By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, June 23 -- When the UN's Jeffrey Feltman briefed the Security Council about Palestine and the Middle East on June 23, some expected beyond the three Israeli students the situation in Iraq to come up.
But in his prepared statement Feltman dodged Iraq. And on the “three Israeli students abducted near Hebron” Feltman said, “we nevertheless find Hamas statements glorifying the perpetrators of this act to be outrageous. If Hamas involvement is corroborated this would indeed constitute a grave development.”
Citing “multiple rockets fired at Israel” from Gaza “and Israeli military response,” Feltman said these issues “can only be addressed if the parties act responsibly and with restraint. Only then can any renewed attempt by the parties to find their way back to meaningful negotiations and to address the much lacking political horizon in order to avert further escalation take hold.”
Who writes this material?
After Feltman finished, Riyad Mansour of the State of Palestine came to the stakeout and said Palestine is asking the Security Council to “shoulder its responsibilities.” Is the request for a formal Press Statement? Some sort of read out after consultation by the president of the Council?
One problem was that the UN webcast for Feltman's briefing didn't work. As Inner City Press tweeted, and as the Free UN Coalition for Access has complained, the webcast first had no sound -- then showed an unrelated meeting from last week, about Mali. This is failure by the UN, and it is apattern, raised last week to Ban Ki-moon's spokespeople (who have yet to answer a simple Press question from June 20). Watch this site.
