UN Seeks to Prosecute Israelis for "War Crimes" in Global Court

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After the United Nations was caught last month giving rockets found at UN “schools” in Gaza to the terrorist group Hamas, the UN’s top “human rights” bureaucrat accused Israel of perpetrating possible “war crimes” — for, among other actions, refusing to share with Hamas its Iron Dome defense technology that protects Israeli territory and civilians from Arab missile attacks. The widely criticized UN official’s accusation, made in a press conference about the ongoing conflict, prompted a mixture of ridicule and outrage around the world. Now, the dictator-dominated global outfit is pushing for international prosecutions of Israeli officials, too.

“There is a strong possibility that international law has been violated, in a manner that could amount to war crimes,” claimed UN “Human Rights” Czar Navi Pillay following an “emergency” meeting of the despot-packed UN “Human Rights Council.” Among the alleged potential war crimes cited by Pillay, a South African, were Israeli attacks on UN-run “schools,” hospitals, homes, and various UN facilities. Israeli officials counter that Hamas deliberately launches its attacks from among Arab civilians in an effort to use women and children as “human shields.” Still, estimates suggest over 1,000 Arabs have died amid Israeli military operations in Gaza, many of them civilians.

Perhaps the wildest accusation made by the self-styled UN “human rights” boss was the attack on U.S. and Israeli authorities for refusing to share the “Iron Dome” defense technology with the “governing authority” of Gaza — also known as Hamas, the terrorist group that rules Gaza with an iron fist. “No such protection has been provided to Gazans against the shelling,” Pillay was quoted as saying in media reports. The Iron Dome system, funded in part by U.S. foreign aid, has been extraordinarily successful in protecting Israeli civilians and infrastructure from Arab rocket attacks by intercepting the projectiles in the air.

Ironically, though, the UN has been doing its part to ensure that terrorists and tyrants are well equipped with technology, too. The UN World Intellectual Property Organization, for example — funded primarily by the United States — was exposed in recent years violating sanctions and sending sensitive dual-use computer systems with potential military applications to the brutal regimes ruling over Iran and North Korea. Both of those dictatorships, of course, have provided aid and comfort to Hamas. The U.S. government has also long been close to various regimes that support Hamas, including the monarchy in Qatar.

Pillay, whose formal title is UN “High Commissioner for Human Rights,” also accused Hamas of perpetrating potential war crimes by firing rockets indiscriminately into Israel — often from heavily populated areas. “Locating rockets within schools and hospitals, or even launching these rockets from densely populated areas, are violations of international humanitarian law,” she said. However, she added, Arab terror attacks aimed at murdering Jewish civilians do not “absolve” Israeli authorities from their own alleged violations of what the UN calls “international law.”

In particular, Pillay slammed what she described as Israeli “targeting” of UN-run schools in Gaza — without mentioning that rockets have been discovered in such “schools” on at least three occasions in recent weeks, only to be handed back to Hamas by the global outfit. Even UN Secretary General Ban Ki moon was forced to issue a strongly worded statement surrounding the rockets found at UN schools. However, both the establishment press and the UN have continued to blast Israeli attacks on “schools” without mentioning that the planetary body’s facilities — often accused of brainwashing Arab children — are doubling as weapons depots for Hamas.

“What I’m seeing now is a recurrence of the very acts that the Gaza fact-finding mission indicated as constituting war crimes and crimes against humanity,” Pillay told reporters, referring to a previous UN probe that also accused Israel of committing war crimes. “This is why again and again I say we cannot allow impunity; we cannot allow this lack of accountability to go on.” Noting that Israeli authorities had only prosecuted a handful of their soldiers following Operation Cast Lead in Gaza six years ago, the UN human rights official said she did not expect more recent alleged violations to be properly investigated or prosecuted.

As such, the UN ought to get involved in dispensing what it calls “justice” against alleged Israeli war criminals, she claimed. “International law is clear that where a state is unable or unwilling to carry out investigations and prosecutions, the international [‘criminal justice’] system applies,” she claimed, presumably referring to the UN’s widely ridiculed kangaroo court styling itself the “International Criminal Court” (ICC), which the United States has never joined. The ICC, which absurdly purports to have jurisdiction over every person on Earth, has in the past threatened prosecutions of U.S. troops for enforcing UN “resolutions” in Libya.

“Accountability and justice cannot be expected to be achieved through domestic proceedings” in Israel, Pillay added at the press conference. “This is evident from the lack of adequate investigations by Israel and no attempt whatsoever made by the international community to implement the recommendations made by the Gaza fact-finding mission report.”

More than a few critics of the UN highlighted the twisted irony involved in Pillay’s statements. The UN “Human Rights Commission,” of course, is literally packed with mass-murdering dictatorships and terror-sponsoring regimes. Among the current roster of tyrannical communist and Islamist regimes serving in the body: the Castro autocracy ruling Cuba, the Communist dictatorship ruling China, the Islamist rulers of Saudi Arabia, and more. Other recent members of the UN outfit include the regimes in North Korea, Sudan, and Iran. A previous incarnation of the UN “human rights” bureaucracy was even disbanded after the late Libyan tyrant Muammar Gadhafi was elected to lead it.

Instead of condemning the mass-murder and wanton abuses of those dictatorships on its commission, however, the UN “human rights” body has been very busy condemning Israel — passing a stunning 47 anti-Israel resolutions in recent years. The UN’s pseudo-“human rights” bureaucracy has also spent a considerable amount of effort blasting the United States, Britain, Canada, Switzerland, and others for such “violations” as low taxes, not enough welfare, too many stay-at-home moms, the names of sports teams, and more. Of course, the UN’s vision of “human rights,” more accurately termed government-granted privileges, is entirely at odds with American traditions of unalienable individual rights endowed by God.

Israeli officials have largely remained quiet amid the latest round of UN condemnations and accusations. Some, though, have spoken out. “I think the international community should be very vocal in standing with Israel fighting terrorism today because if not, you will see it on your doorstep tomorrow,” Israeli ambassador to the UN Ron Prosor said in response to the UN’s attacks. The Israeli government says it is fighting to crush Hamas and that it takes extraordinary measures to protect Arab civilians despite terrorists’ efforts to use them as “human shields;” while Hamas, which seeks to eradicate Israel, says it is engaged in legitimate resistance to Zionist aggression.

Pillay also lambasted the U.S. government for its role in facilitating Israeli authorities’ military operations in Gaza. “They have not only provided the heavy weaponry which is now being used by Israel in Gaza but they’ve also provided almost $1 billion in providing the ‘Iron Dome’ to protect the Israelis from rocket attacks,” she complained. “But no such protection has been provided to Gazans against the shelling.” If Obama were to provide such technology to Hamas, it would be a major violation of federal law because the outfit is listed by the State Department as a terrorist organization.

More than a few Zionists and supporters of Israel have argued that Obama is tacitly supporting Hamas by, among other schemes, trying to force Israel into a ceasefire before it manages to destroy terrorist infrastructure and weapons. Opponents of Israel and critics of its military operations, meanwhile, claim the opposite. In reality, the U.S. government is among the many Western states that fund the UN’s controversial operations in Gaza with taxpayer money, which countless critics say is benefiting Hamas. The Israeli government is the single largest recipient of U.S. military aid. While U.S. foreign aid to either side is a violation of the U.S. Constitution, analysts said the UN’s suggestion that refusing to provide technology to terrorists could be a “war crime” was beyond preposterous and further discredited the UN.

The self-styled “president” of Arabs in Gaza and the West Bank, Mahmoud Abbas, who is backed by Western powers and in recent months sought to form a “unity government” with Hamas, has also been agitating for UN prosecutions in the war. However, to avoid ensnaring Hamas operatives and other jihadists in ICC proceedings, he is reportedly waiting for their approval prior to demanding UN “trials” of Israeli officials.

The UN has long been trying to legitimize its global kangaroo “court” as a venue for prosecuting vaguely defined crimes — with none of the constitutionally guaranteed rights and protections that Americans take for granted such as due process, an impartial jury, an independent prosecutor, and more. It happened recently with Syria, too, when various globalists and UN types sought ICC charges against the warring parties in that conflict.

Now, the globalist establishment is continuing to fan the conflict between Israel and Hamas, all while agitating for UN “war crimes” prosecutions. The UN and its largely autocratic member regimes must not be allowed to pretend that they can legitimately prosecute anyone in their kangaroo court. Despite Obama’s efforts to legitimize and bolster the ICC without approval or ratification from the U.S. Senate, the UN’s “judicial branch,” like its swarms of pseudo-“human rights” bureaucrats, remains illegitimate and dangerous — and it should be treated as such by all civilized nations and peoples.

Photo of Israeli soldiers firing a mortar shell into Gaza: AP Images

Alex Newman, a foreign correspondent for The New American, is currently based in Europe. He can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @ALEXNEWMAN_JOU.