At Christians United for Israel (CUFI), we have long called out the anti-Israel bias at the United Nations (UN). Unfortunately, it seems the global body is increasingly keen of proclaiming antisemitic blood libels against Israel.
A new report by the United Nations claims that Israel committed “genocidal acts” during the war in Gaza, including intentional harm to women’s health facilities and the weaponization of sexual violence.
The outlandish report claims that Israel committed sexual violence against Gazans, including making them undress in public and carrying out sexual assault as part of the procedures meant to punish Palestinian Arabs for the October 7th Massacre.
Many of us have seen the scenes of Palestinian men, many of whom were armed, being ordered to remove their clothing during arrest. The reason for this is simple, Israel wanted to ensure that they did not have any explosive devices on their person. This is a rational thing to do, and is a common practice by militaries around the world, especially when dealing with Islamist terrorists who have a tendency to blow themselves up.
The also claims that there was a surge in maternity deaths due to restricted access to medical supplies, amounting “to the crime against humanity of extermination.”
“Israeli authorities have destroyed in part the reproductive capacity of the Palestinians in Gaza as a group, including by imposing measures intended to prevent births, one of the categories of genocidal acts in the Rome Statute and the Genocide Convention,” the report added.
This report is filled with baseless accusations and outright fabrications. It is nothing less than a modern blood libel against the Jewish state.
Hamas terrorists systematically used hospitals in Gaza to conduct terror activities. They were command centres, weapons storage sites, and even Israeli hostages were imprisoned inside them, including Rantisi Hospital, Al-Shifa hospital, and Nasser Hostpital. The damage to hospitals was a direct consequence of Hamas’s illegal military use of civilian infrastructure. If the terrorists did not embed themselves inside hospitals, Israel wouldn’t have been forced to carry out military operations inside of them, which resulted in damage to them.
The report goes further, however, and falsely claims that this policy is part of Israel’s broader military strategy to “oppress” Palestinians. This false accusation completely ignores reality that Israel is taking the unprecedented measures to provide humanitarian aid, including water, food, medical supplies, and more, to their enemies even whilst they are at war. Few, if any, military forces in history have provided the level of aid to an enemy population than Israel has, especially while actively engaged in war.
Likewise, the statistics highlight a very different reality to the falsehoods being painted in this report.
The Palestinian population is growing, not declining. Gaza continues to have one of the highest birth rates in the world (26.47 births per 1,000 people), around three times higher than the UK’s birth rate (9.89 briths per 1,000 people).
Meanwhile, Israeli forces have largely dismantled out Hamas’s terror infrastructure, and were at points in control of large parts of Gaza. Israel has the military capability to completely destroy Gaza, but it has not done so. In fact, Israel’s war with Gaza has one of the lowest civilian to combatant death ratios in modern urban warfare, despite operating in one of the most densely populated war zones in history and with Hamas’s deliberate use of human shields.
If Israel really was trying to wipe out the Palestinian population, or to severely hurt the reproductive capacity of Palestinian women, then Israel is doing a terrible job at both these things.
The numbers prove beyond doubt that Israel is not only NOT committing a genocide, but they are conducting one of the most careful wars in history.
Israel has conducted a successful war against Hamas militants, whilst doing everything it can to protect Palestinian civilians. The is not only NOT a genocide, it is the absolute opposite of genocide.
The UN’s Commission of Inquiry has once again exposed itself as a politically motivated body which is being weaponised to demonise Israel. As Christians, we also recognise this is a spiritual battle and we have no doubts these attacks are demonically inspired.
So atrocious was this latest attack that it has united Israel’s political parties against the UN.
Israel’s permanent mission to the UN in Geneva described allegations in the report as unfounded, biased, and lacking credibility.
“The IDF has concrete directives and policies which unequivocally prohibit such misconduct”, the permanent mission to the UN in Geneva responded in a statement, adding that its review processes are in line with international standards.
Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon stated: “This is another vile and distorted document from the UN, which continues to serve as a propaganda mouthpiece for terrorist organizations. While Israel is fighting against the savages who slaughtered, raped, and murdered thousands of innocent people on October 7th, the UN chooses to stand by the murderers again and again and spread despicable blood libels against the only democratic state in the Middle East.”
“This report is not even worth the paper it was printed on. Anyone who supported this false publication is complicit in whitewashing Hamas’ war crimes and trampling on the truth. While Israel goes above and beyond to avoid harming innocent people, terrorists are barricading themselves in hospitals, using women and children as human shields, and abusing their own population. But the UN? The UN is busy looking for ways to blame Israel instead of facing reality. History will judge you,” Danon stated.
Israeli Foreign Minister Spokesman Oren Marmorstein wrote: “In regard to the blood libel published by the ‘Commission of Inquiry’: It is one of the worst cases of blood libel the world has ever seen (and the world has seen many). It accuses the victims of the crimes committed against them. Hamas is the organization that has committed horrendous sexual crimes against Israelis. It is indeed a sick document that only an antisemitic organization such as the UN could produce.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a statement strongly condemning the UN Human Rights Council: “The anti-Israel circus known as the UN ‘Human Rights Council’ has long been revealed as an antisemitic, rotten and irrelevant organization that supports terrorism. For good reason, Israel decided to quit it approximately one month ago.
“Instead of focusing on the crimes against humanity and the war crimes that were perpetrated by the Hamas terrorist organization in the worst massacre carried out against the Jewish People since the Holocaust, the UN has again chosen to attack the State of Israel with false accusations, including baseless accusations of sexual violence.
“This is not a human rights council; it is a blood rights council.”
Minister of Culture and Sport Miki Zohar commented on the report: “Endless hypocrisy by the UN which did not only not condemn the rape, murder, and abduction of women, men, and children on October 7th, but accuses Israel of war crimes that never were.”
He added: “Tonight we will read the Book of Esther, and we’ll remember: attempts to destroy and harass the people of Israel always failed, and relief and deliverance will come to the Jews from somewhere else.”
National Unity Party Chairman MK Benny Gantz commented: “This is a moral low and blindness that will not be erased. Not only did those who wrote the report and signed it lie, but they also harm global security and give support to terrorism, antisemitism, and blood libels.”
Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennet stated: “The UN has become Hamas’s useful idiot. The worst regimes in history accused their enemies of what they themselves did. Now history is repeating itself and the UN is adopting this evil method. Hamas is the one that attacked, raped, and murdered Israelis. It was all documented. Hamas is the one that used sexual violence against hostages. The UN has turned justice into evil, good into bad. Fair nations must renounce the UN.”
“No weapon that is formed against you will prosper; And every tongue that accuses you in judgment you will condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, And their vindication is from Me,” declares the Lord. (Isaiah 54:17)
