The United Nations is becoming more "anti-Israel, anti-Semitic," insists Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who Sunday condemned the U.N. Human Rights Council for its decision to investigate allegations of abuses in Gaza.
Graham, a member of the Armed Services Committee, would "condemn the U.N. Human Rights report that holds Israel responsible for the activity here," he told CNN "State of the Union" host Candy Crowley. "The U.N. Human Rights report is a joke. The U.N. is becoming anti-Israeli, anti-Semitic. I would push back. Congress will do this."
Navi Pillay, the U.N.'s top human rights official, has suggested that both Hamas militants and Israel have committed war crimes in attacks that have killed Gaza citizens, reports
Politico. Last week, 29 countries voted for a resolution to launch an inquiry into violations in Gaza, with 17 states abstaining. The United States was the only country voting against the resolution.
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Graham, who is running for
re-election this fall, said he plans to coordinate efforts with Democratic Sens. Chuck Schumer of New York and Robert Menendez of New Jersey on the matter, but didn't outline what action they may be considering.
His strong words came just hours before an emergency meeting of the
U.N. Security Council Sunday night that called for "an immediate and unconditional humanitarian cease-fire."
The U.N. statement was not a resolution and was not binding, but was the council's strongest statement yet on the conflict that has claimed the lives of 1,030 Palestinians, 43 Israeli soldiers, and three civilians on the Israeli side.
Israel says it started its Gaza operation on July 8 to stop Hamas rocketfire from the coastal territory, and intensified it on July 17 to neutralize Hamas cross-border tunnels built to carry out attacks on Israeli territory.
Also on Sunday,
President Barack Obama telephoned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to express his concern over the mounting Palestinian casualties. However, Obama has reiterated that Israel has the right to defend itself and has condemned Hamas' rocket attacks.
Graham's comments Sunday reflect complaints that have been made about the United Nations for some time by Israel and its allies.
In recent years, the U.N. has been at the center of many anti-Israel actions, reports
Breitbart News, including the Goldstone Report on trumped-up "war crimes" in Gaza in 2008-09, and the "Zionism equals racism" resolution of 1975, which the United States, represented by Daniel Patrick Moynihan, opposed.
In Monday's edition of
The Jerusalem Post, columnist Isi Leibler slammed the U.N. Human Rights Commission's investigation, and accused Obama of turning his back on Israel.
"The obscene U.N. Human Rights Commission, dominated by dictatorships and rogue states, has launched an investigation of what it has already defined as Israeli war crimes," writes Leibler. "In what is clearly intended to be a repeat of the notorious Goldstone Commission, there is not even the pretense of objectivity and no call to investigate Hamas."
Israel appreciates the United States' vote against the investigation, Leibler said, and for Congress' financial support to create the "Iron Dome," which has been credited for sparing Israel from much of Hamas' missile attacks.
"Yet the diplomatic posturing of the Obama administration has been utterly deplorable at a time when we are entitled to rely on the U.S. to fully support its only genuine democratic ally in the region," said Leibler.
"Israel is confronting a genocidal organization, Hamas, the equivalent of al-Qaida, whose charter explicitly calls for the destruction of the Jewish state, and enjoins its supporters to murder Jews whenever the opportunity arises," he continued. "This same terrorist organization condemned the United States for the murder of Osama bin Laden."
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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