Israeli terrorism criticised at UN

The UN General Assembly’s annual debate this week concentrated on Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians, with Syrian Foreign Minister pointing out that an attack on international terrorism should include Israel in the list of culprits.

The centre of the debate this year was not the customary topics of poverty, starvation and disease, but the question of Israel and Palestine. Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk Shara declared that “Anyone who would like to target terrorism in our region must target the Israeli terrorism first and foremost, because what Israel does is the utmost form of terrorism that is absolutely shorn of human feeling”.

Shara denounced the activities of Israeli terrorist groups Lehi and Irgun Zva’I Leumi, which sowed the seeds of terrorism throughout the region. Shara praised the Syrian-backed Hezbollah, whose assets have been frozen by the USA and declared that they should be praised for “defeating the Israeli occupying forces”.

In his turn, the Iraqi Foreign Minister, Naji Sabri, denounced the United States and the United Kingdom as the “founder and primary source of terrorism” due to the continued bombing raids by US and British military aircraft against his country. He also denounced the Israeli raid on Iraq in 1981, which destroyed Iraq’s nuclear reactor at Osirak, as an act of international terrorism.

Saddam Hussein, it was claimed in the conference, began a campaign on October 29th to form a new world in which weapons of mass destruction have no place, including those stockpiled by the USA and Israel, which the Iraqi President referred to as “the Zionist entity”.

The Egyptian representative at the UNO, Ahmed Abdul Gheit, exposed his country’s four-phase plan for peace in the Middle East: first, Israel should leave all lands it has occupied since June 4th, 1967. Secondly, Jerusalem should be declared the capital city of Palestine. Thirdly, all water, air and land usage rights should be handed back to the Palestinians in their lands and finally, Israel should deactivate its nuclear arsenal.

The Jordanian Foreign Minister, Abdel-Elah Khatib, agreed with this proposal but added that Jerusalem should be an open city where all religions could worship side by side.

It is pertinent that with the current international setting, the Middle East should have dominated opinions, the illegal actions by Israel, condemned in UN Resolutions, being the root cause of the international terrorism we see today.

Timothy BANCROFT-HINCHEY PRAVDA.Ru