Barbs fly at UN Security Council over Gaza report
Israeli-Palestinian animosity on display over war-crime findings of Gaza report. Human Rights Council is next stop.
Washington
George Mitchell, President Obama's special envoy to the Middle East, could not have liked the tone of Wednesday's UN Security Council debate on human rights violations during last winter's Israeli offensive into Gaza.
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Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad al-Maliki accused Israel of "savage aggression" and said the UN must act on Israel's "callous disregard for human life" as exhibited during the 22-day war or lose global credibility.
Not to be outdone, Israel's UN ambassador, Gabriela Shalev, said any evaluation of the offensive that fails to start with Hamas's regular shelling of Israeli civilian populations is "one-sided ... biased" and "favors and legitimizes terrorism." Furthermore, she added, by raising the issue before the council, Libya was trying to "hijack" the council's agenda with "a tale full of sound and fury, signifying nothing" (to quote Shakespeare's "Macbeth").
The fireworks in New York come just three weeks after Mr. Obama organized a trilateral meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to add momentum to his drive to restart the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
A relaunch of talks may have seemed tantalizingly close last month, but not any more.
Wednesday's rancorous rhetoric was part of a Security Council debate on the Goldstone report, an investigation commissioned by the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva to look into alleged war crimes and human rights violations committed during the Gaza fighting. The report, which came out last month but was originally sidelined by the Palestinians, faults both Israel and Hamas for disregarding civilian life – but comes down harder on Israel.
