UN special envoy Nickolay Mladenov, in an address to the Security Council on the Middle East, referred to Palestinian violence and terror – which he roundly condemned – as “fueled by resentment.”
Israel and the UN were at odds Thursday over whether Palestinian terrorism is the product of Islamic extremism or driven by resentment and frustration.
While UN special envoy Nickolay Mladenov, in an address to the Security Council on the Middle East diplomatic process, referred to Palestinian violence and terror – which he roundly condemned – as being “fueled by resentment,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu drew a clear line between the recent Islamic extremist attacks in Istanbul and Brussels, and the attack that killed 13-year-old Hallel Yaffa Ariel in her bed in Kiryat Arba.
Netanyahu, speaking at a graduation ceremony for air force cadets at the Hatzerim air force base near Beersheba, said that the pictures of Hallel’s blood-drenched room were heartbreaking.
“I say to all people in Israel, and abroad, that is your daughter, and your granddaughter. That horror illustrates for us again who and what we are up against,” he said.
“Islamist extremist terrorism continues to cut down innocent lives, from Paris to Brussels, Istanbul to Orlando, and today in Kiryat Arba,” he said.
At the UN, however, Mladenov – telling the Security Council that the long-awaited Quartet report on the Middle East peace process will be released on Friday – said that “Palestinian frustration cannot be wished away; it cannot be vanquished by aggressive security measures, arrests or home demolitions.”
But, he added, “neither will the violence and terror, fuelled by resentment, bring about a Palestinian state. A peaceful future for both peoples cannot emerge on the back of statements that glorify terror and justify killing; mutual respect cannot come as a result of stabbings, shootings and car-rammings.