Danon Denounces ‘Shameful’ U.N. Attack on Israel

Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon (Likud) denounced the “shameful” attacks on Israel heard at Tuesday’s U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC) hearing on the operation to find the missing teenagers.

Mrs. Rachel Frankel, who had previously made an emotional appeal to the same agency members to help find her son and the other two boys, was also in attendance.

“Hypocrisy has a limit, but no shame!” Danon declared. “[Russian President Vladimir] Putin would level village after village if a Russian boy was kidnapped [by terrorists], but when it comes to Israel, they demand we continue our daily routine.”

“The UNHRC is more worried about the rights of terrorists than Israeli teenagers kidnapped on their way home from school,” he declared.

Israel was similarly targeted at the U.N. Security Council on Friday during a failed attempt to agree on a statement condemning the treatment of Palestinians during the search and raids on terrorist strongholds in Yehudah and Shomron.

Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, the current council president, told reporters he proposed the press statement after listening to a Palestinian appeal for council action. But he said the council was not able to find “common ground.”

Diplomats said Jordan insisted that “deploring” wasn’t strong enough and U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power said the stronger language Jordan proposed went beyond the U.S. “strict red lines.”

U.N. Undersecretary-General for Political Affairs Jeffrey Feltman told the Security Council at an earlier open meeting that the situation on the ground had turned highly volatile following the suspension of Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations in late April and despite initial restraint on both sides.

He expressed alarm at the increasing Palestinian death toll from Israeli security operations, saying more than 350 Palestinians have reportedly been arrested, many injured and four killed.

Feltman urged Israel to exercise restraint.

“Israel will not allow this terrorist group to trample on its citizens,” Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Ron Prosor said in a statement after the council meeting.

Prosor urged the international community to “remove the rose-colored glasses” and recognize that the Palestinian unity deal between Hamas and Fatah is bad for peace, for the Palestinians and the Middle East.

This article appeared in print on page 16 of the June 25th, 2014 edition of Hamodia.