UN Secretary-General Equates Arab/Israeli Conflict with Syrian Genocide

Speaking at the opening of the "Doha Forum on Democracy, Development and Free Trade" hosted by the State of Qatar on May 21, 2016, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon criticized military counter-terrorism operations as "short-sighted," and equated violence in "Palestine" to the Assad regime's murder of hundreds of thousands of Syrians and Saudi Arabia's targeting of hospitals and markets in Yemen.

In his words:

"On one of the major prevention challenges of our times – violent extremism – we must avoid short-sighted policies and heavy-handed approaches that only exacerbate the problem and give terrorists their best recruitment tools... Finally, we must do all we can to end the conflicts and violence that have set this region aflame, from Syria and Yemen to Libya, Iraq and Palestine."