From NY Sun:
U.N. member states continue to insist that blowing up Israelis is one thing, terrorism another. The U.N. Commission on Human Rights passed a resolution on April 14 of this year, which affirmed the legitimacy of suicide-bombing — or in U.N.-speak “all available means including armed struggle” to resist “foreign occupation and for self-determination.” All European Union members of the Commission including Britain and France, with the only exception being Germany, refused to vote against the resolution and merely abstained.
So when Egypt’s President Mubarak said this past Tuesday, on behalf of Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian Authority, “We will continue to fight the scourge of terrorism against humanity and reject the culture of extremism and violence in any form or shape — from whatever source or place, regardless of justifications or motives,” his language was deliberate sophistry. The Arab Terrorism Convention stipulates their real views, repeated by Saudi officials to the 2003 UN Commission on Human Rights: “We should distinguish between the phenomenon of terrorism and the right of peoples to achieve self-determination.” [Anne Bayefsky, “Letting the United Nations Steer,” June 9, 2003, NY Sun]