With airstrikes and rocket attacks escalating in Gaza and Israel, the Wall Street Journal says in no uncertain terms that “a little-noticed U.N. report discloses the Tehran regime’s role in fueling Middle East terror”:
As the drama plays out in the Gaza Strip and southern Israel, it’s worth noting the role Iran — now under new and allegedly moderate leadership — has played in this latest spasm of violence.
In March, Israeli naval commandos interdicted a Panamanian-flagged ship, the Klos C, off the Sudanese coast in the Red Sea. The ship’s cargo contained 40 M-302 surface-to-surface rockets, 181 mortar shells and some 400,000 rounds of 7.62 caliber ammunition — all concealed under bags of Iranian cement. The weapons were almost certainly intended for Iran’s terrorist clients in Gaza.
Tehran denies any role in the shipment. But a recent classified report from the U.N. Security Council’s Sanctions Committee effectively confirms it, and we’ve seen the pertinent portions.
The problem? The UN document never says the weapons were being sent to Gaza.
Reuters reported on June 28 that it had seen the UN’s findings: “Experts say weapons were Sudan-bound, despite Israel’s public statements that seized arms were destined for Gaza.”
The report does conclude that the shipment originated in Bandar Abbas in southern Iran and that it is “a violation of Iran’s obligations” under an arms embargo imposed by the UN Security Council in 2007.
However, it never gives a final destination for the weapons “which traveled from the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas to the Iraqi port of Umm Qasr, and from there in the direction of Port Sudan”, before the Klos C was intercepted by the Israelis.
Did the editorial writers at the Journal make a mistake in their reading of the report?
No. The small print of their commentary establishes that they know what it did not and did not say: “The panel didn’t weigh in on the ultimate intended recipient of the shipment, yet previous such shipments have made their way to Gaza.”
Even if that claim is true — the Journal does not substantiate it — that does not twist this UN report into proof of “Iran’s hand in Gaza”.
But of course it is not the truth that matters. It is the claim that lasts, be it an attempt to shape the narrative of the Israel-Palestine dispute or the outcome of Iran’s nuclear talks with the 5+1 Powers.
As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at the time of the seizure of the weapons:
At the same time that it is talking to world powers, at the same time that Iran is smiling and saying all kinds of honeyed words, that same Iran is sending lethal weaponry to terrorist organizations and it is doing so in a complex web of covert, worldwide operations.