CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, AUGUST 22, 2014, OR THEREAFTER
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, AUGUST 22, 2014, OR THEREAFTER
BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“BOXER, FEINSTEIN: DIFFERENT ROUTES IN BACKING ISRAEL”
Few things in a rather absurd world
are more deserving of ridicule than the United Nations Human Rights Council, a
47-nation group that includes some of the world’s leading human rights
violators, from China and Cuba to Kuwait, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela,
to take just a few in alphabetical order.
Thus it was completely appropriate
when Democratic U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer recruited a bipartisan group of 35
fellow senators to sign a letter to the U.N. secretary general protesting the
Human Rights Council’s announced investigation into alleged war crimes by
Israel during its latest campaign in Gaza.
It was equally unsurprising the U.N.
group would single out Israel, as it often has. What else would you expect from
an outfit that includes China and Saudi Arabia, among the leading suppliers and
financiers of Hamas, designated a terrorist group by all recent American
presidents even as it rules the 25-by-seven mile Gaza Strip?
The surprise was the absence of
California’s other Democratic senator, Dianne Feinstein, from the signers of
the Boxer letter.
Every senator had a chance to sign
this letter, and it was inked by some of the most liberal, like Boxer and
Maryland’s Barbara Mikulski, as well as some of the most conservative, like
Utah’s Mike Lee and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma.
But
the Senate’s top brass, Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and Minority
Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky did not sign. Maybe Feinstein, chair of the
Senate Intelligence Committee, didn’t want to break with Reid. Foreign
Relations Committee Chair Robert Menendez of New Jersey also did not sign.
Feinstein's
non-explanation: “I strongly supported passage of (a resolution) which
condemned the U.N. Human Rights Council vote...which made no mention of Hamas’
indiscriminate rocket attacks and policy of using Palestinian civilians as
human shields. I believe support for this resolution is the correct course of
action in this case.” The resolution, passed three days before the Boxer letter
was sent last week.
Feinstein,
long a steadfast Israel supporter, did not quarrel with anything in the far
more specific Boxer letter, co-written by Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte of New
Hampshire.
The
open letter to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said “The fact that there was
no call for an investigation into actions by Hamas – including indiscriminate
and deliberate rocket attacks on Israeli civilians and intentionally putting
Palestinians in harm’s way – is …wholly unacceptable as it turn(s) a blind eye
to Hamas’ brazen and depraved use of civilians as human shields (and) the tunnels
it has built to cause mayhem in Israel.”
The letter also noted that the U.N.
group ignored the missiles other U.N. personnel discovered hidden in some of
its schools in the Gaza Strip, along with those stored or fired from homes,
hospitals and mosques. Nor, the letter said, did the Human Rights Commission
mention that Hamas officials have stopped Palestinian civilians at gunpoint
when they tried to leave areas Israel warned them to evacuate prior
to strikes or artillery fire.
The questionable council also claims
most Palestinian dead have been civilians, an allegation based wholly on Hamas
reports. One analysis of the fatalities by the Committee for Accuracy in Middle
East Reporting instead shows 57 percent of all war dead have been males aged 17
to 39, which that group says suggests most of the dead have really been
combatants.
The Boxer letter also stresses that
it’s Hamas which has repeatedly broken cease-fires and put Palestinians in
danger. It notes the entire campaign started with persistent rocket fire
from Gaza that did not stop despite numerous warnings from Israel. “The fact
that Israel has effective defenses against the rockets aimed at its citizens is
no excuse to overlook Hamas’ hostile behavior,” Boxer said.
Hamas behavior, of course, has been
consistent with its charter, which states that “Israel will exist (only) until
Islam will obliterate it” and that “The Day of Judgment will not come about
until Moslems fight and kill the Jews.” Not just Israelis, the charter says,
but all Jews.
The behavior of Hamas is no mystery,
nor is the bias of the U.N.’s ludicrous Human Rights Commission.
The mystery is why Feinstein didn’t join in calling both of them out in
very specific terms, as did Boxer and dozens of their fellow senators.
-30-
Elias is author of the current book “The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government's Campaign to Squelch It,” now available in an updated third edition. His email address is tdelias@aol.com
Elias is author of the current book “The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government's Campaign to Squelch It,” now available in an updated third edition. His email address is tdelias@aol.com
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