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. Obama's got it exactly backwards
Although President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu got along quite well at their White House meeting last week, each has made demands that the other seems unwilling or unable to meet. Peace seems no closer, even after the warm encounter. The 800 pound gorilla at the Oval Office meeting was Iran's nuclear program. That became self-evidently clear when, within days of the meeting, Iran deliberately fired a solid fuel rocket and challenged the United States and Israel to do something about it. Ahmadinejad linked the rocket-launching to Iran's nuclear program, as if to allay any doubts that Iran intends to place nuclear payloads on these hard-to-detect rockets. No linkage between Iran and Palestinians
Rahm Emanuel is a good man and a good friend of Israel, but in a highly publicized recent statement he linked American efforts to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons to Israeli efforts toward establishing a Palestinian state. This is a dangerous linkage. I have long favored the two-state solution, as do most Israelis and American supporters of Israel. I have also long opposed civilian settlements deep into the West Bank. I hope that Israel does make efforts, as it has in the past, to establish a Palestinian state as part of an overall peace between the Jewish state and its Arab and Muslim neighbors. The Vatican's continuing Jewish problemAs Pope Benedict makes his historic visit to Israel, several Cardinals, Bishops and priests continue to perpetuate the Church's long history of anti-Semitism. Photographs recently surfaced of Father Angelo Idi wearing a swastika. He belongs to the same group of Fascists that include Bishop Richard Williamson - who persists in denying the Holocaust. But the Church's Jewish problem is not limited to marginal priests or ex-communicated Bishops. At least two of the Church's most influential Cardinals, including one who was in the running for Pope Benedict's job and who remains a leading candidate to replace him, are overt anti-Semites and proud of it. The Hampshire administration does the right thingA substantial majority of students at Hampshire College, as well as a majority of the vocal faculty, apparently still believe that Israel is the only country in the world from which Hampshire and other universities should divest. They seem not to care about the great abuses of human rights that are occurring in Iran, which routinely hangs children and dissidents; in North Korea which tolerates no dissent; in Zimbabwe which imprisons opposition candidates; in China which occupies Tibet; in Russia which engages in brutality against Chechnya; in Venezuela and Cuba which are ruled by dictators; in Belarus which is a throwback to StalinÂ’s time; in Saudi Arabia which practices gender apartheid; in Egypt, Jordan and the Philippines which routinely practiced torture against dissidents, and in so many other countries around the world. Hampshire has now done the right thing
Hampshire has now done the right thing. It has made it unequivocally clear that it did not and will not divest from Israel. Indeed, it will continue to hold stock in companies that do business with Israel as well as with Israeli companies, so long as these companies meet the general standards that Hampshire applies to all of its holdings. As I previously wrote to President Hexter, if Hampshire did the right thing and made its position crystal clear I would urge contributors to continue to contribute to this fine school. I now do so. Dear President Hexter of Hampshire College
Dear President Hexter I appreciate your note and your efforts to clarify the actions of Hampshire. The reality, however, is that the media and much of the world believes that Hampshire has become the first college to divest from Israel. This perception is being used by enemies of Israel to get other universities to divest. I am deeply committed to seeing that bigoted effort fail. Neither Hampshire nor you, nor Mr. Roos has done enough to make it clear that you rejected the SJP's campaign to divest from Israel. Stop contributing to Hampshire College
Several months ago, a rabidly anti-Israel group on the Hampshire College campus began a campaign to try to get the college to divest from six companies that they claim helped "the Israeli occupation of Palestine." Those who came up with this formulation regard all of Israel, including Tel Aviv, Haifa and Ben Gurion Airport, as "occupied Palestine." In other words, their goal is to end the existence of Israel. This divestment effort is part of an international campaign against Israel. Until now, every American university administration has categorically rejected this attempt to single out Israel in a world filled with massive human rights abusers. But Hampshire caved in to student and faculty pressure and as Board of Directors agreed to divest from these six companies along with a series of others that did not meet the standards of Hampshire College. The student group, supported by many faculty members, claimed total victory, issuing a press release that boasted that Hampshire has become the first college in the United States to divest from Israel. It urged other universities to follow its lead. 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. Israel is well within its rights
What if Israel defended its citizens the way the British, the French, the Americans and the Russians did? When German rockets hit British cities during the World War II, Prime Minister Winston Churchill retaliated by bombing German cities, killing thousands of German civilians, and promised to continue until Germany's unconditional surrender. The United States did the same following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The French did much worse in Algeria and the Russians showed no concern for civilian life in Chechnya or Georgia. The IDF, on the other hand, has gone to extraordinary lengths to minimize civilian casualties, despite the reality that Hamas deliberately fires its rockets from densely populated civilian areas and hides its rocket launchers in schools, hospitals and mosques. Every Hamas rocket attack against Israeli civilians - and there have been more than 6,500 of them since Israel ended its occupation of Gaza - is an armed attack against Israel under Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, which authorizes member nations to respond militarily to armed attacks against it. |
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