White House Opposes U.N. Debate on Gaza Report

By JTA June 24, 2015

The Obama administration opposes any Security Council consideration of a United Nations report on last summer’s war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

“We challenge the very mechanism which created it,” John Kirby, the State Department spokesman, said Tuesday, a day after the report’s publication.

“And so we’re not going to have a readout of this,” he said. “We’re not going to have a rebuttal to it. We’re certainly going to read it, as we read all U.N. reports. But we challenge the very foundation upon which this report was written, and we don’t believe that there’s a call or a need for any further Security Council work on this.”

The U.N. Human Rights Council, a body that Israel and the United States say is biased and targets Israel more than any other country, commissioned the report.

While the report accused both sides of possible war crimes, its findings focused more on what it considers Israeli wrongdoing in its operation known as Protective Edge.

Kirby’s implicit warning that the United States would use its veto to keep the Security Council from considering the report cuts off one avenue of legal action against Israel.

However, the International Criminal Court, which is affiliated to, but independent of, the United Nations, may still take action.

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