THe US has, once agained, veotoed a UN Security Council resolution perceived as prejudicial to the interests of Israel. [Apparently, little thought was given to the question of whether a veto might be prejudicial to the interests of the US, but I digress].

This one involved a resolution condemning Israel's "mistaken" attack on the town of Biet Hanoun.

Offhand, this is about the 50th time the US has vetoed a Security Council resolution deemed to be prejudicial to Israel.

The first US veto in the Security Council was cast in early 1971, and it involved the question of seating the PRC as opposed to the ROC [Taiwan] as the representative of China.

Since then, Israel has been the primary, if not exclusive [there may have been a veto or two cast on behalf of South Africa in the middle 1970s] beneficiary of the US veto in the UN Security Council, apart from the few times the US finds itself directly under criticism and vetoes a measure on it's own behalf.   It's almost as if Israel has two seats in the UN, one of which by happenstance is a permannet member of the Security Council.

The many folks accross the political spectrum who criticize [correctly, most of the time] the UN and heatedly beat the drums for reform, I wonder if something like this is what they have in mind?  Somehow, I doubt it.

Four members of the Security council abstained, as could the US, and it would have had the same effect as a veto [and might have marginally lessened the eventual damage to the US for this action]. But no, NeoConMan John Bolton and company, wouldn't want to make the Israelis feel insecure or in any way subject to normal criticism like every other country in the world, so a veto was in order.  As if there was ever any doubt?


Excepting from the article :

This was the second time this year the US used its veto on a draft resolution on Israeli military operations in Gaza.

The US has a history of vetoing resolutions condemning Israel which it feels are biased against the country, says the BBC's Laura Trevelyan at the UN in New York.

[Oh, THAT IS news. I hadn't noticed].


The draft resolution - backed by Arab, Islamic and non-aligned states and formally proposed by Qatar - called for a withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip.

It also asked the UN secretary general to set up a fact-finding mission into the deaths in Beit Hanoun.

The draft urged the Palestinian Authority to act to end violence - including rockets fired at southern Israel.

The US ambassador said he regretted the Palestinian loss of life, but disagreed with the language used in the resolution.

"This resolution does not display an even-handed characterisation of the recent events in Gaza, nor does it advance the cause of Israeli-Palestinian peace to which we aspire and for which we are working assiduously," he said.

[Bolton might wonder, in his more contemplative moments and when he free  from the unending and no doubt totally exhausting duty of running interference for Israel, how "even-handed" anything ever said and done by the US in the last 45 years or so with regard to this conflict has been.  I know he's got a job to do, but this seems like a job only the most idelogically committed would ever undertake, and I might as well be asking swine to dance ballet for all my troubles].

'Green light'

An Israeli government spokesman described the veto as "very satisfactory".

[Really?  Just another day at the office no doubt].

"The draft resolution did not stipulate that what happened at Beit Hanun was a tragic error," Avi Pazner told AFP news agency.

[Well, Avi, that little thing remains to be proven.  Excuse the Pallys, subhuman terrorist wretches that they are, if they're not willing to take YOUR word for it, and see some problem eith you sitting as a judge in your own case].

But Palestinian cabinet spokesman Ghazi Hamad of Hamas told Reuters the veto was "a signal that the US had given legitimacy to the massacres and a green light to [Israel] to ... carry out more massacres".

[Rhetorical overkill alert!  But the sad thing is, purple prose aside, old Ghazi ain't all that far from reality.  Certainly, that's how the Islamofascists are going to argue it, and that's what the politically activated among the Arab masses are going to believe.  Lll of which will ultimately redound to the [1] benefit or [2] detriment of the US?  Take a giess, go ahead].

Qatar's ambassador said the credibility of the Security Council had been called into question by the vote and the cycle of violence in the Middle East would continue.

[No, to me it just calls into question the rationality of US policies].

Israel launched its operation in and around Beit Hanoun last month in an effort to root out militants firing rockets.

[Hmmm, where have we heard this before?  It's almost as predictable as the sunrise].

The deaths were caused when what witnesses described as a volley of tank shells hit a built-up civilian area. Many of the dead were from one extended family, and included several women and children.

[News reports said that the Israelis were targeting orange groves from which the bad guys were believe to be firing rockets.  So, how does one misidentify orange groves with "built-up civilian areas"?  Probably the same way one misidentifies the USS Liberty with an Egyptian warship?  Or was it a Russian trawler? Ahh, just speculating, mind you].

[And that family, what bad luck.  But, they're not Israeli so we don't feel their pain.  And it doesn't get anywhere as much media coverage].

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert apologised for the attack, describing it as a "technical failure".

[Thanks Ehud, for small favors.  But it's more than Ari would have done].