Human Rights?

On Friday, Yahoo News posted a story about  resolution by the United Nation‘s Human Rights Council calling for those responsible for war crimes during last summer’s Gaza conflict to be brought to trial.

Yesterday The Times of India posted an article about the vote. That article reports:

While 41 countries (including most of the European Union) voted in favour of adopting the report, five, including India, abstained. The US was the only country to vote against it. Four other countries who abstained were Kenya, Ethiopia, Paraguay and Macedonia.

Normally I would be in favor of putting anyone on trial who had committed war crimes, but in this case, I think you have to look at the matter carefully.

This is a chart (from Wikipedia) showing the rocket attacks on Israel in 2014 that originated in the Gaza Strip:

rocketattacksonIsrael2014These rockets were not aimed at military targets, they were aimed at civilians. It is also known that Hamas houses rockets in hospitals and other buildings known to house civilians. Hamas is also know to use human shields. I can almost guarantee that the United Nations report will overlook much of this part of the story.

The thing to remember here is that the conflict between Israel and Hamas has more than one dimension. One dimension that should always be considered when listening to stories from the Middle East is the propaganda aspect. In May 2013, I posted a story about the staged death of Muhammad al-Dura, an 11-year old who was used for propaganda purposed after a film was released claiming he had been killed by the Israelis. More details can be found here. Often the propaganda war is more important than actual events on the ground.

Unfortunately, it is very likely that the U.N. investigation will be a sham. The track record on the United Nations in regard to Israel is not good. As of 2015, Israel has been condemned in 62 resolutions by the Council since its creation in 2006—the Council has resolved more resolutions condemning Israel than the rest of the world combined.

We need to stand by Israel. I don’t know why Europe voted for this, but I am glad to see India abstain.