John Bolton pust up the block against yet another out-of-context slam on Israel in The Picasso Room in Turtle Bay:
The UN Security Council failed to agree on a statement Thursday on a recent surge in violence between Israel and the Palestinians, after the United States said the proposed draft was unfairly critical of Israel.
The draft proposed by Qatar on behalf of the Palestinians would have expressed concern about the “indiscriminate shelling against the Gaza Strip, resulting in extensive human casualties” and called on Israel to halt “military operations and excessive use of force that endangers the Palestinian civilian populations.”
The United States had argued for its long-standing belief that any such statement mention both sides’ obligations under the road map and cite Palestinian attacks against Israel as well.
Sure, it’s wasn’t hard to predict, but I wasted a few K’s of space anyway back in December.
I went searching through news archives for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs statements that were hopeful that Israeli business ties with Qatar and other very low diplomatic ties would result in a somewhat moderate stance by the “pro-terror” seat in the Security Council.
Not just fat chance, but Fat Albert-sized fat chance, folks.
Anyway, this opens up another opportunity to waste a day watching the streaming madness on UN’s Media website:
Because the draft failed, the Security Council will hold an open meeting on Monday when any of the 191 member states of the United Nations can speak. The council will also hold a monthly meeting on the Middle East a week after that.
There’s a six-minute whine by Dr. Riyad Mansour to the press in the lineup now, but the guy’s no out-and-out bats-, bugf- loony with a borrowed Moscow Express platinum card like Yasser’s nephew Nasser Al-Kidwa was.
(In case you’re curious, Mansour’s PhD is apparently in Counseling from U. of Akron.)
That is why even though he gets me so frustrated at times, I am glad that Bush won in 2004 instead of Kerry. Kerry would have appointed some well meaning Cyrus Vance/Brent Scowcroft type to the U.N.