America’s new ambassador at the United Nations, Michael Waltz, used his first opportunity to address the Israel war against Hamas to berate the Security Council’s one-sidedness on that issue. 

The council convened on Tuesday on an “emergency” basis, a week after America vetoed a proposed resolution demanding an end to the Gaza war that in effect would have left Hamas intact as the Strip’s ruler. The Arab representative at the council, Algeria, nevertheless demanded a new session to allow members “to vent,” as one UN diplomat told the Sun. 

The council members “opted to convene this high level UN Security Council briefing on Gaza on Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, knowing full well that that decision excludes Israel,” Mr. Waltz said in his second council speech since the Senate confirmed his appointment as ambassador on Friday. 

On Monday, the Israeli UN ambassador, Danny Danon, informed the council’s president that Israel would be unable to participate in the council meeting. According to the body’s tradition, countries that are not council members are nevertheless invited to address the body when it takes up issues in which they are involved. 

While the Tuesday council meeting was convened on an “emergency” basis, it in fact follows similar sessions that are conducted on an almost weekly basis. It also occurred on a day that the General Assembly opened its annual debate, and a day after France convened a high-level UN conference on a so-called two-state solution.

During those events country representatives dedicate a large bulk of their speeches to the Gaza war, accusing Israel of failures to end the war or deliver aid to Gazans. “The main outcome of these meetings, unfortunately, has been to embolden Hamas to undermine and disrupt negotiations that are aimed at freeing all of the hostages and ending the war,” Mr. Waltz said. 

Unmentioned, he added, is that “in the last two weeks alone, Israel has suffered two terrorist attacks in Jerusalem on September 8 and at the Allenby border crossing on September 18.”

In the latter, on the Jordanian-Israeli border, he noted, Hamas “struck the very border crossing through which nearly half of all aid delivered to Gaza between May and September of this year has passed.” It shows Hamas’s “utter contempt” for the people of Gaza, Mr. Waltz said.

Israel was unavailable to confirm the statement by Mr. Trump’s former national security adviser.