The UN kangaroo "investigation" of Israeli "war crimes"

Just as Spain's national Court decided to shelve a phony war crime investigation of a 2002 Israeli air strike in Gaza, a group of lawyers and military experts assigned by the United Nations Human Rights Council continued its phony investigation of "the grave violations of human rights in the occupied Palestinian Territory, particularly due to the recent Israeli military attacks against the occupied Gaza Strip."  

The UN Human Rights Council is a scandal. It's a successor to the defunct UN Human Rights Commission. Both organizations have a long history of singling out Israel for condemnation and of ignoring real human rights abusers by the world's worst offenders, several of which dominate the Human Rights Council and it predecessor.

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For the ICC to work, the worst must come first

There are efforts now underway to try to bring Israel before the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague on charges of alleged war crimes. Neither Israel nor the United States has signed on to this court, primarily out of fear that its power would be used against democracies that try their best to avoid war crimes, rather than against dictatorships and terrorist nations that routinely engage in them. This has certainly been the experience with many United Nations organizations, even including the International Court of Justice, which is largely a sham when it comes to Israel and other democracies under attack. 

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The moral blindness of some "religious leaders"

Bill Moyers holds himself out to be a moral arbiter, based in large part on his commitment to Christian principles. Cardinal Renato Martino is a prince of the Catholic church and President of the Council for Justice and Peace. Former President Jimmy Carter preaches peace, based on the teachings of Jesus. Yet when it comes to the conflict between Israel and Hamas, all three are morally blind. 

In a widely watched television assessment of the recent conflict in Gaza, here is what Moyers said: "By killing indiscriminately the elderly, kids, entire families, by destroying schools and hospitals, Israel did exactly what terrorists do..." (emphasis added) Of course he also included the obligatory hedge that: "Every nation has the right to defend its people." Cardinal Martino went even further, making an obscene and historically ignorant, comparison between Israel's self-defense actions against rockets fired by Hamas at Israeli children, and the Nazi genocide against the Jews during the Holocaust. He said that the conditions in Gaza "resemble a big concentration camp."

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Israel, Gaza and International Law

The cease fire on the ground has not ended the war of words against Israel. Indeed, efforts to charge Israel with war crimes and other violations of international law are escalating. The time has come, therefore, for a common sense legal and moral analysis of the events in Gaza and southern Israel. 

Let us begin with an argument that is frequently made against Israel. It is pointed out by supporters of Hamas that the official governing authority of Gaza is Hamas, because Hamas won the election. To the extent this is true, however, it is an argument in justification of Israel's actions. If Hamas is the official government of Gaza and if Hamas ordered the firing of more of than 6,000 deadly rockets at Israeli civilians, then it follows that the government of Gaza has engaged in an armed attack against Israel under Article 51 of the United Nations Charter. In other words, the government of Gaza has declared war against the government and people of Israel. This should not be surprising, since the Hamas Charter calls for the military destruction of Israel. 

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The phony war crimes accusation against Israel

Every time Israel seeks to defend its civilians against terrorist attacks, it is accused of war crimes by various United Nations agencies, hard left academics and some in the media.  It is a totally phony charge concocted as part of Hamas' strategy - supported by many on the hard left - to delegitimate and demonize the Jewish state. Israel is the only democracy in the world ever accused of war crimes when it fights a defensive war to protect its civilians. This is remarkable, especially in light of the fact that Israel has killed far fewer civilians than any other country in the world that has faced comparable threats.  In the most recent war in Gaza fewer than a thousand civilians - even by Hamas' skewed count - have been killed. This, despite the fact that no one can now deny that Hamas had employed a deliberate policy of using children, schools, mosques, apartment buildings and other civilian areas as shields from behind which to launch its deadly anti-personnel rockets. The Israeli Air Force has produced unchallengeable video evidence of this Hamas war crime.

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