Israel harshly criticized a United Nations envoy who met with a leader of the Hezbollah terror organization and praised it.
Jan Kubis, the UN’s Special Coordinator for Lebanon, said Monday that he met with Hezbollah Deputy Secretary-General Naim Qassem.
Kubis stated he was “grateful for an open and substantive discussion on a broad range of topics.”
“On top I received a copy of his book – a necessary reading,” he added. Qassem published a book, “Hezbollah: The Story from Within,” in 2006.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon on Tuesday stated that the country is “shocked and disappointed by this meeting with a designated terror organization’s leader, threatening Israel, Lebanon and the whole region.”
“One doesn’t need to read the Naim Qassem book, courtesy of Hezbollah terrorists, in order to understand this!!” he added.
Hillel Neuer, Executive Director of the UN Watch, criticized Kubis and charged that he “just praised the leader of a terrorist group that commits genocide in Syria and murders civilians worldwide.”
He called on UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to remove Kubis “immediately” from his post.
“Do you know what else appears to be necessary reading? UN Resolution 1701,” the IDF said on its official Twitter account.
UN Security Council Resolution 1701 is a resolution that was intended to end the 2006 Second Lebanon War between Israel and Hezbollah.
The resolution called for Hezbollah’s disarmament, and Hezbollah agreed to disarm its forces south of the Litani River, but not to pull its forces out of southern Lebanon, but Israel has repeatedly proved that Hezbollah was systematically breaching the resolution.
The US, United Kingdom, Canada, the Arab League and other countries have designated Hezbollah in its entirety as a terrorist organization.