UNSC must censor Israel

The attack against Syria came as a surprise to the world. The suicide bombing in Haifa two days ago was an unrelated event generated by the personal anger of a young Palestinian female lawyer whose brother and cousin were slaughtered by Israeli forces before her eyes, in her own residence. On the other hand, if the Israeli attack was spurred by Syrian collaboration with the PLO, all nations supporting the Palestinian cause might become Israeli targets sooner or later.

Israel had concluded peace accords with Egypt (1978) and Jordan (1994). With Syria, the difficulties lay in the Syrian negation to signing a similar accord with respect to the sovereignty of the Golan Height and the Sea of Galilee. Israel also holds a major grudge against Syria for its 'staunch support' for the Hizbollah guerillas of Lebanon and the Palestinian liberation movement.

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These are geopolitical matters that no amount of 'preemptive strikes' can help to resolve. Having failed to extinguish the Palestinian Intifada, the Israeli strategists had chosen to up the ante and broaden the theatre of action. By provoking Syria into joining the fray, Israel expects to prolong the stay of US-UK forces in Iraq. One might as well hear something ominous sooner with respect to Iran too, if that is the truth behind this attack.

The US voting in the UNSC, as the Council meets to talk over this attack, will indicate whether the US did know and endorse the latest Israeli attack against Syria. Whatever be the US position, the UNSC must not allow such a grave danger to global peace and security go uncensored. The UN Charter demands that.

Since the birth of the Jewish state in 1948 through a machination that rests at the root of the current Mid-East conflagration, Israel resorted to similar strategies time and again. In 1967, its forces wiped out the airforces of its neighbouring states in a series of 'preemptive attacks'. In 1982, another Israeli strike destroyed Iraq's Osirak reactor. And, by invading Lebanon in the same year, Israel managed to get the US involved in the Lebanese conflict.

If the UNSC fails to censor Israel's this and other unprovoked military actions, the Jewish state will have defied further the UNSC Resolutions 242 and 338 that it had wilfully disrespected for decades and blocked any resolution of this deadly conflict. It's time that the gung-ho nation pays for its crime in the court of the people and Sharon is tried as a war criminal.