AIPAC, OU praise Goldstone resolution passage

Statements lauding the House for passing the resolution condemning the Goldstone report have started to roll in, and among the first was AIPAC’s.

"As the Obama administration has said, the Goldstone Report is based on an anti-Israel UN Human Rights Council mandate, makes unacceptable recommendations and undermines the peace process, said the pro-Israel lobby in a statement. "Echoing the Obama administration’s condemnation and calling for concrete action, Congress is sending a strong message that the United States will not agree to turn the victim into the perpetrator."

The Orthodox Union also has weighed in. "The importance of continued Congressional recognition and condemnation of international bias against Israel cannot be understated, and we applaud today’s effort toward that goal," said the group.

AIPAC’s full statement is after the jump:[[READMORE]]

AIPAC strongly applauds today’s overwhelming bipartisan passage of H. Res. 867 calling on the United States to "oppose unequivocally any endorsement or further consideration" by the United Nations or other international fora of the "irredeemably biased" U.N. Human Rights Council-mandated report on Israel’s defensive operations against the HAMAS terrorist organization based in Gaza.

Sponsored by House Foreign Affairs Committee Ranking Member Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Chairman Howard Berman, the measure passed with vast bipartisan support 344-36, with 22 voting present.  The resolution describes the many flaws in both the U.N.H.R.C. mandate and the ensuing report, and urges the Obama administration to veto any U.N. Security Council resolution that endorses its contents or seeks to act on its recommendations.

As the Obama administration has said, the Goldstone Report is based on an anti-Israel UN Human Rights Council mandate, makes unacceptable recommendations and undermines the peace process.  Echoing the Obama administration’s condemnation and calling for concrete action, Congress is sending a strong message that the United States will not agree to turn the victim into the perpetrator.

Speaking in support of the resolution, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said, "The report not only paints a distorted picture of Israel’s legitimate efforts of self-defense, in my opinion, but it epitomizes the practice of singling Israel out from all other nations for condemnation…The Human Rights Council mandate for the report specifically targeted Israeli actions ignoring – ignoring – the deliberate HAMAS attacks on civilians that provoked Israel’s self-defense in Cast Lead."

The Goldstone Report falsely equates Israel’s defensive actions with the very Hamas terrorism that forced Israel to take such steps in the first place.  Israel acted in self-defense in the face of 8 years and thousands of Hamas rocket attacks whose primary and deliberate purpose was to kill civilians – some one million of whom were under attack – fired by an enemy deliberately fighting and hiding behind civilians.

British Colonel Richard Kemp, an expert in counterinsurgency warfare who commanded British troops in Afghanistan testified before the U.N. saying during the Israel-Hamas conflict that "the IDF did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare." 

Israel is a free and open society, based on the rule of law. As such, the Israeli government has launched a number of investigations into alleged abuses, most of which cleared the army of culpability. Those that were not exculpatory have led and have the capacity to lead to further investigations and even prosecutions.

Israel has also cooperated with numerous outside investigations into the Gaza conflict, including those by the U.N. Board of Inquiry, the U.N. Environment Program (UNEP), the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Special Representative of the U.N. Secretary General on Children in Armed Conflicts.