Security Council Focuses Again on Israel Instead of Syria's Killing Fields

At a monthly Security Council briefing on the Middle East on August 19, 2015, the Syrian conflict and the recent killing of dozens of civilians by the Assad government were only "briefly" mentioned. Instead, the focus was on Israel. Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Jeffrey Feltman condemned Israel's use of administrative detention, which Israel uses to detain terror suspects to prevent imminent terror attacks.

Feltman lectured Israel about purported violations of "international human rights standards," while fretting about the "heightened emotions and anger" of the folks in Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

Feltman also blamed Israel for monitoring the growing threat posed by Hezbollah as it obtains additional weapons from Iran to attack Israeli civilians. He called Hezbollah's massive build-up of arms via Iran keeping "calm." In his words: "The situation along the Blue Line and in the area of operations of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) remained calm, despite Israeli violations of Lebanese airspace..."