While the world continues to expose Israel’s campaign of genocide against the Palestinian people, the United Nations continues to turn a blind eye. This willful ignorance was highlighted on Tuesday as the UN’s latest list of parties that kill or injure children in armed conflict failed to include Israel, despite numerous recommendations it be included.
As we pointed out a couple of days ago, Israel has killed over 1000 children in the last three years and over 500 last year alone. This number doesn’t count the number of women and innocent civilians either.
But for notoriously meek UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon, 1000 dead children isn’t enough to classify a state as child killers. He just finds the behavior “unacceptable.”
The decision highlights Israel’s preferential relationship with world super powers, as UN special envoy for children in armed conflict, Leila Zerrougui, had strongly recommended that both Israel and Hamas, the Palestinian armed forces, be put on the report’s list of parties that recruit, use, kill, maim or commit acts of sexual violence against children.
The annual aims to name and shames governments and insurgent groups that lead to children’s rights being violated. It was established by the UN security council in August 2009, with the goal of taking “action”, which includes possible sanctions, against those that violate international law on the rights and protection of children in armed conflicts.
This year’s includes groups, both terrorists and government, in:
The report does mention Israel and “the state of Palestine” for “grave violations committed against children during armed conflict”. But it does not put them on the list for political and economic reasons, undermining the authenticity of the report.
In Gaza, over 561 children, 557 Palestinians and 4 Israelis, were killed. A further 4,271 were injured, all but 22 of them Palestinians.
Just how many children the UN would require to make the dubious list remains to be seen.
The report is typical of UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon, who has assumed a low profile at the United Nations and has failed to achieve any notable accomplishments despite being on the job for over nine years. Lack of a two state peace agreement between Israel and Palestine is seen as his greatest failure, given how close an agreement seemed when he took office.
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