YouSaid · the spoken record

J Aafari

lines on the record: 93
first: 2008-01-22
most recent: 2019-09-19
sittings or episodes: 10
sources: un-security-council

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“The crimes committed by Israel over several decades in the occupied Arab territories, its violations of the most basic principles of international humanitarian law and the impunity it enjoys not only prove the violations of law by the Israeli occupation and its political and military leadership; they are also evidence of how certain countries in the Security Council have condoned and tolerated those violations and have been reluctant to end them. Israel continues to refuse to return the occupied Syrian Golan to its motherland and to abide by the resolutions of international legitimacy, especially resolution 497 (1981), which was adopted by consensus by the Council and resolved that Israel's annexation of the occupied Syrian Golan was null and void and without legal effect.”
2011-05-10 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.6531Resumption1 (2011) · source
“The distinctive march of the international community over many centuries towards the codification of humanitarian law must not be undermine through the selective implementation of such law against the powerless - not the powerful - and the violation of the sanctity of sovereignty and the inviolability of the borders of Member States, while at the same time absolving the authorities of foreign occupation from the consequences of their violations, in total disregard for the norms and principles of international humanitarian law.”
2011-05-10 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.6531Resumption1 (2011) · source
“Were that to happen, it would inevitably harm the credibility and neutrality of the United Nations and undermine the noble efforts carried out to protect civilians in armed conflicts. An old paradox for the international community is the fact that, with the development of the concepts of international law over past decades, in both the general and humanitarian aspects, the suffering of civilians during conflicts - and, indeed, the very number of conflicts - have increased.”
2011-05-10 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.6531Resumption1 (2011) · source
“Every international instrument has affirmed that national Governments have the primary responsibility in providing protection for their citizens and that such responsibility is exclusive and cannot be substituted for or influenced in the service of a given political agenda. We must therefore not confuse the subject of the protection of civilians, on the one hand, and threats to international peace and security on the other, in particular when such an important subject is discussed in the Security Council. We must also avoid using vague or loose interpretations of the subject of the protection of civilians, as well as the use of terminology outside United Nations documents and materials that are controversial, such as the responsibility to protect and humanitarian intervention.”
2011-05-10 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.6531Resumption1 (2011) · source
“Hence, the affected State has the primary role in the initiation, organization, coordination, and implementation of humanitarian assistance within its territory." Jurisprudence has concluded that international efforts to protect civilians in cases of armed conflict must be carried out in strict observance of the principles of the Charter of the United Nations - which affirm the need to respect the sovereignty of States, their political independence and their territorial integrity - and be consistent with the provisions of the Geneva Conventions and international humanitarian law.”
2011-05-10 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.6531Resumption1 (2011) · source
“In this context, humanitarian assistance should be provided with the consent of the affected country and in principle on the basis of an appeal by the affected country." In addition, paragraph 4 of that resolution states that "Each State has the responsibility first and foremost to take care of the victims of natural disasters and other emergencies occurring on its territory.”
2011-05-10 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.6531Resumption1 (2011) · source
“I say this in particular because the Security Council has long been involved in debating this important matter, while Israel, rightly and legally referred to as the occupying Power, has all the while continued its gross violations against civilian populations in occupied Arab territories. Paragraph 3 of the guidelines annexed to General Assembly resolution 46/182 - by which the Assembly established the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs - states that "The sovereignty, territorial integrity and national unity of States must be fully respected in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations.”
2011-05-10 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.6531Resumption1 (2011) · source
“Mr. J a'afari (Syrian Arab Republic) (spoke in Arabic): On behalf of my country, I would like to thank the Security Council for the holding of this open debate to discuss the protection of civilians in armed conflict. The entire international community understands that this very important subject cannot be dealt with selectively or subjected to one-sided interpretations. We therefore believe that the protection of Palestinian, Syrian and Lebanese civilians suffering under Israeli occupation is part and parcel of this much-appreciated international effort in the context of the impartial and exact implementation of the mandate to protect civilians in armed conflicts.”
2011-05-10 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.6531Resumption1 (2011) · source
“There is also the internationally condemned and criminal blockade of Gaza and daily threats of war and aggression. The illegal arms trade conducted by Israel fuels terrorism, as we know. According to international reports, including a report on arms published in Sweden, Israel is ranked fourth among States active in the international arms trade. If that does not constitute terrorism, and if strangling peace is not international terrorism, then what is terrorism? The Security Council must question and stop Israeli State terrorism and make no exception for Israel or allow it to be above the law.”
2010-11-15 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.6424 (2010) · source
“Among all these acts, Israel hijacked a civilian aircraft - a Syrian plane - for the first time in 1954. Then, in 1971, it brought down a civilian Libyan plane. Conventional terrorism has recently been transformed into nuclear terrorism. Israel, as everyone knows, spies on its closest allies, including the United States of America. A great number of former Israeli officers work in the trade in children's organs, as has been internationally documented. I recall that Israel has set up 600 military checkpoints in the West Bank in a space that is no bigger than 5,000 square kilometres - one can picture Manhattan, for example, with 600 security checkpoints. Moreover, the settlements number in the hundreds, devouring swathes of territory, killing inhabitants and driving out the Palestinians.”
2010-11-15 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.6424 (2010) · source
“The United Nations, through an historic resolution of the 1970s, declared that occupation was the gravest form of aggression. We take that as a starting point. The United Nations has documented Israeli State terrorism since 1948. This terrorism began, as everyone knows, in the form of terrorist acts carried out by various gangs, such as the Irgun, Stern and Haganah, whose goals were to kill messengers of peace, including in particular Count Bernadotte, the United Nations envoy. This was followed by the mass killing of Palestinians to make them flee their land. The massacres of Deir Yassin, Qibya, Kafr Qasem, Jenin, Beit Hanoun and various others are well known to everyone. Next, this State terrorism took aim at neighbouring countries: Qana 1, Qana 2, the Golan, Tunis, the Sudan, Egypt and Jordan; finally, as we know, it reached Dubai.”
2010-11-15 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.6424 (2010) · source
“Mr. J a'afari (Syrian Arab Republic) (spoke in Arabic): I am sorry for requesting the floor once again. Nothing justifies terrorism, which my country categorically condemns, whatever the forms, reasons or pretexts. That is our international legal position, sanctioned by the Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy adopted by the United Nations in 2006. My country took an active part in the adoption of the Strategy, which we continue to support. The ridiculous attempt by the representative of Israel to conflate terrorism, which is a denounced international practice, with the right of peoples under foreign occupation to resist occupation does not deceive anyone. Its only objective is to distract everyone from Israel's State terrorism, which is well known and well documented.”
2010-11-15 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.6424 (2010) · source
“No one must interfere in Lebanon's internal affairs. Once no one is doing so, we shall help the Lebanese to reach agreement among themselves and to put an end to the crisis in Lebanon. I wish to reiterate my country's total condemnation of all the acts of assassination that have taken place in Lebanon. Such assassinations are aimed at the Lebanese people themselves. Our condemnation was made officially, and I shall reiterate it to the members of the Council. Syria has every intention to find the guilty hands that have assassinated Lebanese people. We are confident that all the manoeuvres and attempts to distract us from the truth will be revealed at the conclusion of the investigations now under way.”
2008-01-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.5827 (2008) · source
“My colleague, the head of the United States delegation referred to my country when he was discussing the situation in Lebanon. In that context, I should like to remind members that Syria not only supported the Arab Peace Initiative - whose implementation is currently being supervised by Mr. Amr Moussa, Secretary-General of the League of Arab States - but also helped to create it and participated in the meeting of foreign ministers at which it was formulated. Therefore, Syria is very keen to ensure the Initiative's success and to assist our Lebanese brothers in reaching agreement among themselves in order to achieve security and put an end to Lebanon's current constitutional crisis. We interpret the call for non-interference in Lebanon's internal affairs as a call on all parties, including the United States of America and others.”
2008-01-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.5827 (2008) · source
“Syria has opted for a just and comprehensive peace as a strategic choice, based on the well-known Madrid terms of reference and the resolutions of international legitimacy. These require the return of all occupied Arab territories, including the occupied Syrian Golan, to the line of 4 June 1967 and the establishment of an independent Palestinian State with Jerusalem as its capital. The continuation of the occupation runs counter to peace; it means more strife, more victims and more destruction. A just and comprehensive peace is my country's strategic option, but not at the expense of our national rights or sovereignty. President Bashar Al-Assad stressed that when he said that a just and comprehensive peace was a strategic option, but not at the expense of Syrian land or sovereignty.”
2008-01-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.5827 (2008) · source
“Such military attacks clearly complicate the very fragile situation on the ground and will work to defeat the hopes that some had in the Annapolis conference. The Arabs have again shown that they want a peace that puts an end to Israeli occupation, a peace built on the Arab Peace Initiative adopted by the Beirut conference in 2002 and re-launched by Arab leaders at the Riyadh summit. The Arab commitment to a just and comprehensive peace requires a reciprocal, serious commitment by the Israeli Government and its standard bearers to work for peace, which includes abiding by the resolutions of international legitimacy and withdrawing from the occupied lands in accordance with Security Council resolutions 242 (1967) and 338 (1973).”
2008-01-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.5827 (2008) · source
“After some came to believe that the road to peace is possible in the aftermath of the Annapolis conference, the Israeli Government launched a new settlement campaign in the Golan and in occupied Jerusalem and acts of morally unjustified killing of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, which has led many to believe that negotiations are but a waste of time. The number of Israeli settlers in the occupied Arab territories increased by 5 per cent last year. Israel has attempted to draw international parties into a new game, a game of redefining the concept of settlement and dividing it into both legitimate and illegitimate aspects. Israel inaugurated the New Year with intense and illegitimate acts of military aggression against Palestinian civilians.”
2008-01-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.5827 (2008) · source
“All such events merely entrench the conviction of the people of the region that the Arab-Israeli conflict remains unresolved because Israel lacks the political will to end its occupation of Arab land and because this conflict is being managed by a specific group of countries, thus complicating matters and transforming what could become a just, comprehensive peace into a peace conditioned upon opportunistic, short-sighted calculations. The policy of obfuscation by Israel, a policy based on daily attempts to place obstacles before peace, thus pushing the region to states of despair followed by explosions of Violence, is an entrenched policy that is shored up by Israel's daily practices.”
2008-01-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.5827 (2008) · source
“The Arab Peace Initiative is the main opportunity that Israel ought not miss. It may not come again. That initiative also set aside all of the empty pretexts that Israel invokes. However, Israel has responded to all of the initiatives and efforts with provocative, escalating and unjustified steps. As was recently documented by the United Nations in the latest report of the Secretary- General on the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) in the Golan (S/2007/698), Israel is strengthening its military presence, as well as military training, in the Golan and that is a new indication that it will continue its aggressive stance in contradiction to all of its claims that it desires peace.”
2008-01-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.5827 (2008) · source
“My country has dispatched letters in that regard to the Secretary-General, to the President of the Security Council, to the President of the General Assembly, to Security Council members and to governmental and non-governmental organizations, seeking their intervention to assist in resolving the issues relating to allowing Syrian citizens in the occupied Golan to Visit their families and releasing Syrian detainees from Israeli jails. We are confident that we shall receive replies to those letters. My delegation has repeatedly stressed that we are determined to regain our entire occupied land to the border of 4 June 1967 by all legitimate means available to us. My country continues to address the issue, at every opportunity, in our attempt to reach that objective.”
2008-01-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.5827 (2008) · source
“Syria emphasizes that the people of the Golan are Syrian citizens in an occupied part of the homeland. They have the humanitarian right to remain in contact and to reach out to their own people. The tragedy of Syrian prisoners in Israeli jails continues unabated. Some have now been detained for more than 30 years without justification. Some have passed away and others remain there on their deathbed because Israel refuses to respect international humanitarian law.”
2008-01-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.5827 (2008) · source
“Israel's response to those resolutions has been in the form of the worst Violations of international law, humanitarian law and human rights, perpetuating the occupation and preventing the inhabitants of the occupied Syrian Golan from visiting their families and relatives in their motherland, Syria. Such coercive treatment of thousands of Syrians in the occupied Syrian Golan, preventing them from reaching out to their own families, increases the suffering of our people and runs counter to the minimum obligations of the Israeli authorities, the occupying Power. Not one home in the Syrian Golan is without relatives in the motherland of Syria. Here we recall the harsh humanitarian suffering of families of the Syrian Golan in cases of sickness or death when members of the same family are prevented from contacting each other.”
2008-01-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.5827 (2008) · source
“That failure runs counter to the responsibilities entrusted to the Security Council by the United Nations Charter and sends the wrong message to Israel, namely, that it may persist in its aggressiveness and may behave as if there were no occupation and as if people under foreign occupation had no right to fight such an occupation. More than four decades have passed since Israel's occupation of the Syrian Golan. Israel continues to refuse to return the occupied Syrian Golan to its motherland, Syria, or to respond to relevant Security Council resolutions, including resolution 497 (1981).”
2008-01-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.5827 (2008) · source
“Syria strongly condemns such inhumane Israeli activities and calls on the Security Council to take immediate action to end such Israeli crimes and to punish their perpetrators. The international community cannot stand motionless in the face of such crimes, which rise to the level of genocide and crimes against humanity. The failure by this Council in the past few days to adopt a simple presidential statement condemning Israel for its flagrant Violations of human rights and internationally proscribed policies of collective punishment in the Palestinian territory, in particular in Gaza - owing to the position of a permanent member of the Security Council that always tries to tailor the deliberations of the Security Council to suit Israeli interests, whether such interests run counter to international law or not.”
2008-01-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.5827 (2008) · source
“Israel has inaugurated the new year by shutting down the Gaza Strip, hindering the delivery of humanitarian assistance and plunging the entire district into darkness, in addition to unleashing daily massacres of Palestinians that claim dozens of young people and children, detaining thousands of Palestinian pilgrims and patients at the Egyptian border crossing, and preventing their return to Gaza. Israel continues to turn a deaf ear to all international appeals based on the principles of international law to halt the construction of the apartheid wall and to release the parliamentarians, members of the Legislative Council, and Palestinian leaders whom it is holding without justification.”
2008-01-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.5827 (2008) · source
“Internal Security Minister Avi Dichter averred that the number was too low, and that the figure represented 5 per cent of those whom the occupation forces ought to have killed. One Israeli human rights organization reported that the occupation authorities killed 152 children in 2007, including 48 under the age of 14. That would bring the total number of Palestinian children killed between 2000 and today to 866, according to Israel's own calculations.”
2008-01-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.5827 (2008) · source
“Despite that fact, and the hundreds of cumulative resolutions condemning Israel by name for its practices in complete contravention of all such principles and resolutions, Israel - a truly unique practitioner of outlaw behaviour in today's world - has persisted and continues to persist in ignoring the most fundamental principles of international law and in engaging in violence, oppression and morally and politically irresponsible behaviour. Israel boasts of such shameful behaviour and flouts international law and norms. A few days ago, Israeli newspapers printed statements by Yuval Diskin, head of the internal security service known as Shabak, in which he boasted that his service had killed 810 Palestinians, including 200 civilians, in 2007.”
2008-01-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.5827 (2008) · source
“The occupied Syrian Golan is an intrinsic part of that situation, which has been brought about by the ongoing Israeli occupation of Arab lands. Today, we participate in this meeting of the Security Council as a principal concerned party, pursuant to the Council's own decisions. Proceeding from that, we call on the Secretariat to ensure that no such omission occurs in future briefings. We express our gratitude for all information concerning Israeli occupation activities in the occupied Syrian Golan. The principles and purposes of the United Nations Charter and the resolutions of the Security Council and the General Assembly all identify occupation as the worst form of aggression and the worst violation of fundamental human rights.”
2008-01-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.5827 (2008) · source
“While seeking to the maximum possible extent to gloss over the ongoing Israeli Violations of all international norms and laws and contraventions of the Security Council's resolutions, and to obscure the facts on the ground, the briefing could not help but paint a very dark picture of the situation on the ground that the region has endured over more than 40 years of abhorrent Israeli settlement colonialism. With regard to the monthly briefing by Under- Secretary-General Pascoe, I wish to express our dissatisfaction at its failure to address the situation in the occupied Syrian Golan. The item under which the monthly meeting of the Security Council is held is, as all colleagues know, "The situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question".”
2008-01-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.5827 (2008) · source
“Mr. J a'afari (Syrian Arab Republic) (spoke in Arabic): My delegation adds its voice to every word of your statement, Sir. We understand your words today in this Council as representing the correct way of exercising the privilege of the moral veto against any attempt to turn facts on their head and every endeavour to rob of its substance the role of the United Nations in achieving a just, lasting and comprehensive peace in the Middle East. We listened to the briefing given by Under- Secretary-General Pascoe this morning.”
2008-01-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.5827 (2008) · source
“The fruits of true peace and true security must be enjoyed by everyone in the region, not just the Israelis, because peace and security are human rights belonging to all, regardless of colour, religion or race. The right to self-defence too applies to all, including the Palestinians; self-defence cannot be a racist principle tailored to Israeli measurements and the occupation's standards. The Security Council today is urgently required to take immediate measures to compel Israel, the occupying Power, to abide by the principles of international law, in particular the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, by putting an end to the practice of holding millions of Palestinians hostage to political greed that aims at collectively punishing that people for having made a political choice to reject Israeli occupation.”
2008-01-22 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.5824Resumption1 (2008) · source
“He believes that the Palestinians must accept the occupation, worship its practices and the oppression it brings and praise the daily assassinations carried out around the clock by Israel. The practices of the Israeli Government against the Palestinian people constitute true terrorism and must be stopped. The Israeli representative's claim that his country desires peace is not substantiated by Israel's actions, which include settlement-building; the imposition of sieges; assassinations; the building of the wall; the forcible annexation of other people's lands; the closing of crossing points; the cutting off of electricity, water, and supplies of food and medicine; and the arrests of leaders of the Palestinian people and members of their Legislative Council, who have been democratically elected for years.”
2008-01-22 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.5824Resumption1 (2008) · source
“Those decision-makers must understand that the continued occupation, over decades, has left the Palestinian people with no other choice but to resist the occupation, through legitimate means guaranteed by international legitimacy and international law. Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people started decades ago, long before the emergence of the Hamas movement. Throughout that time, Israel has continued its daily assassinations, daily violations, daily arrest campaigns, daily siege, daily starving of the Palestinian people, daily building of settlements and daily provocations. Anyone who listened to the statement of the Israeli representative would immediately understand that Israel's interpretation of its occupation of the Palestinian territories is unique and without parallel.”
2008-01-22 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.5824Resumption1 (2008) · source
“The only result of such negativity by some parties will be to push the region towards an explosion, to convince the people of the region that resisting Israeli aggression is the only solution and that any talk of a futile peace serves only the continuation of Israeli occupation and aggression. The current escalating situation in the occupied Palestinian territories can withstand no further silence or disregard on the part of a Security Council that exempts Israel from abiding by the principles of international law. It requires strong intervention in order to put a stop to that exemption and to make Israeli policymakers and decision-makers understand that they are not above the law and that they are accountable for their transgressions, for their worship of violence and for the extremism and racism to which they have fallen prey.”
2008-01-22 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.5824Resumption1 (2008) · source
“Some might wonder what prompts a certain group to issue one resolution after another on a marginal issue that has nothing to do with the maintenance of international peace and security, while that same group resists any genuine and honest international effort seeking to hold Israel accountable before the Security Council for its criminal practices and its barbaric aggression against the Palestinian people. That aggression is clearly intended to deprive Palestinians of their rights, bring them to their knees and create chasms in their national defences.”
2008-01-22 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.5824Resumption1 (2008) · source
“When hundreds of intergovernmental and non- governmental organizations and numerous United Nations specialized agencies call for urgent action to save the people of Gaza and the cities of the West Bank under Israeli occupation, it means that there is something wrong in some international moral and political decision-making circles. There is something wrong, and it is causing more despair, tension, frustration and violence and damaging the prospects for peace.”
2008-01-22 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.5824Resumption1 (2008) · source
“Given this situation, it is therefore not surprising that former United States President Jimmy Carter and Bishop Desmond Tutu have described Israel as a racist State. When the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) issues an urgent call for relief, it must be heard by the Security Council as a loud alarm, for it signals a great imbalance in terms of the reaction of the United Nations, and of the Council in particular, in the face of the tragic situation in Gaza as a result of Israel's criminal actions against the Palestinian people.”
2008-01-22 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.5824Resumption1 (2008) · source
“Israel also continues to refuse to halt the building of settlements on occupied Arab territories and imposes terms on the peace process that are impossible to meet. Between 2000 and 2007, Israel killed 4,437 Palestinians, of whom 867 were minors. That is in contrast to the 119 Israeli minors killed in the same period. Those figures, provided by an Israeli human rights centre, prove that Israel is a terrorist country that is eight times more violent than the Palestinian resistance, which Israel claims is a source of terrorism against it. We must keep in mind that the Palestinians' firing of rockets was initially a Palestinian reaction to Israel's assassination of Palestinians in Gaza.”
2008-01-22 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.5824Resumption1 (2008) · source
“Its obstinacy is also due to the lack of active pressure on Israel to abide by its legal obligations under the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention and international humanitarian law. The Security Council and the international community must break out of their impotence and paralysis and deter Israel from its bloody policies. They must take urgent steps with regard to those illegal Israeli policies and abandon double standards, so as to preserve the credibility of their role in the maintenance of international peace and security. Because the Security Council has yet to do that, Israel continues to refuse to implement the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) regarding the need to stop construction and to demolish what has been built of the racist wall of separation that Israel is building on occupied Palestinian land.”
2008-01-22 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.5824Resumption1 (2008) · source
“In short, Israel, the occupying Power, as defined under international law, has transformed Gaza into a sealed ghetto and the West Bank into besieged bantustans. It is self-evident that Israel would not have dared to commit those inhuman violations, continue to violate international law, persevere in its defiance of international public opinion and move ahead with its feverish quest to undermine the already shaky peace process in the Middle East, had it not been for the huge vacuum in terms of commitment on the part of influential countries vis-a-vis the launch of a genuine peace process to establish a just and comprehensive peace, in accordance with the well-known international terms of reference.”
2008-01-22 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.5824Resumption1 (2008) · source
“Israel must be held accountable for that crime and bear its legal and political consequences. Israel's irresponsible decision gives free reign to its occupying forces in occupied Palestinian territory to commit war crimes against the unarmed Palestinian people, implement its policy of collective siege, continue its assassinations and closures of crossing points, establish hundreds of military checkpoints and cut off electricity, fuel, food and medical supplies from the residents of the entire Gaza Strip. Israel's claim that it has withdrawn from Gaza is a blatant distortion of the facts. Israel controls international borders and all crossing points. It violates Gaza hourly. It controls the flow of food, medicines, water and electricity.”
2008-01-22 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.5824Resumption1 (2008) · source
“Israel's escalation of military aggression and its collective siege against the Palestinian people in Gaza, which reminds us of dark chapters of humankind's history, both require the urgent attention of the Security Council. The Council must act in a manner that will serve to restore the trust of the international community in the rule of law in a way that does not exclude anyone. The Council must also protect the unarmed Palestinian people against the irresponsible Israeli war machine. In so doing, the Council would foster the desire of peoples for peace. Israel's decision to declare the Gaza Strip a hostile entity constitutes a unilateral interpretation of international law that has been rejected as riding roughshod over the principles of international law, which hold that collective punishment is a war crime.”
2008-01-22 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.5824Resumption1 (2008) · source
“Mr. J a'afari (Syrian Arab Republic) (spoke in Arabic): It gives me great pleasure to congratulate the sisterly country of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya on its election to the Security Council and on the great trust that Member States have placed in it. I should also like to congratulate you, Mr. President, on your assumption of the presidency of the Council for this month. I wish you every success in your new responsibilities. I would also like to thank the Permanent Representative of the friendly country of Italy for his excellent leadership of the Council in December. When a given issue is put before the Security Council on an urgent basis it is because that issue has been, as it were, admitted to the intensive care unit. That is precisely the case today.”
2008-01-22 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.5824Resumption1 (2008) · source