UN Security Council Refuses to Allow Israel to Present Videos of Palestinian Violence

Israel's Ambassador to the United Nations, Gilad Erdan, addressed the United Nations Security Council on April 25th during a meeting regarding the Middle East. The meeting focused on the situation in Jerusalem and recent violence erupting at and around the Temple Mount. Ambassador Erdan separated fact from fiction in taking apart the tiresome Palestinian victimhood narrative, which always claims that the Israelis are at fault for responding to violence instigated by Palestinian thugs. The Security Council refused to let Ambassador Erdan present videos of the Palestinians’ violence during his remarks. But he did show a video compilation to the media before the meeting began. The video evidence, taken from security cameras surrounding the Temple Mount, proves that the recent spate of violence in the vicinity of the Temple Mount began when Palestinians attacked Jews and police with stones, firecrackers, and fireworks. The Israeli police responded to this violence with remarkable restraint.

The Hamas terrorist organization has praised the Palestinians’ violence at and around the Temple Mount

The Hamas terrorist organization has praised the Palestinians’ violence at and around the Temple Mount. Moreover, in recent days, Israel has been bombarded with rockets fired from Gaza and a rocket fired from Lebanon. All of this has followed the terror wave that has so far claimed fourteen Israeli lives in Tel Aviv, Bnai Brak, Hadera, and Be'er Sheva in recent weeks. “While these horrific attacks were perpetrated by different radical Islamic groups, such as ISIS, the al-Aqsa Martys’ Brigade, or Islamic Jihad,” Ambassador Erdan said, “there is one thing that all of the terrorists share: the motivation to murder Jews, purely because they are Jews.” During his remarks to the Security Council, Ambassador Erdan expressed outrage that many in the international community were calling for so-called ‘calm on both sides.’ The UN Security Council indulged in this moral equivalence fantasy by refusing to allow Ambassador Erdan to present the video evidence of Palestinian culpability for the violence in the vicinity of the Temple Mount. In doing so, the Security Council, in its capacity as the UN body officially responsible for maintaining international peace and security, turned its back on the truth and its own responsibilities. Tor Wennesland, the UN’s Special Coordinator for The Middle East Peace Process, contributed to fostering the moral equivalence fallacy during his report to the Security Council. “I also reiterate that political, religious and community leaders on all sides must do their part to reduce tensions, uphold the status quo at the Holy Sites, and ensure their sanctity is respected by all,” Mr. Wennesland said. Israel has done its part to reduce tensions and ensure that the sanctity of the Holy Sites is respected by all. The Palestinian side has done the opposite.

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The Palestinian rioters could not care less about freedom of worship for Jews, Christians, or Muslims

Israel sought to protect the freedom to worship by people of faith observing the holy holidays of the world’s three monotheistic religions, which occurred this year at the same time. “Not only did Israel use restraint when dealing with the mob of Palestinian thugs,” Ambassador Erdan said, “Israel also took far-reaching and substantial steps, implementing lessons learned from the past, to deescalate the situation. Among them, forbidding Jews from visiting the Temple Mount for the last 10 days of Ramadan, and due to the recommendations from Israel’s security apparatus, prohibiting a march of Israeli flags in the Old City of Jerusalem.” The Palestinian rioters could not care less about freedom of worship for Jews, Christians, or Muslims. In addition to attacking Jewish worshippers seeking to pray at the Western Wall, they defiled the Al-Aqsa Mosque. At times, these thugs’ occupation of the mosque prevented Muslims from worshipping peacefully there in observance of Ramadan. Ambassador Erdan decried the notion that “mobs of violent rioters motivated by radical Islamic terror groups could be placed on the same moral scale as a law-abiding democracy making every effort to keep the peace.” The moral equivalence mantra is an obscenity. Sadly, however, that is the way the Palestinians’ enablers, including at the United Nations, roll. Shockingly, this was proven yet again at the UN when Israel was barred from presenting incontrovertible video evidence to the Security Council that the Palestinians were solely responsible for instigating the recent violence at and around the Temple Mount.