Libya blocks U.N. council resolution condemning killing of Jerusalem seminary killings

From the TimesOnline (UK):

In an extraordinary development in New York, an emergency session of the United Nations failed to agree on a condemnation of the killings, the first major attack in Jerusalem in four years.

Ban Ki-moon, the UN Secretary General, Britain, France, the European Union, Canada, Israel and Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian President, condemned the strike, while President Bush assured Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister, of full US support.

But any hope of an agreement was lost as Israel and Libya traded insults and accused each other of terrorism.

The United States had drafted a statement which read: “The members of the Security Council condemn in the strongest terms the terrorist attack that took place in Jerusalem which resulted in the death and injury of dozens of Israeli civilians.” It had hoped the 15-nation council would unanimously support the text but Libya, backed by several other council members, prevented its adoption.

“We were not able to come to an agreement because the Libyan delegation with the support of one or two others did not want to condemn this act by itself but wanted to link it to other issues,” Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, told reporters after the council meeting.

The Libyans wanted to include in the statement language condemning the recent Israeli incursions into Gaza, which have killed over 120 Palestinians, many of them civilians. Khalilzad rejected the move, arguing that killing students in a school was different from the unintentional killing of civilians.

Dan Gillerman, the ambassador of Israel, which is not on the council, referred to Libya as the country responsible for the 1988 bombing of Pam Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, adding: “Unfortunately, this is what happens when the Security Council is infiltrated by terrorists.” Libya, a long-time enemy of Israel, was elected to the council last year after the United States dropped its objections.

Someone remind me – how is it that Libya is on the council in the first place? Oh – yeah – there it is in that last line. The U.S. dropped its objections to having Libya on it.

And who exactly objects to Israel being on it?

Disclaimer: Other than being on a Model UN ICJ court, I know little about the inner-workings of the U.N. (though I’ve eaten at a great French restaurant just around the corner from it). Feel free to educate me, in an objective way before lunging into the subjective ways.