Israel Raises Stakes on Silence on Attacks on Its Diplomats In India, Ban Qs

By Matthew Russell Lee
February 21, 2012
http://www.innercitypress.com/inga2banisrael022112.html

UNITED NATIONS, February 21 -- Five days ago, Israel's ambassador Ron Prosor complained that the UN Security Council should have condemned these attacks immediately. Israel expects it to issue a clear condemnation today.

  But still no Security Council statement has been issued. Inner City Press learned on Tuesday from sources close to the Israeli mission that the attempt now is to work through India, where one of the attacks on diplomats took place, and which is in the second of a two-year stint on the Security Council.

  Some point to the Security Council's press statement of November 29, 2011, condemning attacks on UK diplomatic facilities in Iran. 


  One well placed Council source told Inner City Press there's a move to discuss the attacks in closed consultations on February 22, the first time the Council will hold such consultations since the attacks due to the members' trip to Haiti.

The problem, the source told Inner City Press, will be if there is an attempt to assign blame.

There remains surprise as the weakness of Secretary General Ban Ki-moon response, a mere note to correspondents. Sources in the Executive Office of the Secretary General indicated that this is because nobody died. But Ban has issued stronger statements, the complaint goes, in cases in which no one was actually killed. 

Ambassador Prosor came to the Security Council on Tuesday afternoon; Israel was on the list of speakers in the all day debate on crime and the Sahel. He assigned blame -- saying that Hezbollah is active in West Africa -- and said as we saw last week in New Delhi, Bangkok and Tblisi. But only one of those three venue countries is on the Security Council. Watch this site.