|
UN Council Passes Compromise Gaza Resolution,
US Abstains, Withdrawal Unclear
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of
Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS,
January 8 -- Twelve days after
Israel's air strikes on Gaza began, a watered-down resolution calling
"leading to a withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza" was passed by
the UN Security Council, with the United States abstaining. They gave away everything, a diplomat
said of the Arab Group, and still the US abstained. One on-camera
expression of
this view came from Sudan's Ambassador, who called the draft weak,
subject to
interpretation -- and irony. Inner City Press video at www.youtube.com/watch?v=vObCEsbIV6w
Ironically,
a compromise in the past 24 hours by Libya to include a reference to
Hamas in
the text, which in turn put some pressure on the US to agree not to
veto a
resolution, was followed by a resolution without the word Hamas
anywhere in it.
In the Chamber, after Condi
Rice surreally said the resolution she had just abstained on provides a
good
road map, Costa Rica's Jorge Urbina thanked France's Bernard Kouchner
for erroneously
promoting him to Foreign Minister in his introduction. The speakers'
list
included Palestine, Saudi Arabia and Egypt -- but initially not
Israel.
The foreign minister of the
Palestinian Authority put the number of dead at
760, "forty percent of them women and children." In the balcony of
the Security Council, nearly every ear piece was broken.
UN's Ban and France's Kouchner, withdrawal not shown
Afterwards
the UK's David Miliband
floated by the stakeout out. A few words? "I've said so many words,"
he said and was gone. Condi Rice did not even pass the area. Amre
Moussa spoke,
and Inner City Press asked him for his interpretation of the line
"leading
to the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza." Fast, he
said.
Then that he had to get to the airport. Japan's Permanent
Representative
Takasu, asked the same question, noted that the Arab Group had wanted
an
immediate withdrawal, but the adopted text was different. Still it
should be
fast, he said. How fast? He wouldn't answer.
The Palestinian
Authority's foreign minister predicted at least
two more days of bloodshed, that Israel will claim it can't implement
the
ceasefire portion of the resolution over the Sabbath. The Israeli
mission
handed out one copy of Ambassador Shalev's short statement, but she did
not
come to the stakeout. The soda machine was sold out, the coffee machine
had run
out of cups. The lights were turned off and the vacuum cleaners started.
Click
here for Inner City
Press' review-of-2008 UN Top Ten debate
Click here for Inner
City Press' December 24 debate on UN budget, Niger
Click here from Inner City Press'
December 12 debate on UN double standards
Click here for Inner
City Press' November 25 debate on Somalia, politics
Click here for Inner City
Press Nov. 7 debate on the war in Congo
Watch this site, and this Oct. 2 debate, on
UN, bailout, MDGs
and this October 17 debate, on
Security Council and Obama and the UN.
* * *
These
reports are
usually also available through Google
News and on Lexis-Nexis.
Click
here
for a Reuters
AlertNet piece by this correspondent
about Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army. Click
here
for an earlier Reuters AlertNet piece about the Somali
National
Reconciliation Congress, and the UN's $200,000 contribution from an
undefined trust fund. Video
Analysis here
Feedback: Editorial
[at] innercitypress.com
UN Office: S-453A, UN, NY 10017
USA
Tel: 212-963-1439
Reporter's mobile (and
weekends):
718-716-3540
Other,
earlier Inner City Press are listed here, and some are available
in the ProQuest service, and now on Lexis-Nexis.
Copyright
2006-08 Inner City Press, Inc. To request
reprint or other permission, e-contact Editorial [at]
innercitypress.com -
|
