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UNITED NATIONS, Dec 21: The United States on Friday night vetoed a Syrian-sponsored UN Security Council resolution that would have condemned Israel for the recent killings of a Briton and two Palestinians working for the United Nations in the West Bank and Gaza.
Twelve council members, including Britain, voted in favor and Bulgaria and Cameroon abstained.
But the negative vote by the United States, one of five permanent council members with veto power, meant the resolution was not adopted.
The proposed measure, backed by Arab nations, would have condemned the killings by the Israeli army as well as the destruction of a UN World Food Programme warehouse in Gaza as a violation of the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention on the protection of civilians in time of war.
US Ambassador John Negroponte, who had submitted a substitute draft that removed the condemnation of Israel but expressed “grave concern” at the killings, said Syria’s proposed resolution, was unbalanced and not conducive to Middle East peace efforts.
“The proponents of this resolution appear more intent on condemning Israeli occupation than on ensuring the safety of UN personnel,” he told the council before the vote.
Negroponte said the United States reserved the right to resubmit its own resolution next week. But diplomats said Arab nations had threatened to call an emergency UN General Assembly if he did so.
The United States, which has vetoed some 30 Middle East resolutions since 1972, last used its veto power in December last year to kill a resolution on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Syria’s UN ambassador Mikhail Wehbe said he had accepted amendments from council members all week but the United States was “attempting to equate the victim with the butcher”.
Palestinian envoy Nasser al-Kidwa told the council he could not understand the US veto “but we note that the United States is biased toward Israel”.
“It seems that this bias knows no limit even if this has to be at the expense of international humanitarian law and if it comes at the expense of the lives of those who work in the humanitarian field,” he said.
KILLING OF BRITON: Israeli soldiers killed Briton Iain Hook on Nov 22 after a gunbattle with Palestinians in the West Bank Jenin refugee camp. A week later two Palestinians were shot in Gaza. All worked for the UN Relief and Works Agency, known as UNRWA, which gives aid to Palestinians.
The Israeli army said its soldiers mistook a cell phone that Hook, a senior UNRWA official, was holding for a weapon and that gunmen had entered a walled UN compound in Jenin.
But UN officials denied this and said there was no threat to Israeli soldiers near the UN compound.
Aaron Jacob, Israel’s deputy UN ambassador, said his country was investigating Hook’s death and would make its finding known “to the relevant authorities”.
“While it is right and proper to scrutinize the action of states, failure to hold accountable those armed groups who abused the protected status of civilians only encourage terrorist groups to increase their reliance on this reprehensible tactic,” he said.
Calling the draft resolution a “cynical diplomatic game”, Jacob said the peace process was frozen and “the credibility of the Palestinian leadership is barely greater than zero”.
“The only difference is the number of gravestones that stand as a testament to the failed policies of the past,” he said.
The security council on Dec 13 condemned last month’s attacks in Mombasa, Kenya, against Israeli tourists, explicitly mentioning Israeli victims for the first time.—Reuters
