The United Nations Human Rights Commission voted 30-1 today for a draft resolution condemning Israel’s bombing of Iraq’s nuclear reactor last June. The United States cost the only negative vote. Eleven countries abstained: Australia, Canada, China, Denmark, Fiji, France, West Germany, Italy, Japan, Holland and Britain.
The Israeli delegate, Ambassador Ovadia Soffer, argued that the Human Rights Commission was not the proper forum to discuss this matter which has been acted on already by the Security Council and the General Assembly. Soffer attacked Iraq’s human rights record.
“Repression and cruelty in Iraq have prompted Amnesty International to publish a report on systematic use of cruelty in Iraq,” the Israeli envoy noted. “Most death sentences are passed by ‘Revolutionary Courts’ the procedures of which violate Iraqi and international law.”
Ironically, the delegate from Iran, which is an avowed enemy of Israel, joined in the attack on Iraq. “The crimes committed by Israel against Iraq were insignificant compared to the crimes committed by Iraq against Iran,” he said.
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