Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) President Morton A. Klein released the following statement:
The United Nations has once again demonstrated that, instead of furthering truth, peace and international harmony, the UN is an antisemitic Islamist-dominated lynch mob focused on maligning Jews for defending themselves from Hamas-led attempts to invade Israel to murder Jews; and that the UN is intent on denying the Jewish people’s lawful rights to the Jewish homeland, including the Old City/eastern Jerusalem, where Judaism’s holiest sites are located. The latest Orwellian UN outrage was the UN General Assembly (“GA”)’s passage, during an emergency session yesterday, of a resolution entitled “Protection of the Palestinian Civilian Population” (A/ES-10/L.23, Agenda item #5, “Illegal Israeli actions in Occupied East Jerusalem and the rest of the Occupied Palestinian Territory”), sponsored by Algeria, Turkey and the non-existent “State of Palestine.”
Sadly, only six other nations (Australia, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Solomon Islands, and Togo) stood with the United States and Israel to oppose this horrendous GA resolution. ZOA thanks the United States administration and these nations for their principled stand. 120 nations voted for this absurd anti-Israel resolution, and 45 abstained. While the number of abstentions is somewhat encouraging, it’s time for all democratic U.S. allies to also take a principled position against such awful resolutions.
The U.S. Amendment Condemning Hamas Was Wrongly and Unfairly Not Adopted: The passed GA resolution never even mentions the party responsible for the Gaza violence: Hamas. Somewhat encouragingly, a U.S.-sponsored amendment that would have condemned Hamas’s actions (A/ES-10/L.24), introduced by our great U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley, was initially approved by a 62-58 vote, with 42 abstentions.
But then, General Assembly President Miroslav Lajcak declared that a two-thirds majority was needed under an assembly rule, so the amendment failed. Ambassador Haley’s appeal of GA President Lajcak’s ruling then failed by a vote of 73 against to 66 in favor, with 26 abstentions. (See “General Assembly Adopts Resolution on Protecting Palestinian Civilians Following Rejection of United States Amendment to Condemn Hamas Rocket Fire,”UN website, June 13, 2018.)
In other words, despite the initial majority of nations in favor of including a paragraph in the resolution condemning Hamas, the resolution continued to only condemn Israel.
The failed, important amendment introduced by Ambassador Haley would have added a paragraph at the beginning of the resolution that:
“condemns Hamas for repeatedly firing rockets into Israel and inciting violence along the boundary fence, thereby putting civilians at risk, demands that Hamas cease all violent activity and provocative actions, further condemns the diversion of resources in Gaza to construct military infrastructure, including tunnels to infiltrate Israel and equipment to launch rockets into civilian areas, when such resources could have addressed critical needs of the civilian population, and expresses grave concern over the destruction of the Kerem Shalom crossing by actors in Gaza, which has severely hindered deliveries of food and fuel for the people of Gaza.
The “Disproportionate, Indiscriminate Force” Lie: Among other travesties, yesterday’s GA resolution (paragraph 2) states that the UN General Assembly “Deplores the use of any excessive, disproportionate and indiscriminate force by the Israeli forces against Palestinian civilians in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and particularly in the Gaza Strip, including the use of live ammunition against civilian protesters, including children, . . .”
There is of course, nothing “excessive, disproportionate and indiscriminate” about Israel’s measured, humane defense of her border, to prevent an invasion of 40,000 Hamas-led violent rioters and gunmen, who have been shooting across the border, throwing grenades, launching rockets and arson kites, setting off bombs at the security fence, and arming themselves with machetes and maps to the routes to Israeli kindergartens, with the stated intention of murdering Israelis and eating Jewish civilians’ livers.
The General Assembly resolution fails to mention that most of the casualties (53 out of 62, or 85% on May 14) were Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) terrorists, acknowledged as such by those terrorist organizations – not civilians. Nor does the resolution mention Israel’s extraordinary efforts to avoid civilian casualties, including sending hundreds of thousands of leaflets, texts and phone warnings to stay away from the border; non-lethal tear gas to keep rioters away from the border; urging bus companies to stop transporting rioters to the border; and shooting only as a last resort and aiming to avoid fatalities. And of course, the resolution never acknowledges that if the Hamas rioters broke through the border, the casualties would be far higher.
But instead of acknowledging that both the instigators of the violence and the casualties are primarily Hamas/PIJ terrorists, the General Assembly’s Orwellian resolution attempts to pave the way for an international force to “protect” Palestinian civilians, presumably from Israel! The GA resolution (paragraph 9): “Calls for the consideration of measures to guarantee the safety and protection of the Palestinian civilian population in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including in the Gaza Strip; and calls for the Secretary-General to submit a report within 60 days containing “proposals on ways and means for ensuring the safety, protection and well-being of the Palestinian civilian population under Israeli occupation, including, inter alia, recommendations regarding an international protection mechanism.”
False Characterization of Gaza, Eastern Jerusalem as “Occupied”: The General Assembly resolution’s characterization of Gaza as “occupied Palestinian territory” also flies in the face of reality. Every Israeli withdrew from Gaza in 2005. The resolution also falsely characterizes a non-existent entity of “East Jerusalem” and other Jewish lands as “occupied Palestinian territory.” (See, e.g., “Mort Klein – There Is No Israeli ‘Occupation’: It’s Not Arab Land and 98 Percent of Palestinian-Arabs Live Under Arab Rule,” by Morton A. Klein, Breitbart, Sept. 29, 2017.)
Resolution Ignores that Hamas Destroyed the Border Crossings Bringing in Aid: The General Assembly resolution, in the absence of the U.S.-sponsored amendment, also shamefully ignored that the Palestinian/Hamas rioters sabotaged, and did millions of dollars of difficult-to-repair damage to the gas lines and Kerem Shalom crossing that brings tons of humanitarian aid to Gaza from Israel every day. (See “Palestinian Rioters Sabotage Gaza’s Own Gas Lines for 2nd Straight Week,” Times of Israel, May 11, 2018; and “How Hamas Sabotages Gaza’s Economy to Advance Terror Aims,” by Yaakov Lappin, IPT News, May 15, 2018.)
Resolution Absurdly Calls Dangerous Anti-Israel Obama-era Res. 2334 the Basis for Peace: Paragraph 16 of yesterday’s GA resolution, also absurdly calls for what would be a terrorist Palestinian-Arab state that threatens Israel’s very existence, based on the so-called “Arab Peace Initiative” (which requires suicidal, one-sided concessions from Israel in return for nothing tangible) and the dangerous, insulting Security Council Resolution 2334 (2016), orchestrated by the hostile-to-Israel Obama administration near the end of its term.
UNSC 2334 was condemned by the U.S. Congress in a bipartisan Congressional resolution. As Senator Tom Cotton stated: “This resolution hurts the prospects for a secure and just peace by targeting Israel for building homes in Jerusalem, its own capital, while not specifically addressing Palestinian incitement of and financial support for terrorism. . . .” (See “ZOA Praises Congress Condemning UNSC Resolution 2334 and Kerry Speech,” Jan. 6, 2017.)
It is disgraceful for the UN to favorably recall and repeat the absurdities of UNSC 2334.