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Far Left Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) wasted no time condemning Israel for the simultaneous explosion of pagers across Lebanon last week targeting Hezbollah users of the communication devices. “Israel’s pager attack in Lebanon detonated thousands of handheld devices across of a slew of public spaces, seriously injuring and killing innocent civilians,” she posted on X. “This attack clearly and unequivocally violates international humanitarian law and undermines US efforts to prevent a wider conflict.”
AOC failed to mention that Hezbollah attacked Israel first on the day after Hamas’s brutal massacres, rapes, torture, and kidnappings of innocent civilians inside Israel on October 7th. Hezbollah’s assault was an unprovoked act of aggression against Israeli civilian population centers that in truth, using AOC’s own words, “clearly and unequivocally violates international humanitarian law.”
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) also chimed in. “Netanyahu’s reckless disregard for civilian lives in the pager attack in Lebanon is yet another example of why we need to cut off military aid,” she posted on X.
AOC and Omar are part of a growing anti-Israel caucus in the House of Representatives aligned with the pro-terrorist activists in the United States who have questioned the Jewish state’s right to exist.
Hezbollah claimed that it undertook its aggressive action in “solidarity” with the Hamas terrorists. Israel responded with proportionate force. Hezbollah has not ceased its relentless bombardment of communities in northern Israel with rockets and drones on a near daily basis and vows that it will continue its attacks until there is a permanent ceasefire in Gaza acceptable to Hamas. One of those barrages was aimed directly at a sports field that killed twelve innocent children. At least 60,000 people in northern Israel have been displaced. Yet, AOC and the rest of the Israel-hating caucus in the House of Representatives expects Israel not to take effective countermeasures to defend its citizens against unrelenting terrorist attacks.
Israel has not acknowledged publicly that it was responsible for detonating the pagers or for the next day’s detonations of the walkie-talkies used by the Hezbollah terrorists. However, there are indications that Israel had indeed used its extraordinary ingenuity to plan and execute this complex, precisely targeted operation that has inflicted major military and psychological damage upon Hezbollah while minimizing civilian casualties.
Terrorizing the terrorists with their own communications devices is a brilliant maneuver. But according to Rep. Ocasio-Cortez and Rep. Omar, even Israel’s precisely targeted operation to defend its civilians against the Hezbollah terrorists’ continuing launches of rockets and drones is a violation of international law. They and the rest of the Israel-hating House caucus would be perfectly at home with the Israel-hating mob at the United Nations known as the General Assembly.
With a recorded vote of 124 nations in favor, 14 nations against, and 43 abstentions, the UN General Assembly passed its most virulently anti-Israel resolution yet on September 18th. This despicable act of “diplomatic” jihad against the Jewish state was set in motion by the UN’s “Observer State of Palestine.” The Palestinians exploited the privilege previously granted by the General Assembly to introduce draft resolutions to the General Assembly for its consideration. Fortunately, General Assembly resolutions, including this outrageous one, have no legally binding effect under international law.
Not surprisingly, the Palestinian crafted resolution paints Israel as the sole villain in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The barbarism committed against innocent civilians in Israel on October 7th and against the hostages held in captivity in Gaza that the Iran-backed Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad monsters committed receive no mention. The General Assembly still refuses to brand Hamas as a terrorist organization. The vast majority supporting this Palestinian resolution considers the terrorists legitimate “resistance” fighters.
This resolution calls for Israel not only to immediately cease all new settlement activity but also to remove Jews who settled from whatever areas the United Nations defines as “Occupied Palestinian Territory.” This would include Jerusalem’s Old City, the location of Judaism’s holiest sites, in what the UN refers to as East Jerusalem. Doing the Palestinians’ bidding, the General Assembly has backed what amounts to judenrein – i.e., no Jews allowed to enter or reside in the Old City. This would mean reverting to the time when Jordan illegally occupied Jerusalem before June 1967 and kicked out the Jews living there.
The General Assembly resolution also demands that Israel pay “reparation for the damage caused to all the natural and legal persons concerned in the Occupied Palestinian Territory” and that Israel allow “all Palestinians displaced during the occupation to return to their original place of residence.”
Furthermore, the resolution calls upon all UN member states to “take steps towards ceasing the importation of any products originating in the Israeli settlements, as well as the provision or transfer of arms, munitions and related equipment to Israel, the occupying Power, in all cases where there are reasonable grounds to suspect that they may be used in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”
In other words, the UN General Assembly is calling for what amounts to a boycott aimed at crippling Israel economically. And it is calling for an arms embargo that would prevent Israel from defending its own citizens against Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and other genocidal terrorist thugs backed by Iran as well as against Iran itself. But the General Assembly resolution imposes no restrictions at all on arms sent by the Iranian regime to these same terrorist proxies.
The General Assembly referenced in its resolution the International Court of Justice’s findings in its non-binding advisory opinion that was stacked entirely against Israel. The General Assembly itself had requested this opinion in a scheme to confer a gloss of supposed “judicial” legitimacy on its abhorrent attempt to delegitimize the Jewish homeland.
The first anniversary of the horrific Palestinian terrorists’ invasion of Israel and savage attacks on innocent civilians is approaching. But the UN General Assembly is now on record as being complicit with the Palestinian strategy to whitewash what happened on October 7th that precipitated the Gaza war and, instead, to demonize, delegitimize, discriminate against, and incapacitate Israel. It is complicit in calling for the ethnic cleansing of Jews from the areas where their holiest sites are located.
The pro-terrorist rioters on campuses and in the streets who frequently shout “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” are also complicit. They are rallying around the battle cry for the Palestinians to take control of all land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea and destroy the Jewish state of Israel.
When the House of Representatives passed a resolution last April condemning this slogan as anti-Semitic, forty-four House members —43 Democrats and one Republican — voted against it. The no votes were cast mostly by progressive Democrats, including Squad members Jamaal Bowman, Cori Bush, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, and Rahsida Tlaib, along with one lone Republican, Rep. Thomas Massie.
Together with the vast majority of UN member states who voted in favor of the Palestinians’ totally one-sided General Assembly resolution to isolate and punish the Jewish state, they all belong in the anti-Semitic Hall of Shame.