Iraq: Suicide Bombings "Are a Legitimate Right"

July 25, 2002
By William M. Reilly

UNITED NATIONS, July 24 (UPI) -- Iraq's ambassador to the United Nations said Wednesday Palestinian suicide bombings in Israel were "legitimate suicidal actions in accordance with international law" against the "Zionist entity."

Speaking at an emergency Arab-requested U.N. Security Council meeting on Israel's Gaza City attack, Abdul Al-Kadhe defended Palestinian actions and criticized the United States for indulging "the Zionist entity" -- he never once mentioned Israel in his 10 minute address -- as "a spoiled child ... for its own domestic reasons."

"So the spoiled child has been encouraged to continue with its terrorist activities," he said. "It is trying to terrorize and to crush the Palestinian people, to tame them and force them to accept this humiliating policy of simple submission."

Baghdad's envoy said the reaction of "the major powers ... was inadequate and rather weak."

He asked, "How can the Security Council describe as a terrorist act, legitimate suicidal actions in accordance with international law, in accordance with many resolutions of the United Nations?

"Palestinian suicide bombings are a legitimate right, a way to achieve emancipation and legitimate self-defense against the Zionist military machine. And, so the Palestinian suicidal actions are legitimate."

Al-Kadhe did not just take a passing slap at Washington; he aimed both barrels.

"The United States is using its power as a military machine and its power in the media for its own narrow ends," he said. "We are all aware that falsifications of the facts, attempts to mislead, derive from the world wide Zionist movement which is characterized by racism ... if not deriving from Nazism and so forth and we will not continue with this."

But, it wasn't the first time Iraq mentioned Israel and Nazism in the same breath.

Last August in another council debate on the Middle East, Iraqi Ambassador Mohammed Aldouri said "the neo Nazi entity ... the criminal entity, the Zionist entity ... the Nazis occupying Palestinian territory, have the blessing of the American authorities."

However, this time the deputy dropped it where he said he would, concentrating more on Washington.

The United States used international terrorism to have the Security Council adopt resolutions "under the pretext of observing international peace and security," depriving people of "their right to self-determination," Al-Kadhe said.

"The United States invokes the pretext of international terrorism in order to carry out their own strategic goals in the world, using force, threatening force and stating explicitly that they will intervene in the internal affairs of states and that they wish to change the political, social and economic regimes.

"Proof of these are the constantly reiterated intentions of the U.S. administration to change the legal regime in Iraq and to launch military aggression against that country," Al-Kadhe said. "They have also stated their intention of changing the legal leaders of Palestine."

He also accused Washington of violating the Geneva conventions on the protection of civilians in armed conflict and on the treatment of U.S. prisoners of war, an apparent reference to prisoners taken in Afghanistan being held at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba.

"The council today is called upon to act under Chapter VII of the charter of the United Nations to take coercive action against that entity and protect the Palestinian people," the Baghdad envoy said. "If it does not do so this means the council is unable to maintain international peace and security, unable to discharge the mandate entrusted to it under the charter of the United Nations.

"If the council is not able to act appropriately then the entire United Nations would lose credibility and the council would have confirmed that the United Nations is simply is an instrument of American and Zionist policy," he said.

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