JNS
“Those who really want stability in the region should welcome the elimination of arch terrorists, not call on both sides to show restraint,” said Israeli envoy Jonathan Miller.
An Israeli envoy to the United Nations on Wednesday chided the “rank hypocrisy” of the Security Council calling an emergency session at Iran’s behest, given the body’s silence over the Islamic Republic’s deadly terror activities throughout the region.
The UNSC met at the request of members Russia, China and Algeria, on behalf of Tehran. The session came in the wake of the assassination earlier in the day of Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran. No one has yet claimed responsibility, though Israel is thought to be behind the action, which came just hours after Haniyeh, an arch terrorist, met with Iran’s new president.
Several council members called for increased diplomatic efforts in order to avoid an all-out regional war.
Prior to the elimination of Haniyeh, an Israeli airstrike in Beirut killed senior Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr, who Israel said was responsible for Saturday’s rocket attack in the Golan Heights, which killed 12 Druze children playing on a soccer field.
“This operation sends a clear message: We will defend ourselves and respond with great force against those who harm us,” Jonathan Miller, Israel’s U.N. deputy ambassador, told the Security Council of Shukr’s killing.
Demanding that the council designate Iran as a terrorist entity, Miller said he felt compelled to “stress the rank hypocrisy on display here today. This meeting has been called for by the world’s number one sponsor of terrorism, responsible for the most horrifying barbarism across the region and the globe.”
Hezbollah, along with Hamas and the Houthis of Yemen, are all Iranian proxies, trained and financed by Tehran.
Miller chastised the council for its inaction following the attack on the Golan Heights. Predictably, the council did not call for an emergency session then.
“Where were the condemnations of Hezbollah and their Iranian suppliers for the butchery of these 12 children?” asked Miller. “Those who really want stability in the region should welcome the elimination of arch terrorists, not call on both sides to show restraint.”
Robert Wood, the U.S. deputy ambassador to the U.N., was quick to separate Washington from Israel’s operations, while justifying taking out Shukr, who the U.S. holds responsible for the deadly 1983 bombing of a U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, killing 241 servicemembers.
“I want to be very clear about this: Israel has a right to defend itself against attacks from Hizballah and other terrorists,” said Wood on Wednesday. “That is precisely what it did” in the Beirut airstrike, he added.
Laying out Iran’s terror connections and backing for Hezbollah’s constant, deadly firing across the Israeli border since Oct. 7, Wood said that unless Iran comes into compliance with previous council resolutions, the body “must consider additional measures to enforce its resolutions to hold Iran accountable and address repeated actions by its terrorist proxies and partners that threaten regional peace and security.”
Regarding ongoing diplomatic efforts by Washington, Wood said a “broader war is neither imminent nor inevitable,” but that the attacks by Iran and its proxies “have repeatedly brought us closer to a regional conflict.”
The United Kingdom and France also took Iran to task for its destabilizing activities throughout the Middle East.
Hadi Hachem, Lebanon’s U.N. chargé d'affaires, told the council that the victim of Israel’s Beirut airstrike “is your ceasefire resolution,” with the objective of the action to “drag Israel's allies into a regional war with disastrous consequences on peoples and countries and on the future and the present.”
The Lebanese government and its armed forces have failed for decades to reel in Hezbollah, which was to be disbanded as part of a 2006 Security Council resolution following that year’s Lebanon War.
Amir Saeid Iravani, Iran’s U.N. envoy, attempted to turn the tables on Israel, urging the council to sanction Jerusalem.
“The Security Council should take immediate steps to hold Israel accountable for this act of aggression,” Iravani said regarding the assassination of Haniyeh. “This includes considering the imposition of sanctions and other measures that are necessary to prevent further violations and to signal that Israeli malevolent activities will not be tolerated by the international community," he added.
