The UN Strikes Again Hamas Not Terrorist Israel Is
Joel Mowbray
Friday, September 18, 2009
Looking at the latest
high-profile “report” from the United Nations on the recent war in
Though the UN has a disturbing
history of cozying up to thugs and tyrants—each dictator has an
vote in the General Assembly equal to the
Genuine massacres in
To appreciate the utter
absurdity of the so-called Goldstone report, consider:
1. Even though the report was
about the fighting between
2. Hamas is never referred to
directly as a terrorist organization, and further, its intentional firing of
rockets into Israeli civilian areas was not necessarily done to terrorize.
3. Human shields were used, the
report concluded, but by
4. Only one party could be
confirmed with certainty as terrorists:
Issues of balance aside, the
quality of the evidence cited is at best dubious. Rumor and speculation provide
foundation for some of the most outlandish allegations, and most of the report
itself is not the work of first-hand research, but rather repeating claims made
by various NGOs or news accounts from the likes of al-Jazeera.
Among the experts cited by the
Goldstone report were the unquestionably fair-minded
Central Commission for Documentation and Pursuit of Israeli War Criminals and
an avowed and avid collector of Nazi memorabilia.
Such is what has become of the
United Nations.
When the Goldstone reports
addresses Israeli actions, subtlety is the first casualty. Without mincing
words, the Jewish state is deemed a war criminal—again and again. In the few
instances where it even broaches the topic of possible Hamas wrongdoing, the
report employs oddly tortured verbiage with no almost direct conclusions.
Here are some of the bold,
unmistakable accusations leveled against
1.
2. The UN mission in
3. “It is in these
circumstances that the [UN] Mission [in Gaza] concludes that what occurred in
just over three weeks at the end of 2008 and the beginning of 2009 was a
deliberately disproportionate attack designed to punish, humiliate and
terrorize a civilian population”
4. “Such treatment amounts to
measures of intimidation and terrorism.”
5. “In some cases the
Compare the above slams against
the meticulously ambiguous language about Hamas:
1. “It is plausible that one of
the primary purposes of these continued [Hamas rocket] attacks is to spread
terror.” (emphasis added)
2. The UN report authors also
found “significant evidence to suggest that
one of the primary purposes [of firing rockets into southern
3. “These acts [firing rockets
and mortars into Israeli civilian populations] would constitute war crimes and may amount to crimes against humanity.”
(emphasis added)
Why does the UN have no
compunction in characterizing the Jewish state’s actions as “war crimes” and
“terrorism,” yet when it comes to Hamas, it meekly offers that there is
“evidence to suggest” that it’s “plausible” that the group’s actions “would” or
“may” constitute terrorism or war crimes?
Perhaps the answer can be found
in the “experts” tapped by the UN. Among them was now-suspended Human Rights
Watch senior analyst Marc Garlasco, who was recently
revealed as an obsessive collector of all things Nazi and who said in an online
posting that an SS leather jacket was “cool.”
Two of the HRW Gaza war reports
on which Garlasco was a lead investigator were cited
several times by the Goldstone report. As noted by watchdog group NGO Monitor,
Richard Goldstone himself was a longtime board member of HRW, and the Goldstone
report re-published without verification several of the claims made by
Garlasco’s unit.
Then there’s Palestinian
psychiatrist Dr. Iyyad El-Sarraji. In one of the “fact-finding” hearings
conducted for the report, Dr. El-Sarraji compared Israelis to Nazis. The UN was
smart enough to cut the Nazi reference from the final report, but still quoted
approvingly the good doctor who thinks of Israelis as Nazis.
Given that
Unless, of course, the UN went
looking for the sources that would give them the conclusions it wanted long
before
Copyright © 2009 Salem Web Network. All Rights
Reserved.