The UN Human Rights Council is driven by “hatred of Israel,” betraying its stated mission, Israel’s Ambassador to the UN charged.
By: United with Israel Staff and JNS
Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations (UN) Danny Danon slammed the UN Human Rights Council’s (UNHRC) approval of a “war crimes” probe to “provide recommendations to protect civilians against any further assaults” in the Gaza Strip.
Friday’s resolution was approved in a 29-2 vote, with 14 abstentions. The US and Australia were the only countries to vote against the resolution. However, Croatia, Ethiopia, Georgia, Germany, Hungary, Japan, Kenya, Panama, Republic of Korea, Rwanda, Switzerland, Togo, Slovakia and the United Kingdom all abstained.
“The fact that this shameful decision was made even after Hamas officials admitted that the vast majority of those killed were terrorists proves, once again, that nothing can separate this Council from its hatred of Israel,” Danon charged.
A Hamas official admitted that 50 of the 62 Palestinians killed during the riots on the Gaza border were members of the Palestinian terrorist group.
“In the last rounds of confrontations, if 62 people were martyred, 50 of the martyrs were Hamas and 12 from the people [civilians]. How can Hamas reap the fruits if it pays such an expensive price?” Hamas official Salah Bardawil said in an interview with the Palestinian Baladna news outlet on Wednesday.
Last Tuesday, the IDF and the Shin Bet (Israel’s Security Agency) stated that they identified 24 terrorists “with documented terror backgrounds” who were killed during the violent riots along the Gaza border.
“The day this Council investigates the war crimes of Hamas is the day it can be called the Human Rights Council,” Danon added.
Speaking before the vote at the special session, UNHRC chief Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, a Jordanian notorious for his actions against Israel, warned that “killing resulting from the unlawful use of force by an occupying power may also constitute willful killings, a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention.”
Al Hussein ridiculously pointed out that the 62 Palestinians killed on Monday versus the light Israeli casualties was “suggestive of a wholly disproportionate response.”
Hamas Cynically Exploits its Own Population
Israel’s ambassador to the UNHRC, Aviva Raz Shechter, slammed the special session, calling it a “politically motivated” statement that “won’t improve the situation on the ground by even one iota.”
“The unfortunate outcome of Monday’s riots can only be attributed to Hamas’s cynical exploitation of its own population, in a violent campaign against Israel,” she said.
The US envoy to the UNHRC Theodore Allegra also said the council was “blatantly taking sides and ignoring the real culprit for the recent outbreak of violence: the terrorist organization Hamas.”
The UNHRC is infamously biased against Israel, with nearly half of its resolutions focused solely on Israel, while it ignores war, strife and atrocities committed around the globe. Israeli leaders and officials have cited the UNHRC for its “obsessive hostility” toward Israel and “one-sided mandate.”
Over the past 10 years, the UNHRC has passed 62 resolutions condemning Israel. Meanwhile, the world’s worst human rights abusers in Syria, Iran, and North Korea received far fewer condemnations.
The US has repeatedly threatened to leave the UNHRC.