Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Statement by Amb Shalev to the UN Security Council

6 Jan 2009
We have to defend ourselves - not from the Palestinian people, but
from the terrorists who have taken them hostage. Not to gain territory
or power, but to demonstrate that our restraint was not weakness and
to give our citizens the basic right of a normal life.
Statement to the United Nations Security Council by Ambassador
Gabriela Shalev, Permanent Representative of Israel
Mr. President,
Mr. Secretary-General,
Distinguished Ministers,
Eight years. For eight years the citizens of southern Israel have
suffered the trauma of almost daily missile attacks from Gaza. For
eight years more than 8,000 rockets and mortar shells have targeted
Israeli towns and villages. For eight years the residents of these
towns have had a bare 15 seconds to hurry, with their children and
their elderly, to find cover before rockets and missiles land on their
houses and schools.
15 seconds, Mr. President, would not give the members of this Council
time to leave this room. No State would permit such attacks on its
citizens. Nor should it.
But Israel sought every way to avoid the current conflict. In 2005
Israel removed from Gaza every one of its soldiers, and every one of
its eight thousand civilians, along with their homes and schools,
their synagogues and cemeteries. We did this to try to create an
opening for peace and for Palestinians to build a prosperous society.
But the Hamas regime that brutally seized control of Gaza, murdering
scores of fellow Palestinians, has no interest in peace and
prosperity. It is vehemently opposed to negotiations between Israelis
and Palestinians. It rejects the Annapolis process which was commended
by this Council last month in Resolution 1850.
Hamas has no interest in making peace with the enemy; for Hamas peace
is the enemy. Its only interest is in establishing a regime of tyranny
for Gazans and of terror for Israelis.
Hamas likes to tell the Palestinians that it was terrorism that
brought Israel to withdraw from Gaza in 2005. But the truth is plain
to see: It was the hope for peace that led us to withdraw from Gaza
and the terrorism of Hamas that compelled us to re-enter.
In our efforts to avoid confrontation, we also agreed six months ago
to an Egyptian-brokered tahadia - a situation of calm. Hamas violated
this arrangement on a daily basis. Over 365 rockets and mortar shells
were fired during this period.  And all the while it used the so-
called ‘calm’ to build up its supplies of weapons and rockets,
smuggled through tunnels into the Gaza Strip. Yet still we restrained
ourselves.
But when Hamas unilaterally announced the end of the tahadia and began
to wage a new campaign of rocket attacks against Israel's citizens
with the weapons it had smuggled in to Gaza during the ‘calm’, we
could restrain ourselves no longer.
With its new Iranian-made missiles, Hamas is now able to reach as far
as the cities of Ashdod and Beer Sheva, placing over one million
Israelis in the shadow of its terror.
Many in this hall have condemned Hamas' terrorist attacks, and we
welcome this statement of basic principle. But the families at home in
the city of Sderot, and children at school in Kibbutz Netiv Ha'asara
will not be protected by these condemnations. In the face of such
terrorism we have no choice. We have to defend ourselves - not from
the Palestinian people, but from the terrorists who have taken them
hostage. Not to gain territory or power, but to demonstrate that our
restraint was not weakness and to give our citizens the basic right of
a normal life.
In this campaign Israel has dealt the Hamas infrastructure a major
blow. Dozens of its terrorist factories and training bases have been
destroyed, its stockpiles of rockets have been significantly depleted,
and many of the tunnels used to smuggle weapons have been put out of
action.
But we have not only sought to change the reality for our citizens, we
have also sought to uphold the values that set us apart from the
terrorists.
Hamas rejects every core humanitarian principle. Instead of waging its
battle openly between combatants, it directs its attacks against
civilians. Some have called these attacks “indiscriminate” but this is
not the case; Hamas’ attacks are very discriminate – directed
deliberately at innocent men, women and children. In the past week
alone, Hamas rockets have landed on a school and on a kindergarten.
Hamas shows a similar disdain for the lives of Palestinians. It has
adopted the terrorists' tactic – the coward's tactic – of using
civilians as shields while its leaders themselves flee from combat
with Israel's soldiers and make pathetic demonstrations of bravado
from their bunkers. It hides its missiles and terrorist bases in homes
and hospitals and mosques, and, as we saw earlier today, deliberately
launches attacks from in and around schools and United Nations’
facilities – with tragic results.
For Israel, every civilian death – Israeli or Palestinian – is a
tragedy. In responding to terrorist attacks that show no respect for
human life – either Israeli or Palestinian – Israel takes steps to
protect both. It takes every possible measure to limit civilian
casualties – even where these measures endanger the lives of our
soldiers or the effectiveness of their operations.
The IDF has dropped tens of thousands of leaflets and made thousands
of phone calls to Palestinian civilians, beseeching them to leave the
areas of terrorist operation to avoid harm.
But let it be clear. Failing to respond to terrorists simply because
they are using civilians as cover is not and cannot be an option. To
do so would simply broadcast an invitation to every terrorist group in
the world to set up shop inside a hospital or a kindergarten.
Unlike the Hamas regime, which has targeted crossing points to prevent
the entry of aid and has prevented Palestinians from boarding
ambulances, Israel respects its humanitarian responsibilities. It has
permitted Palestinians in need of medical care to enter Israel for
treatment and has set up a special humanitarian situation room to
coordinate with the aid organizations working in Gaza.
Since the start of the fighting, Israel facilitated the entry into
Gaza of over 540 trucks, delivering over 10,000 tons of humanitarian
assistance. In fact, just a few days ago Israel was asked by the World
Food Program to halt supplies of food shipments since their warehouses
were full.
It is time, Mr. President, for the international community to place
responsibility for the humanitarian situation in Gaza where it lies –
on the shoulders of the terrorists that have chosen violence over
peace. It lies on the shoulders of those Hamas leaders who, from their
bunkers and luxury hotels in Damascus, have abandoned the people of
Gaza, and have chosen to endanger and exploit them rather than protect
them.
This conflict, Mr. President, is a fundamental clash between two world
views. Between moderates and extremists. Between those who seek to
preserve life and humanity and those who glorify death and
destruction.
As Hamas spokesman Fathi Hamad was proud to announce on Al Aqsa TV:
Palestinians have created a human shield of women, children the
elderly and the jihad fighters as if to say to the Zionist enemy: “We
desire death as you desire life.”
For this reason, there is no – and can be no – equivalence between
Israel and the Hamas terrorists we are confronting.
There is no equivalence between a State which equips civilian homes
with bomb shelters and a terrorist regime that fills them with
missiles.
There is no equivalence between military commanders who struggle daily
to ensure that their operations are conducted in accordance with the
requirements of international humanitarian law, and the terrorists who
flout this law by keeping Corporal Gilad Shalit captive, without even
allowing the International Red Cross access to see him for 930 days.
There is no equivalence between a State using force in exercise of its
right of self-defense and a terrorist organization for which the very
resort to violence is unlawful.
Mr. President,
No doubt there will be much discussion today about the credibility of
the Council and the need for a resolution.  But the credibility of
this Council is measured not by the pieces of paper it issues but by
the values it upholds. Is the Council's credibility strengthened when
it calls for a cease-fire that effectively equates a terrorist group
with a State defending itself against it? Does anyone here truly
believe that Hamas will heed the words of this Council?
This is not about a “cease-fire” with terrorism or a mutual cessation
of hostilities. It is about ensuring the end of terrorism from Gaza,
and the end of smuggling weapons into Gaza; so that there is no longer
a need for Israeli defensive operations.
This conflict will end not when terrorism is appeased or accommodated
but when the international community stands determined and united
against it. Anything less than this will only embolden Hamas,
lengthening this round of the conflict, and accelerating the next.
Anything less will reward Iran – the coward’s coward – which hides
behind terrorists as they hide behind civilians, and encourage its
world-wide efforts to use Hamas and other terrorist groups to fight
its wars on the cheap. And anything less will be a major setback for
hopes for peace and prosperity for the Palestinians.
As long as Hamas rules Gaza, rejecting the Quartet Principles and
seeking Israel’s destruction, Gaza can never be part of a Palestinian
state.
There are many in this Council who speak in favor of peace. But it is
not enough to support peace; we have to confront those who work to
destroy it. For this reason, the current military operation is not an
obstacle to peace; it is a prerequisite for peace.
Mr. President,
We, the people of Israel, listened to the international community when
you told us to withdraw from Gaza and promised that this would give us
the credibility to respond forcefully should Gaza turn into a
launching pad for terrorism. We listened when you promised us that
acting with restraint during the period of calm would give us the
credibility to fight back should the rocket attacks resume. Now is
your time to make good on those promises.
In the clash between life and death, between building societies and
destroying them, Hamas has taken its side. Now there is no choice but
for the international community to take a side itself.
Thank you, Mr. President.
---
"sono stampate ancora" (Luca Logi / rodewalder)
cfr 
http://raionim.blogspot.com/2008/12/luca-logi-e-i-piselli.html

 Gabriela Shalev, Permanent Representative of Israel
chiede da qualche parte scusa per il tiro al bersaglio sull''UNRWA? E
allora è carta straccia