Date:
Tuesday, November 11, 2014
Ron Prosor chastises Security Council for silence on terror attacks,
slams EU countries for efforts to ‘prematurely’ recognize Palestine
BY TIMES OF ISRAEL STAFF November 11, 2014, 1:08 am | The Times of Israel |
Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations Ron Prosor issued a scathing critique on Monday
of the UN Security Council’s silence following multiple terror attacks against Israelis in the
past three weeks.
“Every day Israelis are coming under attack. Every day the crowds of violent Palestinian rioters
grow larger,” he said. “And yet, this institution has not uttered a word to denounce attacks against
Israelis. Ignoring incitement and terrorism is similar to supporting terrorism.”
On Monday, IDF soldier Almog Shiloni, 20, of Modi’in died of his wounds following hours of
attempts to stabilize his condition after a Palestinian terrorist stabbed him in Tel Aviv.
Hours later, Dalia Lemkus, 26, was killed in a separate terror attack near the West Bank
settlement of Alon Shvut. She was run over and then stabbed in the neck and died at the scene.
Two people remain hospitalized with light to moderate injuries.
Both Palestinian terrorists — Nablus resident Nur al-Din Abu Hashiyeh., 18, from the first
incident and Hebron resident Maher Hamdi al-Hashalmoun, 25, from the second incident — were
hospitalized with shot wounds sustained during attempts to apprehend them.
Prosor blamed the Palestinian Authority for the attacks.
“A person doesn’t just wake up one day and decide to stab someone or ram his car into a crowd
of people. These attacks are the results of years of anti-Israel indoctrination and the glorification of
so-called martyrs,” he said.
“The incitement is everywhere. In schools, mosques and media, the Palestinian Authority is
glorifying terrorists and celebrating attacks on Jews and Israelis.”
“The Palestinian leadership can head the academy for arsonists because they add fuel to the fire
on a daily basis,” he said.
Prosor also lashed out at EU nations who are threatening to recognize a Palestinian state in the
absence of peace talks, according to a recent report, in a move that would follow Sweden’s
unilateral recognition of Palestine last month.
“Unsurprisingly, we have also not heard anything constructive from some of my European
colleagues. To them, I say: Yes, continue to cosponsor one-sided resolutions. Yes, continue to
encourage unilateral actions. And yes, by all means, prematurely recognize a Palestinian State,”
said the Israeli envoy.
“This has clearly been a resounding success that has brought us that much closer to peace,” he
added sarcastically.
Prosor’s remarks came just a few days after he issued similar statements following a terror attack
in Jerusalem last week and two more before that last month.
“If recent events offer any indication, the Security Council will once again remain silent as Israel
buries yet another victim of Palestinian terrorism,” Prosor wrote last Wednesday in a sharply
worded letter to the world body’s most important organ.
“Shortly after the attack Hamas claimed responsibility, calling the perpetrator a ‘martyr’ and
describing the attack as ‘a heroic operation,’” he added.
Prosor referred to last Wednesday’s attack in which a Palestinian man with ties to Hamas plowed
his car into a crowd of people, killing an Israeli border policeman and a teenage yeshiva student
and injuring over a dozen other people near a Jerusalem light rail station.
While the United Nations and its secretary general released a statement condemning the attack
and calling for “deescalation,” the Security Council has yet to issue a formal condemnation of the
attack, or of a similar attack on October 23 that left two people dead, one of them an infant, or of
the October 30 attempted assassination of right-wing activist Rabbi Yehudah Glick.
The ambassador accused the Security Council of sitting quietly by as Palestinian Authority
President Mahmoud Abbas incited violence by calling “on Palestinians to prevent Jews from
visiting the Temple Mount using ‘all means’ necessary.”
He concluded: “I write to you today with the full expectation that the Council will continue adhering
to its vow of silence. Should the Council revise its policy and deem it appropriate to condemn the
Palestinian leadership’s incitement and the violence that follows, I will be the first to commend the
Council for embracing sound judgment and upholding international peace and security.”
The Palestinians have accused Israel of provoking the violence by continuing settlement
construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which the Palestinians envision as the capital
of their future state, and by right-wing lawmakers’ calls for changing the five-decade status quo on
the Temple Mount