Secretary General of the United Nations Ban Ki-Moon went to Gaza last week. He went to see first-hand the devastation, death, and homelessness wrought by the Israeli army and air forces.
“A visibly furious Ban Ki-moon condemned as ‘outrageous, shocking and alarming’ the destruction he had seen while touring Gaza, and described as ‘excessive use’ of force the violence wrought by both Israel and Hamas rockets. » Wait, you’re serious? He saw excessive, outrageous, shocking and alarming destruction that was « wrought by…Hamas rockets »?
‘These are heartbreaking scenes I have seen and I am deeply grieved by what I have seen today, » he said, standing against a backdrop of still-smoking food aid in a UN warehouse destroyed by Israeli gunfire last Thursday.
‘Demanding a proper judicial inquiry and guarantees that UN buildings would not be attacked again, Ban said: ‘I am just appalled. I am not able to describe how I am feeling, having seen this site of the bombing of the United Nations compound. This was an outrageous and totally unacceptable attack against the United Nations.’”
I see. So he’s worried about the UN buildings, and attacks against the UN. You could be excused for thinking the UN is the real victim in Gaza.
“An aide to Ban said he had come to Gaza to express solidarity with the Palestinians who had suffered during the 22-day Israeli assault.” Solidarity?
“Financial estimates of the full cost of the Israeli bombardment of Gaza reflect the scale of the destruction: the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics put total property damage at $1.9bn.”
“More than 1,300 Palestinians were killed” – including 400 children – “in Israel’s attacks, which Israel said were intended to halt cross-border rocket attacks and destroy Hamas’s military infrastructure….Israel put its dead at 10 soldiers and said three civilians were killed in rocket attacks.”
« It has been especially troubling and heartbreaking for me as secretary-general that I couldn’t end this faster, » [Ban] said.
“Ban is not expected to meet Hamas officials during this visit….Hamas won parliamentary elections in 2006 which were internationally recognised as being both fair and free.”
“Medical officials have confirmed that 700 Palestinian civilians were killed, and that figure is likely to rise as survivors return to search through the rubble of their shattered homes. As many as 400,000 Gazans have been left without running water.”
What will be done to prevent Israel from murdering more Palestinians, committing more war crimes? Will Mr Ban do something further than express his ‘outrage’? Meanwhile, yesterday German Chancellor Andrea Merkel has demanded that the Pope insist one of his bishops publicly assert that he believes Jews were killed in gas-chambers, as though the idiotic statements of some obscure old cleric were a threat to the world which must be decisively dealt with. “In what amounted to a blistering condemnation of the Pope’s handling of the crisis, she added: ‘In my view, these issues have not yet been satisfactorily clarified.’ »
They called it a “crisis”. No wonder nothing is being done about Gaza.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/20/gaza-israel-ban-ki-moon
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/ban-kimoon-lsquoappalledrsquo-by-gaza-destruction-1451889.html
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/01/200912013138315261.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/merkel-attacks-pope-for-holocaustdeniers-pardon-1545008.html