Russia’s deputy representative to the United Nations told the Security Council on Sunday that Israel is putting “Palestinians in ghettos” and seeks their “complete annihilation.”
By Joe Lauria
Special to Consortium News
Dmitry A. Polyanskiy, Russia’s deputy permanent representative at the U.N., laid into Israel at an emergency Security Council meeting on Sunday (1:50.29), accusing Israel’s foreign minister, Gideon Sa’ar, of shedding “crocodile tears” about the Israeli hostages and charging Tel Aviv with forgetting the lessons of the Holocaust by seeking the “annihilation” of the Palestinian people in Gaza.
The meeting was called in response to the Israel’s intention to occupy all of Gaza City and expel its roughly 800,00 inhabitants. Polyanskiy told the council:
“We firmly condemn the Netanyahu government’s intention to seize Gaza. Unfortunately, West Jerusalem has once again heeded neither the appeals of the global majority nor the voices of reason within Israel, nor the calls from the relatives of the hostages. … It turns out that the Israeli foreign minister – who was among us here on August 5, hypocritically shedding crocodile tears over the fate of the Israeli hostages – already knew then that the Israeli cabinet was about to take such a decision which would essentially rule out any possibility of the hostages returning home alive.
Apparently, Mr. Saar was seeking to lay the groundwork for such a decision through creating a required media image of solidarity and sympathy among UNSC members only to continue killing Palestinians. Such an attempt to manipulate the Security Council for internal Israeli purposes is simply beyond comprehension! Nor can one comprehend how the Jewish people, who endured the Holocaust during World War II, can today put Palestinians in ghettos and seek their complete annihilation… How quickly one forgets the lessons of history!”
Dmitry Polyanskiy, Russia’s deputy representative at the Security Council on Sunday. (U.N. TV Screenshot)
Genocide, Genocide, Genocide
Riyad Mansour, Palestine’s U.N. envoy, told the council: “Israel is killing Palestine in Gaza. … We owe them to act now to stop this genocide.” He said, “Your actions today will determine the fate of millions of people tomorrow, at least those who would have survived by then, and the fate of our region for generations to come,” and he questioned, “How on earth is Israel still allowed to sit around this table?”
Somalia’s deputy representative Mohamed Rabi Yusuf called the plan to take over Gaza City “a chilling blueprint for the next chapter of devastation.” For 2 million people trapped in Gaza, it means the “escalation of what has already become hell on earth, literally and figuratively, leading to the world’s worst man-made famine.” The current moment, he said, is “a test for all of humanity.” Silence “is not neutrality. For all the victims, it is a verdict.”
Algeria’s envoy Amar Bendjama accused Israel of “war crimes, and those who draw their maps in blood must not walk in the shadow of impunity.” He told the council five days ago: “What we are witnessing is not erratic. It is methodical. Call it what it is. Genocide. Genocide. Genocide.”
US Denies, Denies, Denies
The acting U.S. representative, Dorothy Shea, echoed the extremist Israeli cabinet’s rhetoric by denying Israel is committing genocide and blaming Hamas for starvation in Gaza. She said:
“It is unfortunate that members have again taken advantage of today’s meeting to accuse Israel of genocide. These accusations are politically motivated and categorically false. They are part of a deliberate, cynical propaganda campaign as Hamas attempts to win symbolic victories to compensate for total defeat in war. The United States refutes these allegations entirely. Israel has taken numerous measures to limit harm to civilians and to address humanitarian needs. The loss of civilian life in Gaza is tragic, but the responsibility for this rests with Hamas.”
Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of Consortium News and a former U.N. correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, and other newspapers, including The Montreal Gazette, the London Daily Mail and The Star of Johannesburg. He was an investigative reporter for the Sunday Times of London, a financial reporter for Bloomberg News and began his professional work as a 19-year old stringer for The New York Times. He is the author of two books, A Political Odyssey, with Sen. Mike Gravel, foreword by Daniel Ellsberg; and How I Lost By Hillary Clinton, foreword by Julian Assange.
In my retirement I have been teaching English to war refugees from all over the world, almost exclusively online. I have had refugees from the Middle East, Myanmar, Sudan and Ukraine. Many have lost their homes and possessions and fled to other countries. Human resilience in setting up new lives never ceases to amaze me. In many cases it seems that the nefarious schemes and sadism of just a very few rich and powerful people (sometimes even one person) are responsible for the suffering of millions. It is so frustrating to see countries, often large and powerful, picking on defenseless neighbors. No country should be allowed to remain in the United Nations if it does not recognize the right of every other member country of the UN to exist peacefully within its borders. How is anything less than this even possible. How do you have an organization of nations in which some members deny the right to existence of other member nations? As long as leaders can dream about resurrecting old empires, nurse grudges from centuries-old events, or view their neighbors as somehow “artificial” or “inferior”, we will never emerge from this horrible cycle of wars. There must be justice and there must be reparations. It’s simply not acceptable to move into the territory of your neighbor and steal their land and their property, no matter what country you come from.
Israel is nothing more than a pariah state which operates using apartheid as a tool of genocide. This is all possible with the assistance of trump and the rest of his lunatic followers. The US has a long history of killing especially people of color while the bought and paid for (by AIPAC) Congress looks the other way. I’m ashamed to call myself an American.
When you control a nation’s money supply, control a certain portent of the big corporate news media outlets, the entertainment industry and lavish money on prostituted politicians in both the Repulsive and DemoRAT parties and have had 76 years in shaping the minds of people on believing they are “perpetual victims” of Gentile prejudice – and they’ve undoubtedly mastered that task, they can continue the Holocaust against the Palestinian people in more barbaric ways than some of the Jewish inmates were dealt in the Nazi camps. The tragedy of it is that Israel gets away with what their doing in Gaza and the worthless UN does nothing to stop it, as the US government is under the foot of Israel.
Israel is one big lie sustained by an endless stream of further lies. But to justify the Nazi genocide against Jews, as Eric Foor is trying to do in this comment, is pure racism, anti-Semitism, and apology for Nazism masquerading as concern. All readers should realise this and condemn such comments. In fact they help enable Israel’s crimes because they provide examples of actual anti-Semitism, and as such reinforce Israel’s use of false accusations of anti-Semitism against anyone who criticises them.
[This comment was posted earlier in the wrong place; I apologise.]
FEBRUARY 5, 2025: *“The US will take over the Gaza Strip and we will do a job with it too. We’ll own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site, level the site and get rid of the destroyed buildings, level it out. Create an economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs and housing for the people of the area … do a real job, do something different.” DJ “Big $hot” Trump, 2.5.25
….*“I ended the last administration’s de facto arms embargo on over $1bn, in military assistance for Israel. And I’m also pleased to announce that this afternoon, the United States withdrew from the anti-Semitic UN Human Rights Council and ended all of the support for the UN Relief and Works Agency, which funnelled money to Hamas, and which was very disloyal to humanity.” DJ “Big $hot” Trump, 2.5.25
AUGUST 9, 2025, “I know that we are there now [TRYING] to get people fed… [AS FAR AS THE REST OF IT, I REALLY CAN’T SAY]. That’s going to be pretty much up to Israel,” DJ “BIG $HOT” Trump said earlier this week when asked about Netanyahu’s plan.
Concluding, BB’s B*tch of the West, Trump-Vance, Inc., NOT only “got” blood on their hands; but, are up to their eyeballs in alligators. AUGUST 7, 2025, On cue, The Neti Pot, Israel’s BB, delivers A 5-POINT PLAN, burnt orange, w/*“cotton-candy hair, sprayed w/piss,” i.e., BB’s B*tch of the West, DJ, “Smelly Cat” Trump. No doubt, lick’n his bloody paws, sharpening his dirty claws, 100% complicit in annihilating Palestinians, fm the Gaza Strip to the West Bank of Jordan.
“Five “golden” Rings,” DJ Trump said Palestinians could be resettled away from their homes; but neither he or his envoy, Dorothy “We’re Not In Kansas, Anymore,” Shea offered up real estate in the Divided States of Corporate America, i.e., “Forever, Home.” Probably, b/c it’s against the law to be “Homeless” in America.
…. “Strong wind destroy our home. Many dead, tonight it could be you. Strong wind. Strong wind many dead. Tonight it could be you; And we are homeless. Homeless. Moonlight sleeping on a midnight lake.” Paul Simon
No doubt, Trump-Vance, Inc., on The Hill, “lick’n their chops,” marking territory. “Cats have scent glands on their paws & licking them can spread their scent to mark familiar objects or spaces” that’s how DJ “Smelly Cat” Trump & JD Vance, Inc., cope w/being BB’s B*tch, Crime in DC & universal “Homelessness.” “Not, good. Buhlieve, me. Not Good!”
…p.s. * “What DJTrump said,” @ hxxps://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/donald-trump-gaza-statement-full-b2692486.html; AND, The Neti Pot aka *I$rael’s 5-Point Plan: 5) “The establishment of an alternative civilian administration that is neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority. 4) The demilitarization of Gaza. 3) Israeli security control over the enclave. 2) The disarming of Hamas. 1) The return of all 50 hostages, 20 of whom are believed to still be alive.”
…. “On Thursday,” 8.8.25, “Netanyahu said that Israel plans to take over all of Gaza;” BUT, “the plan to take control of Gaza City, approved on Friday,” 8.9.25, “stops short of stating that Israel would take full control of Gaza.” hxxps://www.deseret.com/u-s-world/2025/08/08/netanyahu-to-capture-gaza-city/
p.s.s. “According to CNN, the deadline for the first phase of operations, including the evacuation of Gaza City and expanding aid distribution, is Oct. 7, the second anniversary of the attack on Israel by Hamas. According to The New York Times, Israel says it has already conquered around 75% of Gaza.” Caitlin Keith @ deseret.com
As all psychotherapists know, if you don’t pass it back, you pass it on. Passing it back is best represented by the South African “truth in reconciliation.” process. What that means is that both sides need to meet together, talk about their pain, and ultimately forgive the other side. In a therapeutic sense, “forgive” does not mean to act as if the wrong committed by other side never happened. It is a realization that both sides, through dialogue need to talk the issues out. That emphatically does not mean arguing about who is at fault. It means both sides admit specifically to fault. This is similar to the biblical injunction to “confess your sins to one another.” In that process, each side remains open-minded and comes eventually to understand how the other sees the issues. This is a gradual, ongoing process. It enables participants to let go of their bias and walk in one another’s shoes. That is exactly what Israel and Palestine need to do. The South Africans understand this as they have have experienced it. They’ve offered help to the Israelis, but thus far their help has been spurned. So long as such closed mindedness continues, there will be no progress towards peace.
No. Israel has never followed any of the rules to be a country in the land it stole and its responsibilities to the people living there.
Israel has not forgotten the ‘lessons of the Holocaust.’
Those lessons are now being used as a Procedures Manual
Israel must be shunned (exiled) from the United Nations.
Yesterday the Jewish supremacists murdered the entire staff of Al Jazeera journalists in Gaza City.
Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand that the Zionists eliminated these reporters so that the impending Jew supremacist inflicted massacres in Gaza City take place in world darkness.
Imagine the horrors in store.
Russia, just like every other country powerful enough to stop the genocide, has sat on its hands for nearly two years. This is way too little, way too late.
Unlike the US Russia is not arming Israel. How could it stop the genocide short of going to war with Israel.
Russia could set an example by shunning all contact and trade with Israel due to its war crimes and genocide. In fact, all countries who are signatories to the genocide convention, including all European countries, must do everything within their power to end this crime, but they are not.
15% of Israelis speak Russian and still have a close connection with the old Soviet Union.
Only 12% of Ukrainians speak only Russian (was probably a higher percent before 2014).
Over the last 20 mos Nebenzya’s had a lot of harsh words for Israel.
Russia has been interesting to watch during all of this. Since there was a large amount of migration from Russia to Israel, there are close ties between the nations. Family ties. This has made Russian media more interesting to view than the American-Zionist media. At first, a range of reports, ranging from pro-Israel talking to an audience with family there, to the Putin government being more and more firm against Israel as this has gone on.
Putin’s government did make the point very early on that if Israel had obeyed the UNSC back in the 1960’s and relinquished the occupied territories as they were supposed to do given a UNSC resolution saying to do so, then we would not be here today. And, Russia made also the key point that said that an Army of Occupation does not have a right to self-defense. Russia said this early on in response to Israel’s cry that it was defending itself. Russia has been voting for cease-fire resolutions, and has not vetoed a single one.
Now, they are getting firmer, and the pro-Israel content seems to be much rarer in Russian media. The Russians of course know very well and exactly what the German Genocide of the last century looked like from very close experience. The Russians are also very aware of what it took to end it. NATO is, of course, keeping Russia too busy to directly intervene. Whether that is by design, depends on your view of which is the dog and which is the tail between Israel and USA/NATO/EU.
Israel has not forgotten the lessons of the holocaust. They were shaped by them. Extermination aside, the German fascists focused on dehumanizing people. In the camps and ghettoes they set up “Jewish councils” to oversee inadequate food distribution and shipping a quota of others to death camps. It the camps they set up kapos to oversee inadequate food supplies. Those who were liberated and survived were the most dehumanized. They were then unleashed on Palestine with the same goals zionism’s Christian antismite founder always intended — to rid Europe of Jews and for them to rebuild the temple ushering in their hopes for Jesus’s return. Even today, antisemitic Christian nationalists are the strongest supporters of Israel.
hxxps://cpusa.org/article/christian-zionism-a-pillar-of-u-s-fascism/
Israel today is founded on the fascist principles of a racist ethnostate engaged in genocide.
Shame on Russia for waiting this long to speak out.
And, shame on the UN for letting Israel remain a member of the UN. How many UN directives has Israel broken, every single one, what does Israel have to do to be ejected from the UN ?
Nebenzya’s had a lot of harsh words for Israel over the past 20 months.
Stop blaming Russia. All nations need to follow ICJ orders and stop all support of Israel.
And shame on UN for not kicking out their Frankenstein creature as it kills UN staff
Stop blaming Russia. All nations need to follow ICJ orders and stop all support of Israel.
“Israel has taken numerous measures to limit harm to civilians and to address humanitarian needs. ”
Wow.
Even if there are individuals who believe this lie, the vast majority of humanity sees the United States for the barbaric tyranny it is, and this perception can never be lied away.