Prime Minister Ehud Olmert placed a direct call to US President George W. Bush on Thursday, demanding that US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice not be allowed to vote in favor of a UN Human Rights Council condemnation of Israel's anti-Hamas Gaza war. According to Olmert, Bush's acquiescence, and his insistence that Rice back down from the resolution, made Rice sizzle.
"She was left pretty embarrassed," Olmert told the Associated Press. According to an anonymous senior US official in Washington, the President originally intended for the US to cast an abstention ballot, not the vote in favor of the UN's resolution which Rice almost submitted. The non-binding resolution said Israel's security operation in Gaza "resulted in massive violations of human rights of the Palestinian people and systematic destruction of the Palestinian infrastructure."
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