Foreign Minister Marise Payne was right to be dismayed about the UN General Assembly’s failure to approve a historic resolution condemning Hamas’s unrelenting terrorist onslaught against Israel. The unprecedented resolution, proposed by the US, won 87 votes (a majority of those cast) while 57 countries opposed it and 33 abstained. But an opportunity for the UN to finally condemn Hamas’s terrorism was lost because of a dodgy procedural gambit by Arab states meaning a two-thirds majority was needed. The failure again illustrates the double standards and mindless anti-Israel bias that continue to dominate the UN. It beggars belief that even more moderate Arab states in the Palestinian conflict such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Morocco, Bahrain, Oman and the UAE did not have the courage to support a resolution condemning the constant rocket barrages from Gaza targeted mainly at Israeli villages.
Read the editorial in The Australian.