In an apparent show of support for Thursday's massacre at a Jerusalem Jewish seminary as a legitimate response to Israel's war on Palestinian terror, Libya prevented the United Nations Security Council from adopting a resolution harshly condemning the attack in the Israeli capital.
The US-authored draft resolution simply stated that that all members of the council "condemn in the strongest terms the terrorist attack that took place in Jerusalem March 6, 2008 which resulted in the death and injury of dozens of Israeli civilians."
However, according to US diplomats, Libya, with the support of two other council members, refused to approve the resolution unless it also condemned Israel's recent military incursion into the Gaza Strip in response to escalating Palestinian rocket fire on southern Israel. Some 120 Palestinians were reportedly killed during the incursion, most of them armed terrorists.
US Ambassador to the UN Zalmay Khalilzad retorted that the unintentional killing of a handful of civilians during a legitimate military response to terrorism was not the same thing as the deliberate murder of unarmed students.