The UN Security Council passed a resolution last Thursday (January 8, 2009) calling for an immediate ceasefire in the three-week-old conflict in the Gaza Strip and an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza where more than 1000 Palestinians have been killed and thousands have wounded.

Fourteen of the council’s 15 members voted in favour of the resolution. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said in a speech,

“In the night between Thursday and Friday, when the secretary of state wanted to lead the vote on a ceasefire at the Security Council, we did not want her to vote in favour.”

“I said ‘get me President Bush on the phone’. They said he was in the middle of giving a speech in Philadelphia. I said I didn’t care. ‘I need to talk to him now’. He got off the podium and spoke to me.”

“I told him the United States could not vote in favour. It cannot vote in favour of such a resolution. He immediately called the secretary of state and told her not to vote in favour.”

Though US official, of course on condition of anonymity, has denied it and said that Israel’s prime minister is wrong. “The government of Israel does not make US policy,” he said.

It shows who dictates USA policy on Middle East and who is incharge.  souce: AFP