Netanyahu to UN’s Ban: no symmetry between terror organizations and democratic country
Netanyahu to UN’s Ban: no symmetry between terror organizations and democratic country, Jerusalem Post, By Herb Keinon, July 19, 2014
(Here they go again with the faux “proportionality” nonsense. Israel does all that she can reasonably to avoid civilian casualties while Hamas, et al, do everything within their power to increase them — and not only in Israel. — DM)
UN Secretary-General heads to the Middle East, amid key voices around the world supporting Israel’s right to defend itself, while expressing concern about the civilian casualties in Gaza.
Meanwhile, the UN’s Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Jeffrey Feltman said Ban was “prepared to do his part” to end the violence. Feltman said that while Israel has legitimate security concerns, the United Nations “is alarmed by Israel’s heavy response.”
Regarding the ground incursion, Feltman said that Ban is “extremely concerned that this escalation will further increase the already appalling death toll among Gazan civilians.”
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon during a news conference in Andorra April 2, 2013. Photo: REUTERS/Albert Gea
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon left Saturday for the Middle East, amid key voices around the world supporting Israel’s right to defend itself, while expressing concern about the civilian casualties in Gaza.
US President Barack Obama issued a statement Friday, reaffirming his “strong support for Israel’s right to defend itself.
“No nation should accept rockets being fired into its borders, or terrorists tunneling into its territory,” said Obama, who spoke with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Friday. Obama pointed out that while he was speaking to Netanyahu, “sirens went off in Tel Aviv.”
“I also made clear that the United States, and our friends and allies, are deeply concerned about the risks of further escalation and the loss of more innocent life,” Obama said of his conversation with Netanyahu. “And that’s why we’ve indicated, although we support military efforts by the Israelis to make sure that rockets are not being fired into their territory, we also have said that our understanding is the current military ground operations are designed to deal with the tunnels, and we are hopeful that Israel will continue to approach this process in a way that minimizes civilian casualties and that all of us are working hard to return to the cease-fire that was reached in November of 2012.”
Meanwhile, the UN’s Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Jeffrey Feltman said Ban was “prepared to do his part” to end the violence. Feltman said that while Israel has legitimate security concerns, the United Nations “is alarmed by Israel’s heavy response.”
Regarding the ground incursion, Feltman said that Ban is “extremely concerned that this escalation will further increase the already appalling death toll among Gazan civilians.”
Netanyahu, who on Friday spoke to numerous world leaders to shore up understanding for Israel’s actions, spoke to Ban and said Israel was sorry for all accidental harm befalling Gazan citizens. Hamas, he said, intentionally fires at millions of Israeli citizens.
Netanyahu told Ban there was no “symmetry” between murderous terrorist organizations and a democratic and moral country attack by rockets and via tunnels. He called on the UN to publish the pictures of rockets stored in an UNRWA school, saying that Hamas hides rockets on schools in order to fire them on Israeli schools.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, meanwhile, issued a statement on Friday saying Israel has the “right to defend itself,” and that this must be done in a “reasonable manner.”
France, whose Foreign Minister arrived in Israel Saturday evening and met with Netanyahu, issued a statement saying it was “very concerned” by Israel decision to launch a ground offensive, and called on Israel to act with “maximum restraint.”
France, according to diplomatic officials, is among the group of countries interested in issuing an expansive statement following a meeting of EU foreign ministers meeting on Tuesday that would also deal with details of the diplomatic process, such as settlement construction, Jerusalem and Area C.
Israel is trying to avoid that type of statement at this time, wanting instead to see a short statement focusing on the situation in Gaza. A wider statement now dealing with issues like Har Homa and building in E-1 between Jerusalem and Ma’ale Adumim would be completely out of context and divert attention from the current situation, diplomatic officials said.
On Friday the EU issued a statement saying that it was “very concerned about the escalation in the Gaza Strip including the resumption of rocket fire into Israel and the Israeli ground operation. “ The statement said there has already been “too many civilian deaths, including many children such as those killed on a beach in Gaza. We strongly deplore such incidents and we call for them to be investigated swiftly. We condemn the continued firing of rockets from Gaza into Israel by Hamas and other militant groups and the indiscriminate targeting of civilians. We share the UN condemnation of the placement of rockets in a UN school. Israel has the right to protect its population from this kind of attacks. In doing so, it must act proportionately and ensure the protection of civilians at all times.”
Diplomatic officials said that while there has been understanding abroad for Israel’s actions, there will inevitably be more talk of “proportionality” abroad as the operation continues.
“The game changer has always been a ground operation,” one official said.
Some countries, however, have not shown any understanding. On such country is Brazil, which issued a statement saying that it “vehemently condemns the Israeli bombardment of Gaza with disproportionate use of force, which resulted in the deaths of more than 230 Palestinians, many of them unarmed civilians and children. It equally condemns the firing of rockets and mortars from Gaza into Israel. The Brazilian government rejects the current Israeli ground incursion into Gaza, which began on the night of 17 July and represents a serious setback to peace efforts.”
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WarSclerotic 
July 19, 2014 at 10:23 PM
This is not from my hand but it is nice !
The killing of innocent people, especially women and children, is horrible. Anyone with a heart should cry when this happens.
But it is a terrible outcome of war in populated areas.
Proportion, we are told. Proportion. So let’s talk about proportion. Forget about Dresden, where the Allies’ bombings left tens of thousands of people dead within three days. About 10,000 dead a day. Let’s take a look at a slightly closer little war.
It was a war waged only through airstrikes. And in a war as in a war, innocent people were killed too. In fact, mostly innocent people
en.wikipedia. org/wiki/NATO_bombing_of_Yugoslavia
On April 14, 70 refugees were killed while seeking shelter in the village of Korisa. On May 30, a retirement home was bombed. Twenty elderly men and women paid with their lives. It’s unclear what their sin was. That same day, 11 people were killed in a train bombing. A hospital was bombed too, three people were killed, and one stray bomb even reached the capital of the neighboring country.
It didn’t happen in Fallujah or in Chechnya. It happened in Belgrade, in central Europe, in the 1999 NATO bombings. About 500 fighters were killed, alongside a much bigger number, 1,500 according to an American general, of innocent civilians, including quite a few children. The Serbs themselves said the death toll had reached more than 5,000.
There were no mass protests in European cities against NATO at the time, but there was criticism. Amnesty Intrnational even accused NATO of committing war crimes.
theguardian. com/world/2000/jun/07/balkans1
So it did.
NATO’s planes, let me remind you, were not forced to deal with rockets fired at London or Paris from civilian population centers. The bombed entity did not threaten to destroy Germany or Holland. The official television channel in that entity did not call for the annihilation of the European, “to the very last one of them.”
Among the NATO forces, it should be mentioned, there were zero casualties. Were you looking for proportion? Well, NATO has shown it to us.
That war was to protect Muslims.
It happened before that in Somalia too. The United Nations sent special forces to Mogadishu. Hundreds of civilians were turned, willingly or forcibly, into a human shield for the reign of terror which took over the country. The result was mass and indiscriminate killing of innocent civilians.
They had excuses. NATO Spokesman Jamie Shea explained the mass killing of innocent people by saying that “there is always a cost to defeat an evil. It never comes free, unfortunately. But the cost of failure to defeat a great evil is far higher.”
http://www.nato. int/kosovo/press/p990517b.htm
David Stockwell, the chief spokesperson for the UN forces in Somalia, explained:
“There are no sidelines or spectator seats – the people on the ground are considered combatants.”
http://hornofafrica.ssrc. org/de_Waal3/printable.html
The UN gave its full support to the forces operating on its behalf, despite the mass killing of civilians.
So think before you join the anti-Israeli campaign and talk about “genocide,” about “war crimes” and about proportion.