UNHRC vs. Israel: A Common Conflict

So far, it seems that my hopes about Israel’s inclusion in the UN Human Rights Council are not going to come true. Yet again, the UNHRC seems to be targeting Israel, and Israel is fighting back. The Jerusalem Post reports:

Israel strongly rejected on Thursday a UN Human Rights Council resolution calling for Israel to pay Palestinians reparations for loss and damages suffered during last year’s Operation Cast Lead. The 47-nation council did not call for similar payments by Palestinians to Israelis.

…

The proposal by Pakistan was backed Thursday by a majority of 29 to 6 in a vote by the Geneva-based body. There were 11 abstentions.

I wish I could say that this response is unexpected, but we know that UNHRC and Israel tend to conflict like this. Given that Israel is economically and militarily superior to its neighboring enemies, the Jewish state is often held to different standards. For Israelis, this is obviously a problem.

The international community cannot make these demands to Israel without also demanding similar accountability from the Palestinian side. Contrary to popular belief, Operation Cast Lead was not an unprovoked military attack. The IDF undertook Cast Lead in an effort to better protect Israeli citizens from rocket fire. Towns like Sderot have been continually threatened by projectiles from Gaza, and there is no question that Israel has a right to retaliate in a way that improves safety for its own people.

What this resolution reveals, therefore, is that the UNHRC is focusing on the wrong questions when it comes to the Israel/Palestine quagmire. There are a number of items UNHRC can and should identify as possible solutions to the human rights crisis that is constant violent conflict:

• The root causes of terror in Gaza: lack of resources, governmental ineffectiveness, poor education, etc.
• Hamas’ use of vulnerable citizens as human shields.
• Addressing the issue of provocation (kidnapping soldiers, rocket attacks) and the extent to which Israel’s response is justified.

Instead, the council is chiefly focused on blasting Israel for its role in harming Palestinians.  The fact that this resolution is merely one of many recent condemnations supports this argument.

However, make no mistake: the international community still has an obligation to make sure everyone is playing by acceptable rules. The UNHRC does important work in this field, and their comments should not be lightly dismissed. It’s hard to argue that their findings are unbiased, but it’s equally difficult to argue that Israel makes moral choices 100% of the time. Israel ought to listen to and engage with its critics; it would be a mistake to blindly accept or deny international opinions. In the case of this particular NGO, Israel should take criticism with an awfully large grain of salt.