\u201cAJC is dismayed by the adoption of a UN Human Rights Council resolution that sharply criticizes Israel, while totally absolving Hamas of any role or responsibility in the current conflict\u201d read a statement issued by the American Jewish Committee after the resolution was adopted with 29 nations voting in favor, the United States opposed, and 17 countries, primarily from Europe and Africa, abstaining.
\n\u201cFor anyone interested in knowing what\u2019s wrong with the UN\u2019s preeminent human rights watchdog, today\u2019s vote is the perfect illustration,\u201d said AJC Executive Director David Harris.
\n\u201cBecause of the \u2018automatic majority,\u2019 Israel can\u2019t get a fair hearing,\u201d Harris continued. \u201cInstead, Israel is held responsible for a conflict solely triggered by Hamas. That Hamas is a terrorist group that fires hundreds, if not thousands, of deadly missiles into Israel, that it seeks Israel\u2019s annihilation, and that it uses its civilian population as human shields are all deemed immaterial. Shame on the UN Human Rights Council! Bravo to the United States for standing up for principle and integrity.\u201d
\nThe resolution describes Israel as the \u201coccupying power,\u201d though Israel left Gaza in 2005 and gave local residents their first chance in history \u2013 something no other nation had ever done \u2013 to chart their own destiny. It also calls for establishing a \u201ccommission of inquiry,\u201d reminiscent of the ill-fated and one-sided Goldstone Commission created after the Israel-Hamas war in 2008-9, whose report was eventually repudiated in large part by Judge Richard Goldstone himself.
\n\u201cFact: The UN Human Rights Council has focused more on Israel than any other nation on earth,\u201d Harris added. \u201cFact: The UN Human Rights Council has blithely ignored egregious human rights violations in those parts of the world that don\u2019t suit the interests of the \u2018automatic majority.\u2019 Fact: The UN Human Rights Council discredits itself by this selective and skewed focus. And fact: The UN Human Rights Council has set back the cause of Arab-Israeli peace by empowering Hamas, an avowedly terrorist group.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"