Yet Another Commission

In an online New York Times article by Isabel Kershner dated August 14 2014, ( http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/15/world/middleeast/israel-braces-for-war-crimes-inquiries-on-gaza.html?_r=0 ) and published on page 3 of the New York Times Friday August 15 2014 edition, Ms Kershner writes that “Israeli leaders view the Human Rights Council as hopelessly biased against Israel…”.

This statement, at best, is a shining example of euphemism.  Through a series of nominations both Syria and Sudan stood to gain seats on this council.

Further, Ms Kershner writes “More than 1,900 Palestinians were killed in the recent fighting, a majority of them believed to be civilians, while on the Israeli side 64 soldiers and three civilians were killed.”.  These are attempts to statistically compare losses by using language that is equivocating.  Again and again Israel declared its objectives were to protect the lives of its civilian population.  Israel’s military, while shouldering the burden of this protection, employed both the Iron Dome defense system and its air and ground forces to eliminate the missiles and rockets launched by Hamas from the Gaza strip.  It has yet to be determined how many of those Palestinians killed were Hamas terrorists.

It is excrutiatingly sad to see Palestinian children killed.  There is no argument.  The crime is, however, as Prime Minister Netanyahu has repeatedly stated, a crime perpetrated by Hamas upon the Palestinian population of the Gaza strip.  Using children as human shields is a crime.

The United Nations has now named professor William Schabas as head of a commission to investigate Israel’s operations in Gaza during Operation Protective Edge.  I encourage you to read Rabbi Shmuley Boteach’s full page ad on page 15 of this Friday’s edition of the New York Times.

Ms Kershner continues in her New York Times article to remind us of a similar commission after Operation Cast Lead:  “A similar Human Rights Council inquiry into the 2008-9 war in Gaza led to the Goldstone Report. Named for Richard Goldstone, the South African jurist who led that inquiry, the report said it found evidence of potential war crimes committed by both Israel and Hamas. It accused Israel of intentionally targeting civilians in Gaza as a matter of policy…Mr. Goldstone later retracted that central accusation…” after being confronted with evidence to the contrary.

I have no doubt that the United Nations today and for the past two decades at least has been united for one purpose, and that purpose is to systematically delegitimize Israel, the homeland of the Jewish people.  I have no doubt that the United Nations Human Rights Council will defend the rights of all humans in the world with one exception.  In my opinion this council does not see the Jewish people as being human.  It is an old refrain that sadly we have heard before.

Well, I have news for the United Nations, and for its Human Rights Council and for its commissions of investigation.  We will not lie down and die.  Never again.  We will exercise our right to self defense with the dignity and strength of any other people of this world.  Moreover and as attested by those few like British Colonel Richard Justin Kemp, Israel and its military, the IDF, hold themselves to the very highest of moral standards during times of armed conflict.

Slowly cracks and fissures are appearing in the Hamas propaganda machine.  “Dead” bodies lying beneath shrouds begin to move and fidget.  Reporters that covered events in the Gaza strip during Operation Protective Edge, once a safe distance away from Hamas, expose the threats they endured from Hamas were they to report the truth.  Video and film footage clearly show Hamas launching rockets and missiles from areas densely populated by civilians.

A small nation no larger than the state of New Jersey on the eastern shores of the USA, Israel stands alone in the Middle East as a democracy and a nation that protects the rights of its citizens to live their lives free of the threat of war and annihilation.  Israel also stands alone, singled out for “special treatment” by those using the United Nations as the implement to bring about Israel’s destruction.

Some eighty years ago we remember well the beginnings of that “special treatment” of the Jewish people.  It was planned and executed by one of the most cultured and advanced nations of Europe, a continent that is doing its utmost to forget those terrible facts of its history.

Where is the courage of the European nations?  Where are those courageous enough to stand with Israel when it is being struck down by the vicious propaganda campaigns of its enemies?