On the UN and war in Gaza
Opinion.
8/17/2014
Marwan Bishara is the senior political analyst at Al Jazeera.
When Ban Ki-moon called for an "end to the violence" in Gaza last month, his call fell on deaf ears. When he urged an "end to the madness", Israel yawned. It wasn't until the UN Security Council issued a mild presidential statement urging an "immediate humanitarian ceasefire" that the Israeli government snapped.
Even though the statement fell short of Palestinian and Arab demands, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called UN chief Ban Ki-moon to protest the statement's partiality towards Hamas. He lectured him about the rights and wrongs of its wordings, even though the statement never mentioned Israel or Hamas by name, and, besides, Ban Ki-moon is not responsible for UN Security Council Statements.
President Mahmoud Abbas made no such call to the secretary general, but a group of distinguished scholars and NGOs told him in an open letter that he should either stand for law and justice or resign.
They recalled how in a series of statements, Ban Ki-moon neglected to name Israel as the perpetrator of violence, making no distinction between occupied and occupier.
in full: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/08/un-war-gaza-201481712442826114.html
