UN General Assembly condemns Israel for defending itself..again.

If at first, you don't succeed...

An attempt by the UN Security Council to condemn Israel for military action designed to stop the Palestinians from launching rockets against Israel's civilians failed, mostly due to the US veto.

So of course, the Arabs and their allies went to the General Assembly where a Resolution to condemn Israel (yawn, another one..) passed handily. I'm sure if they felt they could, they would outlaw Israel existence entirely,in one fell swoop, but since they can't they will try to do what they can, bit by bit.

The General Assembly resolution passed by a vote of 156 to 7, with six abstentions. Israel, the US, Australia, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru and Palau voted against.

Canada, Ivory Coast, Papua New Guinea, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu abstained. All the European Union members supported the non-binding resolution, which also calls for a UN `investigative team' to conduct an inquiry into Israel's `aggression' in Gaza. The team is rumored to be headed by none other than noted anti-Semite and ex-US President Jimmy Carter.

Israeli UN ambassador Dan Gillerman addressed the General Aseembly in fairly angry terms, saying that the Palestinians had turned the Gaza Strip into a launching pad for terrorist attacks against Israel, and that more than 1,000 rockets had been fired into Israel from there over the last year.

He added that Israel has been forced to defend itself because the Hamas-led government has not "acceded to international demands to renounce violence, recognize Israel and honor past peace agreements with Israel."

"The debate this morning ... offers the Hamas government no incentive to renounce their ways of terror," he said. "They have a monopoly on this assembly's attention and sympathy. Without forcing the Palestinians to shoulder their responsibilities, there will be no change."

He had some particularly harsh words for France who lobbied energetically among the EU to get them to go along with the circus.

He turned to the French delegation and asked, "If France was shelled from across the border, what would the French do? Would the French government send flowers to their attackers? Well, by voting for this resolution you will be sending flowers to the terrorists, flowers which tomorrow will be laid on the grave of the next Israeli victim."

Gillerman was also quoted as saying over the weekend that the French were "more active in furthering the passing of the resolution than the Qataris, who initially presented the resolution." He blamed the French for convincing EU countries like Germany and Poland, who wanted to abstain, to vote for the resolution.

US Ambassador John Bolton said afterwards that it was ironic the assembly held a special session on the Palestinian question a day after one of its committees passed a resolution stressing the need to avoid politically motivated and biased human rights resolutions.

"We believe that the United Nations is ill-served when its members seek to transform the organization into a forum that is little more than a self-serving and polemical attack against Israel or the United States," he said in the session.

Gillerman has already stated that he would advise his government not to cooperate with the UN's `investigative team':"The whole decision is sinful. It is a farce and I don't think Israel should cooperate with such a team," Gillerman told Israel Radio.

Not that it matters..I'm sure that the `team' could write its report just fine from New York or Geneva without bothering to investigate anything.

An Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman put it quite well:

"Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip more than a year ago, but the Palestinians continue to fire rockets on Israeli cities and towns harming innocent civilians." He said the terrorists hide behind human shields, and "the UN decision gives them encouragement to continue."

Of course it does..and that's the point. Most of the current members of the UN would like nothing better.

When one compares this with the UN action on real genocide taking place in Darfur and compares it with the UN obsession with Israel, the racism embodied in the UN becomes blatantly obvious.