Following two inconclusive closed meetings of the United Nations Security Council last week to discuss the violence spinning out of control in Israel and Gaza, the Security Council held an open virtual meeting on Sunday that lasted nearly three hours. Since China is the president of the Security Council for the month of May, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi presided over the meeting. Several other foreign ministers, including from Jordan and Egypt, also participated remotely.
The Security Council meeting turned into a rehash of grievances
The Security Council meeting turned into a rehash of grievances, with the Palestinians more often than not portrayed as the victims and Israel portrayed as the heavy-handed oppressor. As always, the Palestinians used excuses for their terrorist violence – this time, a property dispute in East Jerusalem that the Palestinians and their advocates have repackaged as an illegal eviction by the "occupiers" and the Israeli police’s response to melees in and around the Temple Mount. As always, the Palestinians’ propaganda has become the talking points of many UN member states. The meeting ended with no unanimous official Security Council statement on the crisis. China, Norway, and Tunisia read out their own unhelpful joint statement.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres kicked off the Security Council meeting with a call for Israel and the Palestinians to stop their fighting immediately. “Rockets and mortars on one side and aerial and artillery bombardments on the other must stop,” Gutteres said. “I appeal to all parties to heed this call. I am appalled by the increasingly large numbers of Palestinian civilian casualties, including many women and children, from Israeli strikes in Gaza. I also deplore Israeli fatalities from rockets launched from Gaza.”
Other speakers at the Security Council meeting also called on both sides to exercise maximum restraint and for the violence to stop as soon as possible. Some speakers condemned the Palestinian terrorists’ rocket attacks aimed indiscriminately at Israeli civilians. However, they castigated Israel with equal or greater vigor for its military operations to protect its own citizens while doing what it could to minimize Palestinian civilian casualties.
Blaming Israel for defending itself against the wanton, deliberate attacks on its own civilians is an abomination
China took the opportunity to take a jab at the United States for its previous resistance to an official Security Council statement on the crisis. "We call upon the U.S. to shoulder its responsibilities, take a just position, and together with most of the international community support the Security Council in easing the situation," said Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.
The Biden administration’s UN Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield did not directly reply to China’s challenge. But notably, she did not explicitly re-affirm President Biden’s prior acknowledgement of Israel’s right of self-defense. Declaring that “it’s time to end the cycle of violence,” Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield said that in all American engagements with “Israeli officials, the Palestinian Authority, and all regional partners, the United States has made clear that we are prepared to lend our support and good offices should the parties seek a ceasefire."
Calls for restraint on both sides and a ceasefire are insufficient. Holding both sides responsible for the violence is a false moral equivalence. A temporary ceasefire alone will only serve to give the Palestinian terrorists the opportunity to replenish their arsenal with more sophisticated rockets and other weaponry. Moral clarity requires an unambiguous acknowledgement that Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist groups, supported by the terrorist-sponsoring Islamic Republic of Iran, are solely responsible for the murderous rampage spiraling out of control. Blaming Israel for defending itself against the wanton, deliberate attacks on its own civilians is an abomination.
In his remarks, Riad Al Malki, the Foreign Minister of the Palestinian Authority, not surprisingly was totally unapologetic for the terrorist attacks launched by Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the Palestinian people’s name. Al Malki laid all the blame for the violence at the “colonialist” Israel’s feet. He perversely justified the Palestinian terrorists’ rocket attacks as self-defense. At the same time, Al Malki turned the truth on its head when he said, "Each time Israel hears a foreign leader speak of its right to defend itself it is further emboldened to continue murdering entire families in their sleep."
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“Hamas uses children to protect its missiles. Israel uses missiles to protect its children”
Gilad Erdan, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, put the violence of the last week that continues on in its proper perspective. “Hamas uses children to protect its missiles. Israel uses missiles to protect its children,” Ambassador Erdan said.
“How would you respond, if an organization with a similar fanatic jihadist ideology as ISIS, was bombing Beijing or Moscow or Dublin and shutting down the airports of Paris or Oslo or London?” Ambassador Erdan asked his fellow diplomats, calling on the members of the Security Council to support Israel’s legitimate right to defend itself. “There is never an excuse to indiscriminately fire rockets at civilians. There is never a justification for terror.” Ambassador Erdan asked the diplomats whether they really believed that a property dispute is what really caused Hamas to launch its large-scale attack on the people of Israel, which he explained was premeditated to serve Hamas’s ulterior political purposes.
Sadly, too many in the so-called “international community” have bought the Palestinian victimhood narrative hook, line, and sinker.
Following two inconclusive closed meetings of the United Nations Security Council last week to discuss the violence spinning out of control in Israel and Gaza, the Security Council held an open virtual meeting on Sunday that lasted nearly three hours. Since China is the president of the Security Council for the month of May, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi presided over the meeting. Several other foreign ministers, including from Jordan and Egypt, also participated remotely.
