PRESS CONFERENCE BY ISRAEL

PRESS CONFERENCE BY ISRAEL

At a time when brutal terrorism threatened citizens throughout the world, it was important for world figures, and the United Nations as a whole, to call terror by its name and hold the leaders and regimes that sponsored terrorism accountable, Israel’s Ambassador told correspondents at Headquarters this morning.

At a press conference convened by Israel’s Mission to the United Nations as a reaction to the United Nations “lack of response” to the suicide bombing on 29 January in Jerusalem, Israel’s Permanent Representative, Dan Gillerman, said that Israel had the greatest respect for the Secretary-General and for his personal commitment and efforts for peace in the Middle East.  The moral clarity of the Secretary-General in expressly condemning brutal acts of terrorism was important.  That was why Israel had to express disappointment and dismay at the response issued by the Secretary-General’s Office to yesterday’s attack.  Vague references, such as “those who resorted to violence and terror” were not sufficient, he said.

Describing yesterday’s suicide bombing in Jerusalem, Mr. Gillerman said it had been a difficult day for Israelis and for all those who fought terrorism and hoped for peace.  At 9 a.m., a Palestinian Authority policeman from Bethlehem had perpetrated a grave suicide attack on a crowded commuter bus in central Jerusalem, killing 10 people and wounding over 50, 10 of them seriously.  To affect maximum pain and injury, the bomb had been packed with metal balls, nails and bolts and had proven powerful enough to rip off one side of the bus and the back of its roof, lifting it some 12 metres into the air and hundreds of metres from the explosion site.  The scene was one of “indescribable carnage and horror”, with limbs and body parts of victims strewn throughout the area of the blast, he said.

The fact that a Palestinian Authority security official, charged with fighting Palestinian terrorism, was responsible for the brutal massacre only added to the horror, he said.  Unfortunately, it was not the first time that security personnel on the Palestinian Authority payroll had been directly engaged in terrorist atrocities.  “This repugnant disregard for life and the officially sanctioned glorification of murder as martyrdom is the greatest enemy of the Palestinian and Israeli peoples and hopes of peace in the region”, he said.

The Al Aqsa Martyr’s Brigade, a terrorist organization belonging to Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement, had claimed responsibility for the massacre and the terrorist groups Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad had praised it, he added.  The suicide bombing had happened, moreover, on a day when Israel had received the bodies of three of its soldiers abducted by Hezbollah and the return of Israeli businessman, Elhanan Tennenbaum, in exchange for the release of hundreds of terrorist operatives.

He said he was aware that the Secretary-General was travelling and very busy.  The Secretary-General was a decent and honourable person and fair diplomat.  While he could only assume that the statement had not been written or approved by him, it had, however, been attributed to him.  In the statement attributed to the Secretary-General no mention had been made of Israeli victims slaughtered or wounded in the bombing.  In fact, no specific reference had been made to the attack at all, or to a condemnation, in any terms, of the terrorist perpetrators.

“This is in distinct contrast to the tendency of the Office of the Secretary-General to issue statements of reprimand, with clear and specific detail, when Israel engages in defensive measures against terrorist operatives who callously target and hide behind civilians, endangering not only Israelis but Palestinians as well”, he said.

Unfortunately, the Secretary-General’s “mild” statement followed a number of other troubling actions by Secretariat officials in recent months, he said.   Those actions included the reluctance of the Secretary-General to assist in the adoption of a resolution on anti-Semitism after being specifically requested by the resolution’s sponsor to do so; the preparation of a report on Israel’s security fence that had failed to devote even one word to the terrorist threat that the fence was designed to protect against; and the submission of a dossier of documents to the International Court of Justice on the security fence issue, with a bias in document selection “that bordered on the absurd”.

“These events”, he added, “coming from a Quartet member and sponsor of the Road Map, are, in our view, too troubling to pass without comment”.

Israel made a clear distinction between the political organs of the United Nations, where the double standard in the treatment of Israel was often clear, and the Secretariat, which was required by the United Nations Charter to conduct itself impartially and without favour, he said.  Israel had the greatest respect for the Secretary-General and for his deep personal commitment and efforts for Middle East peace.  It was because of that respect that Israel was disappointed.

Israel also shared the Secretary-General’s dream for a true and lasting peace in which two peoples lived side by side, each in their own State, he said.  Following images of recently buried coffins, bereaved families and dismembered limbs, it was all the more critical to speak out with moral clarity against terrorists that deliberately murdered innocent civilians in cold blood.  To ensure that dream, the international community, and the United Nations, in particular, must condemn terrorist violence and hold responsible the organizations that perpetrated them.  “To focus on the response to terrorism and not on the terrorism itself is unfair and harmful to the cause of peace”, he added.

He said only a united and uncompromising stand against the perpetrators of violence could bring an end to the Palestinian strategy of terrorism and murder, as required by the Road Map, and make political concessions and peace between the peoples of the region possible.  Indifference to the continuing Palestinian policy of intransigence and terror, or rewarding one-sided Palestinian initiatives in the United Nations could only embolden the terrorists and undermine efforts to achieve a peaceful negotiated settlement, he said.

Was the Secretary-General perhaps trying to impress on Israel that it was not the victim, but coequally responsible? a correspondent asked.

Responding, Mr. Gillerman said that in no way did he believe that the Secretary-General could even imagine a situation in which he would claim that Israel was not the victim of some of the most evil and brutal terror the century had seen.  Everyone was aware of the phenomenon of suicide bombings, which deliberately targeted innocents and civilians, slaughtering whole families and wiping out sometimes three generations.  Equating Israeli defensive actions carried out to pre-empt suicide bombings, which in the process sometimes resulted in the killing of innocent people, with the deliberate targeting of innocents, was not only unfair, but obscene.

Continuing, he said he was sure that some would argue that the day before the homicide bombing, a military action in Gaza had resulted in nine Palestinians being killed.  That event was a six-hour confrontation between armed Palestinians and armed Israelis, in which Israel had sought to root out Palestinians who were preparing to carry out terrorist attacks against Israel.  It was unfortunate that two or three innocent people had been killed.  Even the Palestinians had admitted that all of them had been armed.  To make the comparison between an armed conflict and the specific targeting of a civilian bus was both obscene and unfair.

Asked to explain Israel’s objections to criticism regarding the building of the fence, he said there was something macabre about an Organization that, on the one hand, sent Israel as an accused to The Hague because of the fence, and at the same time failed to condemn, in the strongest possible terms, the terrorists who made the fence necessary.  As he had said to the General Assembly, it was the Arafat fence.  If there were no Arafat, there would be no need for the fence.

Regarding Israel’s criticism of the material sent by the United Nations to The Hague, he said that, while there was a lot of criticism about the fence, there were facts on the ground that nobody could dispute.  There were changes to the fence that nobody could dispute.  There were statements against terrorism by the Security Council, which nobody could ignore and which should have been part of the material transmitted by the United Nations to the Court.  Documents submitted to the Court should include all the facts.  The material provided by the United Nations to the Court was biased, one-sided and had ignored many well-known facts.

Asked to comment on the Security Council’s failure to condemn yesterday’s attack, he said Israel was disappointed that the Security Council had not found it necessary to convene in order to condemn the attack.  Such double standards were infuriating.  A few months ago, after Israel had bombed an empty warehouse in Syria in retaliation for a horrible suicide, the Security Council, at behest of that “freedom-loving bastion of democracy and human rights” -– Syria -- had urgently convened on a Sunday afternoon, on the eve of the holiest day in the Jewish religion, Yom Kippur.

Although Israel had tried to convince the Council that the meeting could wait a day or two, the Security Council had, nevertheless, convened to discuss a bombing “in which no one was even scratched”, he said.  However, following a homicide bombing in which 10 people had been killed and scores wounded, the Council had not felt it necessary to convene or even to issue a presidential statement.  That was very wrong.

Asked to describe Israeli public reaction to the United Nations, he said what he was doing today was the result of outrage and disappointment in Jerusalem at the “watery response” of the United Nations to what happened.  The feeling in Israel was one of great outrage.  The outrage in Israel was terrible, which was also why Israel was doing something unprecedented, in appealing to the Secretary-General within the building to be more forceful in his condemnation.

Regarding Arab critics of the Secretary-General, who charged that he “condemned” Palestinian operations and “deplored” Israeli actions, he said he had not, in his time at the United Nations, gotten used to the game of semantics.  Both the terms “condemn” and “deplore” were words that did not address what was actually happening.  Israel believed that the Secretary-General cared deeply about terrorism and that he was trying to mobilize the Organization and the world community against terrorism.  It was because Israel believed that the Secretary-General was very honourable, decent and fair that it felt that the statement did not express the Secretary-General’s true feelings.

Had Israel gone to the United States and the European Union, asking for a Council resolution, or would it be reluctant to do that, as it had not done so in the past? a correspondent asked.

Mr. Gillerman said the Israeli Permanent Mission was trying to do several things that it had not done in the past.  The world had changed since September 11, Iraq and the capture of Saddam Hussein.  The policy of zero tolerance towards terrorism, adopted by the United States and some of its allies, must also be reflected by the United Nations.  That was why it had decided that it would not “lay back and take it” and had decided on a more proactive, even aggressive policy.  The charade could go on no longer.  As far as Israel and the Israeli Mission were concerned, enough was enough.

Yesterday, Israel had approach some of its friends, including the United States delegation, which had initiated an attempt to reach a presidential statement to reflect the Security Council’s condemnation, he continued.  It had been thwarted, however, mainly by another “bastion of democracy”, Algeria.  Algeria had blocked the presidential statement, which required consensus.  He expressed disappointment that Algeria, after its first month on the Council, had decided to pursue that road.

Israel was the only democracy in the region and a State in which the rule of law presided, he said, in response to a question on Israel’s repeated violations of international humanitarian law.  Israeli courts, not the International Court of Justice (ICJ), were engaged daily in protecting the rights of Palestinians and many times issued decisions that sided with the Palestinians when their rights were abused.  Israel was doing its utmost in an impossible situation to alleviate the plights of the Palestinian people, which had been caused only by their leadership.  Three years ago, an Israeli Prime Minister and United States President had made a far-reaching proposal to the Palestinian leadership, which would have ended the current situation and assured a Palestinian State.

The Palestinian Authority, lead by Yasser Arafat, had rejected that proposal, dragging his own people and the entire region into over three years of death and destruction, he said.  The Palestinians themselves realized that it was not poverty that bred terrorism, but terrorism that bred poverty.  Israel had no option but to defend itself.  Israel would continue to conduct self-defence while carefully observing international law.

Given its concern about the Secretary-General’s direction, was there a danger, in Israel’s view, that the United Nations was moving in a direction where it could no longer be considered an honest broker? a correspondent asked.

Responding, Mr. Gillerman said the United Nations was an important organization.  Ultimately, when the world changed, and the United Nations had made the necessary reforms, it would be able to assume a major role in peacemaking and peacekeeping, and be an honest broker.  The United Nations, however, was only as good as the sum of its members.  In an organization with an automatic majority against Israel, it was difficult to maintain impartiality all the time.  Kofi Annan and his staff had the capability and duty to act much more forcefully against terrorism.  They usually did.  Mr. Annan had repeatedly expressed criticism against terrorism.  That was why the current incident stood out.  He did not dispute the authority of the Secretary-General or his staff.  Israel worked very closely with them.  Pleasing 191 clients was not easy, but the current case cried out for more than a mild reaction.

Was the Ambassador asking the Secretary-General to do something specific, such as issue a new statement? a correspondent asked.

He said he would be very happy if the Secretary-General, having reviewed the statement, found it right to condemn the massacre in the strongest possible terms.  The Acting United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Bertrand Ramcharan, had issued a statement in which he condemned the bus bombing in Jerusalem.  He believed, however, that that particular statement should have come from higher up.

Asked if he had specific concerns about particular Secretariat officials, he said it was not up to him to remark on the performance of Secretariat officials.  He did, however, have the feeling that, in the process between reporting from the ground and the eventual Secretariat action, there were influences which were not always in the right direction.  He was not attributing that to any particular person, but he felt it was the case.

Many Israelis and Palestinians were being killed and no one was defending the Palestinians, except for some people at the United Nations. Could Israel end the killings and negotiate? a correspondent asked.

Israel had always negotiated, Mr. Gillerman said.  There was no country in the world or the region that yearned more for peace.  When an Arab leader whom Israel could trust put out his hand, Israel would take hold of that hand in the search for peace.  That had been the case with Anwar Sadat and Menachem Began and Yitzhak Rabin and King Hussein.  The tragedy was that the Palestinian people had been unable to produce such a leader.  Arafat was unable to make the transition from killer to statesman and leader.  He was the region’s and his own people’s greatest tragedy.  The minute a peace-loving leader emerged, he would find in Israel a partner that would be willing to make concessions.

Responding to a question on Security Council reform, he said many shared the feeling that the United Nations was in need of urgent reform.  It was not up to him, however, to outline what the reform should be.  There had been many “red lights” in 2003 and the United Nations should heed those warnings and look at what reforms it could make.

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