In three and a half years of Palestinian terrorist attacks that have murdered hundreds of innocent Israeli civilians and wounded thousands more, this Council has not met even once to express condemnation of a single attack. Not one resolution, not one presidential statement has been adopted by this Council to specifically denounce the deliberate massacre of our innocent civilians. Not two months ago when 11 Israeli citizens were murdered in a horrific homicide bomb attack on a bus in central Jerusalem on 29 January. In the wake of our anguish, our efforts to elicit some response from the Council were not met with even a presidential statement.

And yet today, following a sad and familiar pattern, the Council convenes. Why? Not to condemn the terrorism, not to honor the memory of the hundreds murdered by it, but to come to the defense of one of its prime perpetrators, a godfather of terrorism. This is not a message of which the Council can be proud. Frankly, it is an outrage...