AIPAC condemns Goldstone report

AIPAC is condemning the Goldstone report on the Gaza war.

"AIPAC joins the many voices condemning the deeply flawed "Goldstone Report" issued this week by the equally defective U.N. Human Rights Council, and applauds members of Congress – Democrats and Republicans – who have spoken out in rejection of this biased "investigation" of Israel’s defensive actions against Hamas terrorists attacking its citizens from the Gaza Strip," says the statement.

From the start, this "investigation," launched by the notoriously anti-Israel U.N. Human Rights Council, was rigged, its outcome predetermined. The Council directed its investigators to focus solely on Israeli "aggression," ignoring years of Hamas rocket attacks targeting over a million Israeli civilians and relying upon witnesses chosen by the Hamas terrorist leadership in Gaza.

The full AIPAC release is after the jump:[[READMORE]]

AIPAC joins the many voices condemning the deeply flawed "Goldstone Report" issued this week by the equally defective U.N. Human Rights Council, and applauds members of Congress – Democrats and Republicans – who have spoken out in rejection of this biased "investigation" of Israel’s defensive actions against Hamas terrorists attacking its citizens from the Gaza Strip.

From the start, this "investigation," launched by the notoriously anti-Israel U.N. Human Rights Council, was rigged, its outcome predetermined. The Council directed its investigators to focus solely on Israeli "aggression," ignoring years of Hamas rocket attacks targeting over a million Israeli civilians and relying upon witnesses chosen by the Hamas terrorist leadership in Gaza.

Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-NY), chairman of the House Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia, said, "In the self-righteous fantasyland inhabited by the authors, there’s no such thing as terrorism, there’s no such thing as Hamas, there’s no such thing as legitimate self-defense." Ackerman added that if taken seriously, the report will only serve to "further sully and cheapen the reputation of the United Nations and the cause of human rights."

House Foreign Affairs Committee Ranking Member Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) also blasted the report and its pre-cooked anti-Israel assault.  "It would appear the U.N. is continuing its relentless anti-Israel bias, accusing the Jewish state of war crimes and crimes against humanity," she said. "Given that this report’s mandate came from the despot-controlled Human Rights Council, we should not be surprised."

Other members of Congress denounced the report, include Reps. Shelley Berkley (D-NV) and Eliot Engel (D-NY), members of the House Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia. (For a full compilation of statements by members of Congress on this issue, click here.)

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 thousands of Hamas rocket attacks, targeting over a million Israelis, whose primary purpose was to kill civilians.

British Colonel Richard Kemp, an expert in counterinsurgency warfare who commanded British troops in Afghanistan has said of 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."

The report also ignores Israel’s extraordinary and unprecedented efforts aimed at avoiding civilian casualties—the Israel Defense Forces dropped leaflets in civilian areas, made thousands of phone calls, sent text messages, and risked their own soldiers’ lives to minimize Palestinian civilian casualties.

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

This "report" is the latest in a long series of biased, one-sided actions taken by the U.N. Human Rights Council, whose members—including Qatar, Cuba and Saudi Arabia—have in just three years passed 26 viciously anti-Israel resolutions, out of a total of 33 resolutions. In addition, Israel remains the only country listed on the Council’s permanent agenda.