UN Security Council cannot reach consensus to condemn Palestinian attacks

Kuwait blocks the American-drafted resolution, although the UN’s Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process did denounce the rocket attacks on Israel.

By: Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

Kuwait blocked an initiative to condemn the attack against Israel initiated by Hamas and Islamic Jihad and proposed its own instead calling for “measures” to protect civilian Palestinians.

At the urging of the United States, the UN’s Security Council held an emergency meeting Wednesday afternoon to discuss the rocket and mortar barrage sent into Israel by Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists Tuesday that injured seven Israelis, one moderately.

However, a unanimous consensus could not be reached on the Americans’ draft resolution condemning the indiscriminate attacks.

Kuwait, a non-permanent council member, blocked the initiative. It has its own proposal waiting for the UNSC’s consideration, one that calls for “measures” to protect civilian Palestinians in both Gaza and Judea and Samaria.

Kuwait has also recently tried passing one-sided resolutions that would have condemned Israel’s killing of Palestinians during the recent Gazan border clashes without mentioning the protestors’ violence and attempts to breach the fence and kill Israelis. Those were stymied by a veto from United States Ambassador Nikki Haley, and the upcoming one will have the same result.

While this body of the UN could not agree that shooting over 100 rockets and mortars blindly into Israeli towns and villages with the aim of hurting civilians was to be roundly criticized, the international organization’s Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process did speak up Tuesday against Hamas.

“As kids were preparing for school this morning a barrage of rockets from Gaza fell on southern Israel, one landed outside a kindergarten. I know the resilience of communities in southern Israel but indiscriminate attacks are totally unacceptable and to be condemned unreservedly,” Nickolay Mladenov tweeted in a rare show of support for the Jewish state.

Another infrequent backer of Israel who echoed the criticism was the European Union’s (EU) foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, who stated categorically that “Indiscriminate attacks against civilians are completely unacceptable under any circumstances.”

Other countries that joined the US in condemning the Hamas and Islamic Jihad rocket terror include France, Britain, Canada, Italy, Austria and even Ireland, long known as a bastion of pro-Palestinian support.