Haaretz
Cheshvan 21, 5766
The Hamas-led Palestinian government said on
Saturday that the United States' veto of a UN Security Council resolution
condemning the Israel Defense Forces shelling in Beit Hanun that killed 20
Palestinians on Wednesday showed the U.S. backed Israel's
action.
Ghazi Hamad, the Palestinian cabinet spokesman, said the
veto was "a signal that the U.S. had given legitimacy to the massacres and
a green light to (Israel) to ... carry out more massacres."
The
Arab League likewise strongly criticized the U.S. for vetoing the
resolution.
Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa voiced his
"surprise and disappointment" at the United States for vetoing the draft
resolution.
"This veto will only increase the anger," Moussa said
in a statement issued by his office in Cairo.
"It is inexplicable
that a veto can be used to protect Israeli actions against civilians," he
said.
10 of the council's 15 members voted for the measure, while
Britain, Denmark, Japan and Slovakia abstained.
U.S. Ambassador to
the UN John Bolton said the draft resolution, which also called for a
quick withdrawal of IDF troops from the Gaza Strip, was "biased against
Israel and politically motivated."
"This resolution does not
display an evenhanded characterization of the recent events in Gaza, nor
does it advance the cause of Israeli-Palestinian peace to which we aspire
and for which we are working assiduously," he told the Security
Council.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the draft
resolution would have aggravated the situation in Gaza because it
contained "inflammatory and unnecessary language."
"We do not
believe the resolution was designed to contribute to the cause of peace,"
she said in a statement.
In Jerusalem, Israeli Foreign Ministry
spokesman Mark Regev said the draft resolution was one-sided. "It's good
that it wasn't accepted by the Security Council," he said.
The
resolution, proposed by Qatar, originally called for an "immediate
investigation into the massacre that took place in Beit Hanun" and for
Israel to "cease all violence against the civilian population in the
occupied territories, including East Jerusalem."
The draft also
demanded the deployment of UN observers in the area to oversee the
implementation of the cease-fire outlined in the draft.
The Qatari
delegation re-worded the proposal following objections raised to the first
draft.
In the new version, the statement no longer called the
shelling a "massacre," nor demanded the deployment of UN
observers.
In place of observers, the new resolution called for an
"international mechanism" to be deployed in Gaza to protect the civilian
population.
Instead of demanding the formation of a panel of
inquiry, the new proposal called for the formation of a fact-finding team.
The new resolution also included a demand that Israel withdraw its
soldiers from the Gaza Strip, and a condemnation of Qassam rockets fired
into Israel. Still, it did not demand the release of soldier Gilad Shalit,
kidnapped in June, Army Radio reported.
The resolution also urged
the international community to work to end the political stalemate between
Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
In spite of the resolution's
altered wording, Israel maintained that the resolution was one-sided and
excessive.
The resolution would have called on UN Secretary General
Kofi Annan to send a panel of inquiry to Gaza to examine the circumstances
of the shelling.