US Identifies Iran, not Israel, as Chief Culprit in Middle East Conflict

April 21, 2017

by: Ilse Posselt

Friday, 21 April 2017 | According to a popular libel peddled by anti-Israel activists, only one nation stands to blame for the unrest raging in the Middle East. The Israel-Palestinian conflict and the presence of Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, the narrative holds, stand as the main stumbling blocks to finally achieving peace in the troubled region.

Yet the United States confirmed on Tuesday that the main perpetrator responsible for orchestrating turmoil in the region is not the Jewish state but rather the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Speaking during a United Nations Security Council (UNSC) meeting focused specifically on issues pertaining to the Middle East, the US ambassador to the United Nations (UN), Nikki Haley, told member states, “If we are speaking honestly about conflict in the Middle East, we need to start with the chief culprit: Iran and its partner militia, Hezbollah. Iran and Hezbollah conspire together to destabilize the Middle East.”

The UNSC is notorious for its disproportionate focus on the tiny Jewish state, irrespective of regional atrocities such as the Syrian Civil War and the carnage wrought by the Islamic State happening right on Israel’s doorstep. Haley vowed, however, that the UNSC’s habitual “Israel-bashing sessions,” which “don’t do anyone in the region any favors,” would soon be turned into constructive meetings aimed at finding a way forward for the problems posed by the Islamic Republic.

Referring to Iran and its allies as a “growing menace” that the US would not ignore, Haley explained that the Islamic Republic and the terror organization operating in Lebanon “are working together to expand extremist ideologies in the Middle East. She presented a list of offenses, including terror attacks committed across the Middle East over the past decades, training “deadly militias in Iraq,” arming “militants in Yemen” and propping up “Bashar al-Assad’s brutality” against his own people in Syria. Hezbollah, she added, “uses towns to shield … tens of thousands of illegal rockets.”

Haley, who serves as the president of the UNSC for the month of April, also highlighted that Tehran continues to violate various UNSC resolutions. “Iran’s ballistic missile tests defy Security Council resolutions and further undermine the stability in the region,” she explained. “We call on all states to fully implement Resolution 2231, which bans the transfer of weapons to and from Iran, as well as the arms embargoes against the Houthis in Resolution 2216 and for Lebanon in Resolution 1701.”

Addressing the Israel-Palestinian conflict, Haley conceded that the “issue is an important one” and that a solution based on direct negotiations should be sought. However, she added, “that is one issue that surely has no lack of attention around here.”

“How one chooses to spend one’s time is an indication of one’s priorities,” Haley warned. “The same is true for the United Nations Security Council. The incredibly destructive nature of Iranian and Hezbollah activities throughout the Middle East demands much more of our attention. It should become this Council’s priority in the region.”

Posted on April 21, 2017

Source: (Bridges for Peace, 21 April 2017)