US opposes UN on Israel… again!
US assails UN rights forum probe into Israeli Gaza attack
AFP via Yahoo! News
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States denounced the UN Human Rights Council for holding a special session on the recent Israeli shelling of homes in the Gaza strip that left 18 Palestinians dead.
Meeting in Geneva, the council voted to send an urgent fact-finding mission to the site of the attack in the Gaza town of Beit Hanun.
State Department deputy spokesman Tom Casey complained that Wednesday’s session was the third time in less than six months that the UN rights body convened a session addressing only Israel and advancing “an imbalanced view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”
This comes only days after the following…
US vetoes UN draft condemning Israel’s Gaza onslaught
AFP via Yahoo! News
by Gerard Aziakou Sat Nov 11, 5:58 PM ET
-- fotdmikeUNITED NATIONS (AFP) - The United States vetoed an Arab-sponsored draft resolution in the UN Security Council that would have condemned Israel’s deadly attack in the Gaza Strip, calling the text “unbalanced” and “biased.”
“The draft doesn’t display an even-handed characterization of the recent events in Gaza,” US Ambassador John Bolton said, referring to what Israel said was an accidental shelling that killed 19 Palestinian civilians, mostly women and children, in the the Gaza town of Beit Hanun.
“We are disturbed at the language of the resolution that is in many places biased against Israel and politically motivated,” he added. “Such language does not further the cause of peace and its unacceptability to the United States in previous resolutions is well known.”
As one of the council’s five permanent members along with Britain, China, France and Russia, the United States has veto power which it has now used 82 times, often to shield Israel from censure.
Its previous use of the veto was in July to block a Qatari-sponsored draft resolution that would have condemned Israel’s military onslaught in Gaza as “disproportionate force” and would have demanded a halt to Israeli operations in the territory.
