Representatives of Arab countries at the United Nations and the 57 member states of the Organization of the Islamic Conference have called for a UN Security Council session to be convened on the critical situation in Gaza.
Libya, which held the Security Council rotating presidency for the month of January, presented a draft statement to the Security Council which called on the Zionist regime to halt its crimes and lift the blockade.
The draft statement was studied by the 15 Security Council members, and all -- except the United States -- supported it.
Even amendments to the draft statement, which included a requirement that the Palestinians stop the rocket attacks on the occupied territories launched from Gaza, were not able to end Washington’s intransigence on the resolution.
On Wednesday, Security Council President Giadalla Ettalhi plainly declared that the council’s efforts to adopt a statement on Gaza had failed.
The U.S. obstructionism has once again proven that the Security Council can not issue a non-binding statement condemning the Zionist regime, even over the humanitarian crisis it has caused in Gaza.
The United States had demanded that Hamas should be condemned before Israel was censured and that the prisoner of war, Zionist soldier Gilad Shalit, should be promptly released.
The two issues are not related to the Gaza crisis and the U.S. only proposed these conditions to ensure that no Security Council resolution was passed.
Washington is opposed to the adoption of UN resolutions against Israel because of the Zionist lobby’s influence over the United States’ policymaking bodies and international organizations.
Moreover, since 2008 is a presidential election year in the U.S., the Republicans need the support of the Zionist lobby and must pay the price.
U.S. President George W. Bush’s recent visit to Israel, during which he reiterated his opposition to granting five million Palestinian refugees the right of return to their homeland, showed that he is also trying to convince the Zionist lobby to support the Republicans in the election.
Such moves contradict Bush’s claims that he would like to see the establishment of a democratic Palestinian state in the occupied territories, since before proposing the creation of such a state, he would be obliged to convince Israel to accept UN resolutions 194, 232, and 338, but he actually violated Resolution 194 during his trip.
The U.S. bias toward the Zionist regime is an obstacle to the Palestinian nation’s efforts to obtain their inalienable rights, and in such an atmosphere, Israel will not accept the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with Beit-ul-Moqaddas (Jerusalem) as its capital.
Now Islamic and Arab countries must stand up for the Palestinians’ rights and resist the Western pressure; otherwise the situation in Palestine will only take a turn for the worse.
(Feb. 2 Tehran Times Opinion Column, by Hassan Hanizadeh)
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