US Senate pushes back against narrative of UNHRC on Gaza

Senate passes resolution supporting Israel's right to defend itself against Hamas rocket attacks and tunnel infiltration.

By MICHAEL WILNER
A Palestinian tunnel in Gaza. (photo credit: REUTERS)
A Palestinian tunnel in Gaza.
(photo credit: REUTERS)
AMMAN – The United States Senate charged the United Nations Human Rights Council with hypocrisy, passing a resolution that questioned why the organization would charge Israel with war crimes in Gaza without mentioning the willful targeting of civilians by Hamas.
The resolution, made on Tuesday night, restates Senate support for Israel’s right to defend itself against “Hamas’s unrelenting and indiscriminate rocket assault into Israel,” as well as the right to “destroy Hamas’s elaborate tunnel system into Israeli territory.”
The resolution backs additional funding for Iron Dome – the Obama administration, too, has pledged to increase funding – and calls for the demilitarization of Hamas in any solution to the conflict, just as US Secretary of State John Kerry did this week.
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee applauded the vote, which was supported by the entire Senate leadership.
“While launching over 2,500 rockets against Israeli citizens, Hamas had also planned to use an extensive network of terror tunnels that extended into Israeli territory to launch mass casualty attacks,” the AIPAC statement read. “Israeli forces are currently dismantling the terrorist infrastructure to prevent future attacks.”
A majority of Americans polled support the Israeli action, and blame Hamas for the current conflagration and violence.
The UN organization questioned by the Senate has not leveled any official allegations at Hamas during this conflict.
Though rockets have been found stored at three schools thus far in the Gaza Strip, reports indicate that those weapons may not have been confiscated, nor has the UN accused any specific organization of storing the rockets.
A host of UN personnel came out with choice words for Israel and its operation on Wednesday, after another school was hit in the war, purportedly by Israeli fire.
“Where is the humanity, the morality?” Valerie Amos, under-secretary-general for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, tweeted on Wednesday. “It’s children, civilians dying.”