by Smadar Bat Adam
The report determined that any piece of information Israel provided was "unverifiable," while the material presented by Palestinian or pro-Palestinian organizations were facts set in stone.
There is
no easy way to say this, but the U.N. Human Rights Council report on
Operation Protective Edge, composed by a fact-finding mission headed by
Judge Mary McGowan Davis, was a childish endeavor.
The report determined
that any piece of information Israel provided was "unverifiable," while
the material presented by Palestinian or pro-Palestinian organizations
were facts set in stone. Honestly, It does not take a genius to
understand that one needs just a tad more common sense to at least try
to conceal the bias against Israel in this inquiry.
The problem begins with
the framework. The basic assumption, that Israel still occupies the
Gaza Strip, completely ignores the truth: Israel disengaged from Gaza a
decade ago, providing its residents with complete autonomy that afforded
them the ability, under the right leadership, to prosper.
The same basic bias
extends to defining Hamas only as an "alleged" terror organization,
which completely ignores a decade of rocket fire and terrorist attacks
against innocent Israelis. Further, the mission completely disregarded
the governmental corruption and the terror Hamas has been inflicting on
its own people.
The report, for all its
conclusions, could have been a truly amusing document, if not for the
fact that it poses a danger to the free world, as it allows terrorist
organizations the use of democratic instruments and rules to which they
do not subscribe.
Juxtaposing a terrorist
organization and a democratic state calls into question the views of
some of the world's most renowned intellectuals and philosophers who
have shaped ethics and the principles of justice throughout human
history.
The 17th century
English philosopher Thomas Hobbes, best known for his book "Leviathan,"
presented human history as a struggle for survival and accumulation of
power, and argued that civil peace and social unity are best achieved by
committing to a social contract or a treaty.
To what kind of human
rights treaty, valid in times of war or peace, has Hamas ever
subscribed? Does this report truly suggest that the Western world adopt
values such as martyrdom as a way to realize the essence of man?
In his book "Groundwork
of the Metaphysics of Morals," written in the 18th century, Immanuel
Kant, one of the most important philosophers in modern times, claimed
that when trying to determine the nature of one's actions, the moral
individual must first ask himself whether his standards are universal or
can be applied universally.
Clearly, the forces
driving the U.N. to ignore fatal blows to human rights, especially in
the Muslim world, and present Israel as a top human rights violator, are
not interested in ethics and morals any more than they are interested
in Kant's philosophy.
This is unequivocally
expressed in the document calling for an International Criminal Court
investigation of Israel and Hamas, knowing that issuing arrest warrants
or applying political pressure on the terrorist organization, which
already conducts itself in secret, would be meaningless, while on the
other hand, accusing Israel and its leaders of war crimes would have
far-reaching ramifications.
The prominence given to
terrorism-sponsoring countries and terrorist organizations in the U.N.
and its various institutions is tantamount to extinguishing the great
light of democracy.
Smadar Bat Adam
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=12977
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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