U.S. Shoots Down U.N. Call For Ceasefire
Libyan-Sponsored Proposal To End Israel's Gaza Offensive Blocked By U.S. Concerns Over Hamas Rockets
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Play CBS Video Video Securing A Ceasefire in Gaza World leaders, including French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair are traveling to the Middle East to broker a ceasefire in Gaza. Pam Falk, CBS News Foreign Affairs Analyst, examines the effort.
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Alejandro Wolff, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., waits to speak to reporters after emergency consultations of the Security Council which ended without any agreement Saturday, Jan. 3, 2009. Wolff said the Council's call for an immediate end to the violence "would have no underpinning for success." (AP Photo/David Karp)
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Interactive United Nations For more than 60 years, the United Nations has struggled to forge peace, end poverty and heal the world.
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The U.N. met for four hours Saturday night after Israel began a ground incursion into Gaza, but failed to reach agreement on any statement, and rejected a Libyan-sponsored proposal calling for an immediate ceasefire.
The U.N. Security Council had issued a consensus statement on New Year’s Eve, but the Deputy U.S. Ambassador, Alejandro Wolff, blocked anything in writing which would have come out of the late-night meeting, which took place shortly after the ground incursion began.
The reason, Wolff said, was that the U.S. believed that there was no immediate prospect that Hamas militants would cease their rocket attacks against Israel.
"We're not going to equate the actions of Israel, a member state of the United Nations, with the actions of the terrorist group Hamas; there is no equivalence there," Wolff said. "The Charter of this organization respects the right of every member state to exercise its self-defense. And Israel's self-defense is not negotiable."
Meeting in emergency session but failing to issue any written statement of consensus, finger-pointing was the only common ground. The Palestinian Representative said the U.S. was the only nation which blocked a statement. The Libyan Ambassador said that the lack of a unified position by the Arab nations was also at fault.
It was not surprising that the Security Council did not reach an agreement, since the United States - with veto power on the Council - supports Israel’s position that negotiations should take place outside the U.N. until the moment that Hamas stops the shelling of southern Israel. But the lack of agreement stands in stark contrast with a U.N. Security Council Resolution passed only two weeks earlier, during calmer days, which called for a two-state solution and a restart of the peace negotiations.
The Security Council was scolded by U.N. General Assembly President Miguel D’Escoto, a former Nicaraguan Sandinista, who called the lack of action by the Security Council an illustration of the Security Council's disfunctionality. He called the failure of action a "monstrosity."
"There are some members of the Security Council that are trying to protect their own political interests," d'Escoto said. "This is a real shame … people are dying."
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said that he was certain that the ground incursion would increase civilian suffering.
The only sign of agreement was a verbal statement by France's U.N. Ambassador who, as Council president, announced there were "strong convergences" among the 15 members to express serious concern about the deteriorating situation in Gaza and the need for "an immediate, permanent and fully respected ceasefire."
The Security Council will return when a high level delegation of Arab ambassadors arrives in New York Sunday or Monday and will hear from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday.
The diplomatic stalemate reflected the divisions within the Security Council about what to do next - to have the U.N. formulate a plan, or to enforce an agreement once Hamas has agreed to a ceasefire and the parties involved agree to international monitors to secure against the smuggling of arms into Gaza.
In the end, if a durable ceasefire is put into place, it is likely that the U.N. Security Council would be asked by its members to put together a new road map to enforce the peace - but there appears to be no prospect of that at least in the next few days.
© MMIX, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Best-selling author Mitch Albom on his first nonfiction work since "Tuesdays with Morrie."





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See all 254 CommentsThose who support HAMAS support Timothy McVeigh.
Not sure about what your pals will be doing but I know my pals the Zionists extremists and right wing extremists will continue to flood the INTERNET with pro Isreali rants, pro Military adventures and other evil things
Will continue to run operations with INTERNET rooms full of computers our hired graveling spooks will splash the boards with hate pretending were the partriots
And yes will continue to yell at anyone that dares question the fairy tale 9/11 19 hijacker story
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Posted by usclimey at 09:51 AM : Jan 05, 2009
+ report abuse
*******
when bush leaves office do you think liberal whinney, moaning, hissy fits and tantrums would be GONE??
They just can''t print the truth in main stream media, can they? The Israeli controlled country, the United States of America, does whatever Israel tells it to. Don''t act like our government was debating telling Israel to stop. When Israel wants to stop, then we''ll support a cease fire. Until then, we agree with Israel.
nhonors-jewish-terrorists-who-attacked-a
m
erica_272.html
WHERE DID YOU EVER GET SUCH A MORONIC IDEA THAT GETTING ELECTED MAKES A TERRORIST A NOT_TERRORIST???
Put the above link into your search tool, it makes iteresting reading.
Posted by weigherman
It''''s a conspiracy theorist website. It was clear in the first couple of sentences. It has agenda rather than scholarly historical value.
For you Jew haters and Jew conspiracy theorists I highly recommend it.
Posted by Abra
Just check out the www.davidduke.com address to figure how worthless the site will be.
Posted by BrianMD3
The rest of the world may not hate the USA, but they can''t wait for Bush to be gone.
I have lived in different countries around the world, have you? The world I know doesn''t hate us, except for terrorists and their leftist supporters.
Get my drift?
As far as loss of life in Gaza goes, the terrorist group Hamas brought all this on by breaking the last cease fire, and attacking Israeli civilians with rockets for months on end.
The Marxist Obama will find that he cannot force an unfair cease fire onto Israel.
honors-jewish-terrorists-who-attacked-am
erica_272.html
WHERE DID YOU EVER GET SUCH A MORONIC IDEA THAT GETTING ELECTED MAKES A TERRORIST A NOT_TERRORIST???
Put the above link into your search tool, it makes iteresting reading.
Posted by weigherman
It''s a conspiracy theorist website. It was clear in the first couple of sentences. It has agenda rather than scholarly historical value.
For you Jew haters and Jew conspiracy theorists I highly recommend it.
No Terror Rockets = No Embargo
Terror Rockets = Military Police action to clean up criminally insane terrorists.
Posted by trishab59
What a CLOWN!! Getting elected does not make terrorists NOT-terrorists.
LOL!!!!!
They are still terrorists, just government paid ones.
WHERE DID YOU EVER GET SUCH A CLOWN IDEA THAT GETTING ELECTED MAKES A TERRORIST A NOT_TERRORIST???
LOL!! chortle. snicker. guffaw. rolfmao. OMG BLOW MILK OUT OF MY NOSE ON MY KEYBOARD.!!
LOLOLOLOLOLOOLO!!!!!
OK, Charles Manson gets elected to the Berkeley City Council, all is forgiven LOL!
He was jailed by the facist regime of Richard Nixon so is obviously a freedom fighter and innocent of all charges.
LOLOLOLOLOL!!!!!
YOU ARE A GREAT CLOWN!! THANKS FOR THE LAUGH!!
WHERE DID YOU EVER GET SUCH A MORONIC IDEA THAT GETTING ELECTED MAKES A TERRORIST A NOT_TERRORIST???
Put the above link into your search tool, it makes iteresting reading.
**********
Didn,t you learn in school that those in power always find labels to make those they disagree with look like they are crazy or dangerous?
Just like those bloodthirsty savage Indians.
Posted by kcits
Terror Rockets are crazy and dangerous, I think any reasonable or even unreasonable person would agree.
**********
Didn,t you learn in school that those in power always find labels to make those they disagree with look like they are crazy or dangerous?
Just like those bloodthirsty savage Indians.
Posted by trishab59
What a moron. Getting elected does not make terrorists NOT-terrorists.
LOL!!!!!
They are still terrorists, just government paid ones.
WHERE DID YOU EVER GET SUCH A MORONIC IDEA THAT GETTING ELECTED MAKES A TERRORIST A NOT_TERRORIST???
LOL!! chortle. snicker. guffaw. rolfmao. OMG BLOW MILK OUT OF MY NOSE ON MY KEYBOARD.!!
LOLOLOLOLOLOOLO!!!!!
OK, Charles Manson gets elected to the Berkeley City Council, all is forgiven LOL!
He was jailed by the facist regime of Richard Nixon so is obviously a freedom fighter and innocent of all charges.
LOLOLOLOLOL!!!!!
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See all 254 Comments