September 09, 2006
Quotes from UN officials during the Israel-Hezbollah conflict...
Wow, you'd think that the nation of Israel is somehow the illegal terrorist organization after this round of bullshit...
Secretary-General Kofi Annan:
Deputy Secretary-General Mark Malloch Brown:
Jan Egeland, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator:
Louise Arbour, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights:
Ms. Radhika Coomaraswamy, UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict:
Ann Veneman, Executive Director of UNICEF:
Agha Shahi, Pakistani member of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination:
Jose Fransisco Calitzay, Guatemalan member of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination:
Mahmoud Aboul-Nasr, Egyptian member of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination:
Secretary-General Kofi Annan:
- Israel's "excessive use of force is to be condemned;"
- Israel has "torn the country to shreds... Israel's disproportionate use of force and collective punishment of the Lebanese people must stop."
- Israel is "apparently" guilty of the murder of UN soldiers. The UNIFIL soldiers were killed by Israel after it responded to Hizbullah attacks on Israeli civilians. One of the soldiers had reported only days before he died that Hizbullah's nearby actions meant Israel's response "has not been deliberate targeting, but has rather been due to tactical necessity." Yet without any investigation Annan immediately called it an "apparently deliberate targeting" - an accusation he has yet to retract.
- Israel has "committed grave breaches of international humanitarian law" and "has caused, and is causing, death and suffering on a wholly unacceptable scale."
Deputy Secretary-General Mark Malloch Brown:
- Hizbullah, the Iranian-proxy currently fighting Israel, is not a terrorist organization. "It is not helpful to couch this war in the language of international terrorism," said Malloch Brown, claiming Hizbullah is "completely separate and different from al-Qaida."
Jan Egeland, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator:
- "The excessive and disproportionate use of force by the Israeli Defense Forces…must stop."
Louise Arbour, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights:
- In comments Arbour directed at Israel, she said: "the bombardment of sites with alleged military significance, but resulting invariably in the killing of innocent civilians, is unjustifiable," suggesting that Israel was perpetrating "war crimes and crimes against humanity" for violating the "obligation to protect civilians during hostilities."
Ms. Radhika Coomaraswamy, UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict:
- In comments directed "even-handedly" to Israel and Hizbullah, Coomaraswamy "strongly condemned the repeated attacks on civilians, and especially on children, noting that callous disregard for the lives of children has permeated this conflict from its start."
Ann Veneman, Executive Director of UNICEF:
- Veneman claimed Israel is engaged in "the continued targeting of civilians, particularly children."
Agha Shahi, Pakistani member of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination:
- "Would Israel have resorted to the bombing of civilian infrastructure if it were fighting a non-Arab force? It was a war between different ethnic groups, the Arabs and the Jews."
Jose Fransisco Calitzay, Guatemalan member of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination:
- Commenting on events in Lebanon, Calitzay said "mass genocide was the highest level of racism that could exist, and they had to prevent that from happening in the present case."
Mahmoud Aboul-Nasr, Egyptian member of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination:
- Aboul-Nasr "objected to the designation of Hizbullah as a terrorist organization. Hizbullah was not a terrorist organization; it was a resistance movement that was fighting foreign occupation, just as there had been during the Second World War."
