UK minister finally condemns Israel
IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency
London, Jan 16, IRNA – Foreign Office Minister Lord Malloch-Brown Thursday broke the British government’s reluctance to criticise Israel’s massacre of more than 1,000 Palestinians by unequivocally condemning its phosphorous bombing of the UN headquarters in Gaza.
"We utterly condemn what has happened today to the UNWRA headquarters in Gaza City. There is absolutely no excuse for it and it reminds me all too well of a similar attack in 2006 on a UN observation post in Lebanon,” Malloch-Brown said.
"This does nobody any credit and our sympathies go to the families of these victims like all the victims of this conflict," he said when asked in the House of Lords about the bombing which witnesses said was carried out by banned white phosphorous shells.
Liberal Democrat Baroness Northover had asked whether he agreed that "Israel's actions are utterly disproportionate and completely counter-productive to its long-term interests".
"With over 1,000 people now dead in Gaza, many of them civilians and children, the urgent need for a diplomatic solution is clear. A robust and immediate ceasefire is the only way the current situation in Gaza can be addressed," the minister said.
Malloch-Brown, who was a former UN deputy secretary general, also said that he agreed with criticism of Israel expressed by nearly 600 members of Jews for Justice in Palestine.
“However strong a supporter of the state of Israel one is, and I include myself in those numbers, it does not justify this kind of attack and in fact sets back Israel's situation in the world," he said.
The minister referred to the previous Israeli attacks and invasion of Lebanon in 2005, when he was at the UN, and said “everybody took much more predictable positions and were not willing to look at the conflict itself.
In a separate statement, the Liberal Democrats called on Foreign Secretary David Miliband to bring Israel to account for using banned weapons.
“The Israeli military has been claiming it is not using illegal munitions, but this appears to be damning evidence that it has been breaching international law by firing white phosphorous into civilian areas,” said the Lib Dem’s Shadow Foreign Secretary, Edward Davey.
“No civilised country has any excuse for using this horrific weapon in built-up areas where it is bound to hit innocent civilians,” Davey said.
“David Miliband must call in the Israeli ambassador to demand an explanation for what appears to be a flagrant breach of international law,” he said.
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