UN Gaza Report Gives Ted Cruz A Chance to Show His Disdain for Human Rights

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It is hardly a surprise that Ted Cruz should oppose the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), or that after a vote against Israel’s behavior in the 50-day Israel-Gaza conflict in 2014, he should want the U.S. to withdraw.

Because human rights.

In a July 3 statement on his website, Cruz wrote that if you’re critical of Israel, you are anti-Semitic, even though the victims in the conflict, the Palestinians, are also Semitic:

Our single vote in opposition is just and the abstentions of our friends are welcome, but at this point they are meaningless gestures. It is time to stop ceding moral authority to the UNHRC and tell the truth about this hopelessly biased and anti-Semitic institution. There is no equivalency between Israel’s right to self-defense and Hamas’ genocidal aggression against the Jewish people. There is no equivalence between Israel’s extraordinary efforts to protect civilians and Hamas’ use of the Palestinian people as human shields. Being party to any body that believes there is only perpetuates this injustice. The United States should stop legitimizing the UNHRC with our membership and withdraw now.

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You would think Cruz was a member of the Israeli Knesset rather than the U.S. Congress. Benjamin Netanyahu said of the UN resolution,

On the day on which Israel was fired at from Sinai, and at a time when ISIS is committing vicious terrorist attacks in Egypt, as [Syrian President Bashar] Assad slaughters his people in Syria and as the number of arbitrary executions climbs in Iran, the UN Human Rights Council decides to condemn the State of Israel for no fault of its own, for acting to defend itself from a murderous terrorist organization.

Netanyahu doesn’t approve of human rights, you see, at least not for anyone but Israelis. Cruz seems to suffer from the same myopia. Targeting innocent civilians? Republicans are all for doing that here in America. Why would they oppose Israelis doing it in Palestine?

After all, in both cases, the victims are not real people according to the shared conservative mindset.

In fact, the U.S. actually voted against the U.N. measure, the only country to do so, while 41 voted in its favor – including Estonia, France, Germany, Ireland, Latvia, the Netherlands Portugal, and our close friend and ally, the United Kingdom – and five – Ethiopia, India, Kenya, Macedonia, Paraguay – abstained.

The Jerusalem Post reports that according to the U.S. Ambassador to the UN, Keith Harper,

We are troubled that this current resolution focuses exclusively on alleged Israeli violations, without any expressed reference to Palestinian violations.

The British Ambassador to the UN, Julian Braithwaite, evinced a more nuanced response:

Israel has the right to defend itself against indiscriminate attack, but it is also a principle of international humanitarian law that the use of force in self defense must be proportionate.

International humanitarian law requires belligerents to. distinguish between military and civilian targets. We have urged both sides to the conflict to act in a manner that is proportionate.

Well…that leaves the U.S. out, doesn’t it? Because American Exceptionalism. There is nothing proportionate in how the United States wages war. We have the weight of metal and by God, sir, we are going to use it to full effect.

You think Israel has learned something from its old friend, the U.S.? In fact, the Israel government issued its own report in June, speaking of “residual and incidental harm,” and claiming that its actions in the Gaza conflict were “lawful” and “legitimate.”

This was, we can be certain, much more amenable to Ted Cruz’s worldview.

It doesn’t seem to matter to Cruz that The Commission of Inquiry on the 2014 Gaza Conflict’s report spoke of “substantial information” and “credible allegations” that both sides were guilty of war crimes. But then again, the United States also committed war crimes in Iraq during its 2003 invasion and occupation of that country by a Republican president.

On the one hand, that means the United States hardly occupies the moral high ground. On the other hand, the presidency of Barack Obama is supposed to have shown the world that we know we did wrong in that country, and that we are capable of better behavior.

As Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riad Malki said of the UN resolution that so incensed Cruz, “There is no path to justice and peace without accountability.”

Said understanding of accountability in this country being interpreted by Republican war crimes apologists as Obama’s “Apology Tour.” More than 2,140 Palestinians were killed during the Gaza conflict, most of them civilians. Only 73 Israelis were killed, including just six civilians. The totals were similarly lopsided in Iraq.

The Commission of Inquiry highlighted that “impunity prevails across the board for violations … allegedly committed by Israeli forces, whether it be in the context of active hostilities in Gaza or killings, torture and ill-treatment in the West Bank.”

Impunity generally does prevail, historically speaking, and it has prevailed here in the U.S. as well. A scapegoat or two aside, few suffered for what they did to innocent Iraqis. Certainly not George Bush, Dick Cheney, or Donald Rumsfeld. Some, like sniper Chris Kyle, have become folk heroes for gunning down brown-skinned people in the streets.

The fallacy of the “just war” has its own inexorable – and execrable – logic.

When a policeman – that ultimate street-level symbol of authority – pulls you over, he doesn’t want excuses. He wants contrition. Here, the UN has pulled Israel – and by extension its lone supporter, the U.S. – over. It is a shame – and generally indicative of today’s Republicanism – that Ted Cruz is all about punishment and excuses, and short on personal responsibility.


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