The UN Security Council met today in a last-minute attempt to stop a general war in the Middle East. The meeting resulted in the two parties threatening retaliation against each other. The meeting had been called after the Iranians launched a major rocket attack on Israel in retribution for the Gaza genocide and the new Israeli incursions into Lebanon to decapitate Hezbollah.
“This deadly cycle of tit-for-tat violence must stop,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the 15-member council. “Time is running out.” Guterres has been declared persona non grata by the Israeli Government, preventing any travel on his part to Israel.
The two parties then traded accusations. “Israel will defend itself. We will act. And let me assure you, the consequences Iran will face for their actions will be far greater than they could ever have imagined,” Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon told the council. The U.S., of course, gave full support to Israel.
Iran’s U.N. Ambassador Amir Saied Iravani said the missile attack on Tuesday was “to restore balance and deterrence.” He said further escalation could be avoided if Israel stopped the war in Gaza and attacks on Lebanon. But if Israel proceeds to retaliate, he said, “"Iran is fully prepared to take further defensive measures, if necessary, to protect its legitimate interests and defend its territorial integrity and sovereignty against any acts of military aggression and the illegal use of force.”
Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia praised Iran for “exceptional” restraint in recent months and said the missile attack on Israel could not be “presented as though all of this happened in a vacuum, as though nothing is happening—and nothing did happen—in Lebanon and Gaza, in Syria, in Yemen. But it did happen, and it led to a new, very dangerous spiral of a widening Middle East conflict,” Nebenzia said.
Nebenzia also exposed the hypocrisy of the alleged U.S. peace talks, “trying to pull the wool over our eyes” with talks that were leading nowhere. “To be perfectly honest with you, we are left with the impression by all of this, that these mediated negotiations are something that Washington is conducting with itself,” he said.
