General Assembly
Statement by Ambassador Daniel Carmon
Deputy Permanent Representative
4 November 2009
Thank you, Mr. President.
Two days after the revelation of Hamas’ newly improved Iranian-made rockets, and one day after the interception of a ship, the Francop, loaded with hundreds of tons of rockets and ammunition destined to be launched at Israeli population centers –– a grave event that we have just complained about to the President of the Security Council –– this draft resolution mocks the reality faced by democratic states such as Israel that confront relentless terrorist threats.
The draft resolution before us endorses and legitimizes a deeply flawed, one-sided, and prejudiced report of the discredited Human Rights Council and its politicized work that bends both fact and law. It disregards Israel’s inherent right to defend its citizens in the face of ongoing terrorist attacks.
It represents yet another pretext to bash Israel at the UN and is detrimental to any positive diplomatic engagement in the region.
It attempts to export from Geneva to New York a campaign of delegitimization.
While Israel has been conducting professional, credible and thorough investigations as part of its standard operating procedure, irrespective of any UN report, the report before you attempts to draw an implausible equivalence between Israel, a democracy exercising its inherent right to defend itself from terrorist attacks, and those who target Israeli civilians and operates from behind Palestinian mosques, hospitals, schools, and human shields, or alternatively, those effectively absent from Gaza.
The draft resolution in OP 4 refers to the “Palestinian side,” yet although we have received clarification, and without disrespect to what we have just heard from the representative of Egypt, I will put a question before the assembly as to who is precisely this accountable “Palestinian side.” Is it the Palestinian Authority who was ousted from power in the Gaza Strip in a bloody coup? Is it the Hamas terrorist organization that violently seized control of Gaza, an organization that rejects the recognition of Israel and any peaceful resolution of the conflict?
For these and other reasons, Israel called for a recorded vote. Israel will vote against this draft, and we urge other member states to do the same.
Thank you.
