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The UN and EU's Hostility and Double Standards toward Israel

(Jerusalem Post) Amb. Alan Baker - Aliens hearing the condemnations of Israel by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and EU Representative for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell regarding Israel's recent military action against the terror infrastructure in Jenin would imagine Israel's forces deciding out of the blue one morning to willfully, cruelly, and disproportionately attack the town of Jenin for no apparent reason. They would not have any idea that Palestinian terrorists had turned the Jenin refugee camp into an armed, aggressive, and fanatic fortress, and with explosives implanted under the roads and weapons stored in hospitals, clinics, mosques, and in almost all private residences. Terrorists built a 300-meter tunnel under a local mosque in order to store weapons and produce thousands of lethal weapons in laboratories. The city was also the center, shelter, refuge, and exit-point for countless cruel acts of terror committed against Israelis. International law specifically prohibits the use of civilian areas as centers for staging terror. Such civilian areas lose their privileged protection if they are used for offensive military purposes. This provides Israel with the legal prerogative to use a requisite and proportionate amount of force to neutralize the military threat emanating from them. Numerous international counter-terror conventions and UN Security Council resolutions require states to act decisively to prevent acts of terror, to prevent cooperating with and financing terror, and to refrain from encouraging, inciting, and supporting acts of terror. Yet Israel's critics overlook Israel's prerogative to defend itself against the deadliest forms of terror emanating from the various Palestinian terror organizations. One may wonder why the leading international bodies continue to minimize Palestinian terror while deliberately overlooking their declared penchant for killing Israelis. What do they really expect of Israel? Clearly, those pontificating for the use of restraint in such a violent and pure terror ambiance have merely chosen to adopt a false narrative in order to match their preexisting inclination to condemn Israel for defending itself. Such hypocrisy and double standards by international bodies achieve nothing and encourage the Palestinian terror apparatus, supported and encouraged by Iran, to continue to harm Israel. The writer, who directs the international law program at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, served as the legal adviser to Israel's Foreign Ministry and as Israel's ambassador to Canada.
2023-07-13 00:00:00
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