Kofi Annan "Believes It Was Regretful"

Eye on the UN has coverage of "UN Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People" back on November 29, 2005--the anniversary of the date in which the U.N. General Assembly voted in favor of the resolution that adopted the plan for the partition of Palestine in 1947.

This year the day was more 'provocative' than usual. Eye on the UN has photos of a map, standing between the Palestinian and UN flags. The map was displayed:

in the presence of all top three UN officials, the Secretary General, and the Presidents of the UN Security Council and the General Assembly. It purports to be a "map of Palestine." Israel, a UN member state for 56 years, is not on the map. Even the UN General Assembly partition lines of November 29, 1947 marking a Jewish and Arab state, which pre-date this 1948 map, do not appear.

And what would a commemoration be without a few words from Kofi Annan:

Secretary-General Kofi Annan addresses the public meeting at UN Headquarters. The anniversary of the UN partition vote that survivors of the concentration camps celebrated, has been described by Secretary-General Annan as "a day of mourning and a day of grief." Palestinians, and Arab citizens more generally, refer to it as part of "Al-Nakba," meaning the "catastrophe" of the creation of the state of Israel.

But that does not begin to compare with what can only be described as a true UN Moment:

In a moment which has been crafted to include the commemoration of suicide-bombers (from left to right) Nasser Al-Kidwa, Foreign Minister of the Palestinian Authority, President of the UN Security Council Andrey Denisov, President of the UN General Assembly Jan Eliasson, Chairman of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People Paul Badji, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, (and two others) rise at the outset of the November 29th UN meeting with these words from the Chair. "I invite everyone present to rise and observe a minute of silence in memory of all those who have given their lives for the cause of the Palestinian people and the return of peace between Israel and Palestine."

Now there's a well-crafted sentence. But isn't "those who have given their lives for the cause of the Palestinian people" just a polite way of referring to terrorists? And who are "those who have given their lives for the...return of peace between Israel and Palestine"? Besides, to talk of the return of peace between Israel and Palestine implies (1) There was an entity called Palestine that existed at the same time as Israel. (2) There was peace at some point peace between Israel and this entity--an idea that makes no sense unless we are talking of the return of peace between Israel and itself.

This moment has been caught for posterity on video at the Eye on the UN website.

Setting aside the day for Palestinian Arabs and their allies to blast Israel is bad enough. For the UN to take active part is even worse. But all that the Secretary General has to say is that he is sorry about the map--sort of:

The U.N. Spokesman Stephane Dujarric told Yedioth Ahronoth on Monday that "the map that was displayed at the event is not an official U.N. map. Secretary General Annan believes it was regretful that the map was in the room during his speech. We have informed the event's organizers that such an incident should be prevented from repeating in the future."

Annan "believes it was regretful"? That phrase is so tortured that a Google search on it turns up 0 hits. He couldn't even say "Secretary General Annan regrets"? Is the spokesman so afraid of offending Palestinian sensibilities, that he had to hedge on even that?

Pathetic.

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