As Israel struggles to defend its civilians from deadly Hamas rocket attacks—200 in the past few days alone, averaging nearly one per hour—the Arab and Islamic states have called an emergency “Special Session†of the UN Human Rights Council [HRC] for this Wednesday. Their proposed resolution would invert the simple reality that Hamas and its terrorist allies are deliberately targeting civilians, whereas Israel in its defensive measures takes pains to avoid harming civilians…
The draft resolution circulated by the Palestinians is entirely one-sided. It accuses Israel of “grave breaches†of human rights, and of “incessant and repeated military attacks and incursions.â€
Not a word, of course, about rockets, mortars, sniping, planting explosives at the border fence or digging under it, etc. The past few weeks have seen as many as 50 rockets a day hitting southern Israel.
The UN HRC, with a great majority of anti-Israel members, is likely to approve it. Recently, they passed a resolution commending the Sudan for its “cooperation” in solving the problem of human rights abuses in Darfur!
If you believe in the efficacy of such things, you can send an email here to the leaders of Western nations on the HRC.
Probably more effective is writing one’s own letter, as Maurice Ostroff has done, and he has sent it to the prime ministers of Canada, Britain, Germany, France and Slovenia:
January 22, 2008
Motion to be proposed on January 23, at UN Human Rights Council Special Session on Gaza blockade
May I respectfully suggest that your representative on the HRC take the following circumstances into account when participating in the above session.
If the proposers of the motion to end the blockade of Gaza are sincerely interested in the welfare of the Gazan citizens, they can achieve their goal speedily and effectively by addressing the party that really holds the key, namely Hamas. And as Hamas is well disposed to the majority of HRC member states, HRC is in a favorable position to influence that organization.
In the interests of moral integrity, the HRC dare not miss this opportunity to effectively release the Gazans from their nightmare by insisting and ensuring that Hamas put an end to the rocket attacks, whereupon electricity, fuel and other supplies will immediately start flowing into Gaza.
It is completely illogical to expect Israel to refrain from acting to counter the War Crime of rockets deliberately aimed from civilian areas in Gaza, at Israeli homes, schools and hospitals with the declared intention of killing and maiming as many as possible. More than 4,000 rockets have landed in Israel since the pullout from Gaza and it is not due to lack of intent, that none have yet landed on a crowded hospital or school.
The declared intention is to indiscriminately kill and maim as many civilians as possible. If any had had fallen on a school the number of casualties would have been disastrous. In the past few weeks alone, more than 450 rockets and mortars have been launched. If each missile fired had achieved the launcher’s intention, the results would have been a massacre of huge proportions. That this was and remains the intention cannot be ignored and it is only by the grace of the almighty that it has not happened.
Removing the cause of the blockade by ending the firing of rockets would obviously be of greater humanitarian value than cynically adding another vengeful one-sided resolution against Israel while completely ignoring the context in which events are taking place.
Sincerely
Maurice Ostroff