Lebanese president tells UNSC to stop double standards towards Israel

Michel Sleiman, president of Lebanon, said here Thursday that the UN Security Council should do more to hold Israel accountable for actions in the Middle East that he considers to be violations of international law and humanitarian rights.

Sleiman's statements came at a high-level council meeting on "Ensuring the Security Council's effective role in maintaining international peace and security."

Sleiman said that people living in occupied territories, "commonly complain of the Security Council's incapability to implement its resolutions or of its double standards in such a way that Israel for example appears to be exempt from accountability or above the international law."

He said that Israel's blockade of Gaza as well as its occupation of territories he considered as belonging to Palestine, constitute violations of international law.

Sleiman also said that the Security Council should take a closer look at negative perceptions of their accountability in Middle East affairs in order to gain more international prestige and respect.

"This necessitates that the Security Council conducts a study on the reasons behind this negative perception and on means to address this issue, and that in order to improve the effectiveness of its role in the maintenance of international peace and security and to gain the confidence of peoples in its ability to defend them and establish justice so that these peoples would not have to resort to resistance and other legitimate means of self-defense," Sleiman said.

Since 1949, the UN has had a mission in the Middle East, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) that seeks to protect and advocate for Palestinian refugees.

Sleiman acknowledged that the international community is currently bearing the weight of supporting UNRWA financially, but that the "right to return" to their homeland is also a necessity for the Palestinian refugees.

Source: Xinhua