IT is unfortunate that some Palestinians should have expressed their anger the way they did. On Thursday, Ban Ki-moon was pelted with shoes, stones and sand as he crossed into the Gaza Strip. Those who demonstrated against the UN secretary general were angry over Mr Ban’s refusal to meet the relatives of Palestinian prisoners in Israel — estimated at 5,000. Their hurt was the greater, because Mr Ban had met the family of Gilad Shalit, the lone Israeli soldier held by Hamas and released last October. The demonstrators accused Mr Ban of a ‘bias’ in favour of Israel. Once in Khan Yunis, the UN chief criticised “people from Gaza” for firing rockets into Israel, while asking Tel Aviv to ease its blockade of the Mediterranean strip. Throughout his tenure as secretary general, Mr Ban has tried to maintain what he would consider a ‘balance’ in his criticism of the two sides. While he urges the Palestinian side to resume talks, he has often criticised Israel for its settlement policy.

It is ‘safe’ for Mr Ban to follow this policy, because America, too, disapproves of Israel’s settlement policy publicly. Beyond words, however, successive American administrations since Jimmy Carter’s days have done nothing practical to make Israel behave. President Barack Obama was condemnatory of Israel’s settlements policy in his 2009 speech to the Muslim world but has repeatedly surrendered to the Israel lobby’s pressures. Mr Ban’s refusal to meet prisoners’ relatives is less of an offence committed by default by the world body, considering the more serious issues it has on its conscience, like the failure to get two of its crucial resolutions — 242 and 338 which call upon Israel to vacate the occupied territories — implemented. The two-state solution is a good myth, and the UN chief is as helpless as President Obama.