The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) has condemned Israel’s response to the abduction of three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank that occurred earlier this June, and joined the call of Palestinian UN Ambassador Riyad Mansour for the United Nations Security Council to take action against Israel.
The OIC, of course, did not use the word “abduction” in its statement issued on June 25th. Instead, it referred only to “the incident in which three Israeli settlers went missing while they were hitchhiking from the illegal settlement of ‘Kfar Etzion.’” An OIC representative told United Nations correspondents on June 26th in a briefing at UN headquarters in New York that the OIC does not condone abductions. However, he added, if there was an abduction in this case, it was all Israel’s fault for establishing its “illegal” settlements on Palestinian territory.
The OIC, reiterating charges leveled against Israel previously by Mansour, accused Israel of engaging in “collective punishment” of the Palestinian people. It cited what it described as “the detention of over 450 Palestinians, including elected Members of the Palestinian Legislative Council and Palestinians who were previously released in a prisoner agreement swap in 2011.”
Both the OIC representative and Mansour neglected to mention the killing of a three year old girl by a rocket that Palestinian militants launched against Israel and fell instead inside Gaza. Nor did they see fit to condemn the continuing dire humanitarian plight of the 18,000 civilians trapped inside the Palestinian Yarmouk refugee camp in Syria. Instead all they know how to do is to demonize Israel for every problem the Palestinians face, including their own self-inflicted injuries.
UN Undersecretary General for Political Affairs Jeffrey Feltman, in reporting on the abductions and other events over the last month in the region, told the Security Council earlier this week that Israel must show maximum restraint and not punish Palestinians "for offenses they have not personally committed." He warned of the increasing possibility of a third intifada.
The Security Council did not reach consensus on any statement to issue regarding the kidnapping. Jordan, a non-permanent member of the Council, insisted on including a condemnation of Israel in any resolution or press statement, which the United States refused to accept. Russian UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, who is president of the Security Council this month, told reporters, “Unfortunately, members of the Security Council were not able to find common ground. Some delegates want to have very strong language condemning Israel, another delegation did not want to have any reference to Israel at all.”
Israel's UN Ambassador Ron Prosor said in a statement after the Security Council meeting that “Some nations behave as if Israel should roll out the welcome mat for Hamas. Israel will not allow this terrorist group to trample on its citizens. Israelis are acting in self-defense.”
Ambassador Prosor reiterated this point to reporters on June 26th. He mentioned as examples of the simultaneous threats Israel has been facing in recent days the rocket attacks in the south, the killing of a 13 year old Israeli boy in the Golan Heights by a missile launched from Syria, and the abductions.
Israel blames Hamas for the latest abductions. It is highly probably that Israel is correct. After all, Hamas has publicly declared that the kidnapping of Israelis is a key tactic of their “resistance.” They use kidnapped Israelis as bait to secure the release of hundreds, if not thousands, of the Palestinian terrorist murderers with innocent blood on their hands who are currently behind bars in Israel.
Last July, for example, Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh publicly lauded “the brave resistance, which has kidnapped and held [Israelis] captive, while liberating [Palestinian prisoners].” And now a senior Hamas political leader, Muhammad Nazal, has praised the kidnapping of the three Israeli teenagers, calling the attack “a heroic capture” and “a milestone” for the Palestinian people. Hamas chief Khaled Mashaal, while saying that he could neither confirm nor deny Hamas’s direct involvement in the abductions, nevertheless complimented the operation. He accused the three teenagers of being “soldiers in the Israeli army.”
“This is a very important aspect which should be mentioned,” Mashaal said. “They [the three youths] are combatants.”
Hamas is at war with Israel. It considers all Israelis to be combatants and legitimate targets. Its rocket attacks launched from Gaza are aimed at Israeli civilians. Children are fair game for abductions.
Israel did not strike back against the Palestinian population at large. There was no “collective punishment” of an entire people, as Ambassador Mansour and his OIC allies have charged. There has been no massive show of Israeli military force in Gaza or the West Bank, either in the air or on the ground. People are routinely going about their lives in the West Bank cities such as Hebron, according to firsthand reports.
Israel’s narrowly focused target has been the Hamas infrastructure in the West Bank, where the abductions took place. Israel cannot accept a replication in the West Bank of the Hamas jihadist stronghold now so firmly entrenched in Gaza. The lives of its citizens and the fate of the Jewish state itself are at stake.
