Israel Attacks Syria

Israel has attacked an Islamic Jihad terrorist training camp in Syria.

Syria called an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council, hoping to get a resolution condemning and restricting Israel. I'm absolutely certain that no such resolution would pass — the U.S. would veto it, if it got that far.

I just finished listening to Israeli ambassador Dan Gillerman's statement to the Council. It was great. I wish our own spokesmen would speak in such clear, straightforward terms. His statement will probably be published online soon; I'll link to it when it is. Meanwhile, I recorded the statements of both the Syrian and Israeli ambassadors, so if any of my co-workers would like to hear them, let me know.

The United States is virtually the only supporter of Israel in the world, but we don't seem like a very good ally in our official acts. Sure, we frequently exercise our UNSC veto on their behalf, but we don't make enough official supportive statements. We can't for political reasons — we need to continue to placate other Arab states so as to control the pace of the War Against Terrorism — so I don't fault my nation for seeming less than fully supportive of Israel. But the Israeli people deserve to know that privately, we're rooting for you.

UPDATE 2003-10-07 14:54:05 UTC: I'm told this qualifies as a Shocking! Outrageous! post. Also, the Mission of Israel to the U.N. says that a transcript of Ambassador Gillerman's statement will be posted within a day.

UPDATE 2003-10-08 04:57:02 UTC: More in a followup post, including a link to the transcript.