US Ambassador to the United Nations Nicky Haley criticized the world body’s Security Council for what she called a ‘bias against Israel’. The UN Security Council’s monthly meeting on the Middle East, which routinely discusses the situation in the chaotic region, including the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, has according to ambassador Haley turned into an ‘Israel bashing session’ rather than a platform for international powers to propose formulas that could help identify viable solutions.
“Regrettably, these monthly meetings routinely turn into Israel bashing sessions. That’s the way this Security Council has operated for years. It’s a formula that is absurdly biased against one country. It’s a formula that is painfully narrow in its description of the conflicts in the region. And it’s a formula that does nothing to help find solutions. The truth is these Security Council meetings don’t do anyone in the region any favors, least of all the Israelis and the Palestinians. These meetings do nothing to bring the parties closer together. They actually work to push the two sides apart,” said Haley.
Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon welcomed “the efforts to widen the scope of the Security Council meetings on the region and focus on what he said were “the real dangers in the Middle East.”
“More importantly, the chance for peace and stability for our region depends on this council and the international community as a whole recognizing real threats when we see them. I ask a simple question to those who insist on keeping the focus on Israel here in the Security Council. Is Israel at fault for the spread of ISIS? Is Israel to blame for the dire situation in Yemen? Is Israel responsible for the daily massacre in Syria? The answer is a resounding no. We welcome the efforts to widen the scope of the Security Council meetings and focus on the real dangers in the Middle East. The time has come to finally put an end to the obsessive focus on Israel. The time has come to stop the scapegoating of the Jewish state for every war and conflict in our region. This council should remain focused on stopping the council’s support of sadistic dictators who gas their own people,” said Danon.
Russia, which last week blocked a US-led effort at the Security Council to condemn the Assad regime for a deadly gas attack in Syria, disapproved of the American effort to change the focus of the Middle East meeting, accusing Washington of trying to implement its own foreign-policy on the council.
“We thank the American delegation for calling today’s meeting. Nonetheless, we would like to express categorical disagreement with the attempts to tailor this meeting to the domestic context and exclusively to an American foreign policy focus. For example, in the concept note of this meeting, the name of which has traditionally been ‘the situation on the Middle East including the Palestinian question,’ our American colleagues have remained silent on this very Palestinian question. Furthermore, in the document prepared by the U.S. delegation, we do not find any reflection in the danger from the threats posed by ISIL, Jabhat al-Nusra, other extremist and terrorist groups of all kinds and those groups’ violence that causes suffering to civilians in Syria, Iraq and Libya,” said Peter Iliichev, Russia’s Deputy Ambassador to the United Nations.