Young Israel Applauds Congressional Resolution Condemning Goldstone Report

The National Council of Young Israel (NCYI) HAS praised a resolution recently introduced in the United States Congress, which calls on President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to oppose any endorsement or further consideration of the Goldstone Report.

The Goldstone Report, a nearly 600-page document prepared by former South African Judge Richard Goldstone about Israel’s military operations in Gaza last winter, alleges that Israel committed war crimes during the military conflict. The United Nations Human Rights Council recently endorsed the Goldstone Report and urged the United Nations to take further action.
House Resolution 867, which is entitled “Calling on the President and the Secretary of State to oppose unequivocally any endorsement or further consideration of the ‘Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict’ in multilateral fora,” says that the U.S. Congress considers the Goldstone Report “to be irredeemably biased and unworthy of further consideration or legitimacy.”

In addition, the resolution supports the Obama Administration’s efforts to combat anti-Israel bias at the United Nations and its opposition to the United Nations Human Rights Council’s resolution. Further, the resolution “reaffirms its support for the democratic, Jewish State of Israel, for Israel’s security and right to self-defense, and, specifically, for Israel’s right to defend its citizens from violent militant groups and their state sponsors.”

The bipartisan resolution was introduced by Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the Ranking Member on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, and co-sponsored by Congressman Howard Berman, Chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Congressman Dan Burton, the Ranking Member of the House Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia, and Congressman Gary Ackerman, Chairman of the House Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia.

“This bipartisan congressional resolution is a strong rebuke to the biased report authored by Judge Richard Goldstone, which turned a blind eye to the facts at hand and issued an unwarranted and inexplicable condemnation of Israel,” said NCYI President Shlomo Z. Mostofsky. “It is especially heartwarming to see American lawmakers from both sides of the political aisle express their staunch support of the State of Israel and its right to engage in self defense tactics when attacked by its enemies.”

NCYI President Shlomo Z. Mostofsky and NCYI Executive Vice President Rabbi Pesach Lerner recently wrote a letter to President Obama in which they called on the United States to immediately condemn the Goldstone Report. In their letter, Mostofsky and Lerner wrote that the report contains a disproportionate amount of criticism of Israel as opposed to Hamas, a recognized terrorist organization that fired thousands of deadly rockets at innocent Israeli men, women, and children, and used civilians as human shields.