UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United States on Thursday blocked a U.N. Security Council statement drafted by Arab nations and aimed at putting pressure on Israel to stop military strikes on Palestinian targets.

U.S. Ambassador John Bolton said the draft, even after three days of intense negotiations, “was disproportionately critical of Israel, and unfairly so, and needlessly so.”

But Palestinian U.N. Observer Riyad Mansour accused Washington of “shielding and protecting Israeli activities and aggression against the Palestinian people.”

“It was obvious that many of their concerns were accommodated but yet they kept coming back and coming back for additional things. It was obvious they did not want the Security Council to have a position,” Mansour said.

Washington does not have formal veto power when it comes to council statements. But it was nonetheless able to block the draft single-handedly because council rules require that statements be unanimous supported by all 15 of its members. During Thursday’s closed-door negotiations, the United States effectively killed the text by seeking amendment after amendment until Qatar, the council’s sole Arab member, gave up the fight.

Asked by reporters to confirm that Washington alone had opposed issuing the statement, Bolton responded, “If I were the only holdout, I’d be proud of that fact.”

Qatar, acting on behalf of the Arab group at the United Nations, the 57-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference and the Non-Aligned Movement of 112 nations, immediately requested an open council debate on the Middle East, which was scheduled for Monday afternoon.

"I don't see that that meeting is going to be productive, because I don't think the Security Council is an exercise in group therapy," Bolton said...

When the American ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, asked the members of the Security Council yesterday whether they thought it appropriate on Passover, a major Jewish holy day, to debate a motion denouncing Israel, most of the 15 ambassadors failed to grasp what was wrong, according to diplomats present at the meeting, held behind closed doors...

...The council instead will meet Monday for an open meeting, in which dozens of U.N. members will deliver speeches in what one diplomat described as a "group therapy session."

Non-members of the council do not take part in closed-door consultations like the one that took place yesterday. But diplomats from countries whose affairs are being discussed wait in a room near the council, where they are briefed on the goings-on by friendly council members and where they try to lobby council members.

Israeli diplomats are always present during such consultations, but yesterday they were conspicuous in their absence. A diplomat, who asked for anonymity because Israeli officials are supposed to decline interviews during the first 24 hours of Passover, told The New York Sun that the council had been notified in advance that no Israelis would come to Turtle Bay during the holiday.

The request for a council meeting by Qatar's ambassador, Nassir Abdulaziz al-Nasser, "was made several days ago," Chinese ambassador Wang Guangya, who is the council's president for the month of April, told the Sun. Qatar declined to delay the consultations any further, as today the United Nations is closed as it is Good Friday.

Russian ambassador, Andrey Denisov, who usually carries a lot of influence with the Arab group, told the Sun he had tried to dissuade the Palestinian Arab U.N. observer, Riyad Mansour, from calling consultations on Passover. "Now we are at a deadlock," he said.

Secretary-General Annan's spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, said that it was not a secretariat issue. "The council is master of its own schedule," he said, and wished the Sun a happy Passover.

As consultations began, Mr. Bolton asked for what he later described as "consistency about observing religious holidays." He said that he was told that "we work on everybody's religious holidays." From now on, he said, "never again can anybody say, 'But it's a religious holiday, therefore I can't work.'"

Which holidays are observed by the United Nations "is something which is decided every year," said French ambassador Jean Marc de la Sabliere, adding that the United Nations cannot afford to stop work" whenever there is a religious feast" anywhere around the world.

The Israeli diplomat said that the issue is not working days, but a council meeting that specifically had to do with Israel. Two years ago, after a flare up on the Syrian-Israeli border, a more acute open meeting of the council took place on the eve of Yom Kippur, the diplomat noted. Ambassador Dan Gillerman had to deliver a speech, and after making special arrangement to schedule the speech early, he literally ran out of Turtle Bay just before sundown, when Jewish observance begins...