WIESENTHAL CENTER: “WORLD'S SILENCE EMPOWERED HAMAS' TERRORISM; NO UN MEMBER WOULD ACT DIFFERENTLY THAN ISRAEL”

     The Simon Wiesenthal today accused the international community of empowering Hamas by remaining silent while thousands of rockets were hurled at Israeli cities and towns.  "The UN Security Council scurries into action only when the Hamas terror infrastructure is being attacked,” charged Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean and founder of the Wiesenthal Center and Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the Center's associate dean.  "If a Security Council meeting is convened, Israel's ambassador should look at  Security Council members and challenge  them directly, 'Which one of you would allow your cities and towns to suffer constant rocket barrage without retaliating?' Even PA president Abbas lays the blame for the current situation squarely at Hamas' door when he declared at a Cairo press conference: '...we said to them: We ask of you, don't stop the ceasefire, the ceasefire must continue and not stop, in order to avoid what has happened, and if only we had avoided it.' "

      "Israel is finally doing what every member state of the United Nations has the right and obligation--to protect the long-suffering residents of Sderot and communities across southern Israel who have been bombardered with over 3,000  missiles by a terrorist organization. Many have chosen to forget that Israel unilaterally left Gaza in 2005, spending 2.5 billion dollars to remove Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip as an investment for peace with their Palestinian neighbors. All Israel has gotten for this unprecedented gesture are terrorist attacks targeting civilians in Israel proper and official anti-Jewish campaigns in government - controlled media, mosques and schools,"  they added. "Now Hamas leadership is renewing calls for suicide bombings-- another issue the UN refuses to deal with. And while no one wants to see innocent people suffering, it has long been Hamas' policy to deploy their terror infrastructure in and around civilians."

      "The International Community can help--not by their serial condemnation of Israel but by signaling the Palestinians and the Arab world that Hamas' terrorism has brought their cause to a dead end', Center officials concluded.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center is one of the largest international Jewish human rights organizations with over 400,000 member families in the United States. It is an NGO at international agencies including the United Nations, UNESCO, the OSCE, and the Council of Europe.

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