the Bush administration, which had previously refused by its veto power to allow passage of a cease-fire resolution without ironclad assurances that Hamas would halt its rocket attacks against Israel.
The resolution is just the latest example of how the United Nations depicts Israel rather than Hamas as the villain in Gaza - with or without evidence. U.N. officials in New York blamed Israel for a pair of incidents on Thursday in which humanitarian aid workers came under fire. John Ging, director of operations for the United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNRWA) in Gaza, accused Israeli forces of “firing at and now hitting convoys” providing aid in Gaza. But Mr. Ging acknowledged that he could not be completely certain that Israeli forces were to blame, stating: “There is a conflict going on.”