Israel branded the report "despicable"

Rima Khalaf

A UN official has resigned after saying the UN had pressured her to withdraw a report accusing Israel of apartheid over its treatment of Palestinians.

The report was published by the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA), led by Under Secretary General Rima Khalaf....
Speaking in the Lebanese capital Beirut, Ms Khalaf, a Jordanian, said she had submitted her resignation to Mr Guterres after he insisted on the report's withdrawal....
The report itself said it had established on the "basis of scholarly inquiry and overwhelming evidence, that Israel is guilty of the crime of apartheid".

It is hard for me to read this story -- which I imagine has a hundred tendrils of lies and truth -- and not think of the American actor Denzel Washington in a movie called "Man on Fire." In it, Washington follows the trail of those who have kidnapped a little girl he has been hired to protect and comes to love. Washington is not kind as he meets up with those involved. He cuts one man's fingers off without a blink. And in the following scene below (the entire scene is not available as far as I can determine, but the clip below gives some pre-boom flavor), he corners a corrupt police official, shoves a C-4 bomb up his ass and asks what the man knows about the kidnapping. As the timer clicks down, the man finally gives up the evidence Washington wants ... at which point Washington, rather than releasing the man, simply walks away while the man explodes. How tiring the self-serving excuses of those willing to excuse themselves from the harm they are willing to visit on others ... while all the time expecting that they should be excused because of some proclaimed virtue. It is hard not to think someone might boom such wheedlers.

Despicable ... yes indeed. But it's not easy to sort out who or what is supposed to don the "despicable" label. How nice it might be if I were a nicer person. But I doubt it would do much good.