After enduring 8 years of attacks by over 12,000 Hamas rockets fired indiscriminately into Israeli villages, Israel finally retaliated in December of 2008. The Israeli military’s operation “Cast-Lead” sought to target and eliminate key terrorist leaders of Hamas. Almost immediately, newspapers and governments around the world published claims that Israel was using “disproportionate force” in this operation. The unequal death toll from the fighting—1000 Palestinians to 13 Israelis—led those inclined to anti-Zionism to accuse Israel of targeting civilians and committing war crimes. These charges failed to consider Israel’s unprecedented efforts to avoid civilian casualties. Israel released thousands of flyers and text messages warning Gazans to leave targeted areas and even called people on their cell phones telling them to evacuate potential bombing sites. For those who stayed in the affected areas, Israel sent food and medical equipment and continued to supply water and electricity.

The responsibility for the tragic Palestinian death toll lies not with the Israel Defense Force but with Hamas. Hamas fired from ambulances and hospitals. Hamas stockpiled weapons in civilian buildings. Hamas used human shields. While Israel took care to save as many innocent lives as possible, Hamas is guilty of using terrorist tactics and infringing upon numerous internationally accepted laws of warfare. Because Israel was justified in its defensive military operations against Hamas and because it took such strong measures to avoid civilian casualties, the U.S. should continue to support its ally in the face of international backlash against the conflict.

Every country has a right to self-defense. In order for Israel to stop the barrage of rocket fire from the Gaza strip, it could not defend itself on its own soil alone. Rather than risk massive Palestinian civilian casualties by firing its own rockets in response, Israel sent in ground troops to seek out terrorists within the Gaza Strip. Its force was the minimum necessary to defend itself. Unfortunately, because of Hamas’ human shield tactics, high numbers of Palestinians were killed.

None of this evidence appears in United Nations Human Rights Council’s “Goldstone Report”, named for the South African head of the “Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict.” The report accuses Israel of purposefully targeting civilians and of committing “crimes against humanity.” In addition to blatant fabrications (such as “there is no evidence that hospitals or ambulances were used for military activities” and “the amount of aid allowed into Gaza by Israel decreased after the end of the fighting”), the report ignores overwhelming evidence of the care Israel showed to Palestinian civilians. Instead, it accepts hearsay and anecdotal evidence from Palestinian eyewitnesses.

The report does accuse Hamas of war conduct infractions, but these minor charges pale in comparison to the zeal with which the report criticizes Israel. U.S. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said, “Although the report covers both sides of the conflict, it focuses overwhelmingly on Israel’s actions,” and Goldstone opted for “cookie-cutter conclusions about Israel’s actions, while keeping the deplorable actions of Hamas to generalized remarks.” Numerous publications, among them The Wall Street Journal and The Economist dismissed the report as strongly biased.

The UN Human Rights Council, nevertheless, officially endorsed the report on October 16th. The Council includes representatives from such countries as China, Angola, Cuba, and other governments known for oppressive behavior. The vote to endorse the report passed by a margin of 25 to 6.

The Israel must now acquiesce to “transparent” investigations of its military workings, and the Council has recommended that Israel face trial in the International Criminal Court. This decision has tremendous implications for Israel’s long-term self-defense. If the Council could find Israel guilty in this case, it could do so no matter how moral and civilian-conscious Israel’s campaigns to eliminate terrorists might be. Israel’s ability to defend itself from Hamas, Hezbollah, and other hostile neighbors will be severely diminished as long as the United Nations wields the threat to drag its generals in front of the International Criminal Court. Indeed, the greatest threat facing the United States’ strongest ally in the Middle East is being “pressured” out of the right to self-defense by the UN Human Rights Council.

The Council’s decision displays transparent anti-Israeli bias. In response to an article in a widely read Swedish tabloid, which claimed that Israeli soldiers have been killing Palestinians in order to harvest and traffic their organs, the government-controlled press of many countries in the Middle East spent parts of the summer publishing cartoons depicting Jews killing Arabs to drink their blood. Among those countries on the blood libel bandwagon are Jordan and Qatar, who also serve on the United Nations Human Rights Council and voted for the Goldstone Report. Clearly, many of the countries on the Council have an agenda other than the protection of human rights.

This is not a sudden new international conspiracy to eliminate Israel and Middle Eastern Jewry; anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism have been constant realities for Israel since its founding. Now more than ever is the time for the United States to stand firm in Israel’s defense. The United States’ permanent representative to the United Nations, Susan Rice, said, “We have long expressed our very serious concern with the mandate that was given by the Human Rights Council prior to our joining the council, which we viewed as unbalanced, one-sided and basically unacceptable.” The US was one of the six countries who voted against the Goldstone Report, and the House of Representatives recently passed a resolution denouncing the Report by an overwhelming margin of 344-36.

Where has President Obama stood among all this? So far, he has reassured Israel that the Report’s impact will fade and requested that Palestinian Authority President Mahmud Abbas drop his support for it. Abbas did, but then recanted due to pressure from the Palestinian people. Obama cannot afford another diplomatic failure like this in the Middle East. He needs to be clearer that when it comes to facing the threat against Israel, the United States is unwilling to compromise. He needs to rally worldwide support against the Goldstone Report—if enough countries cooperate, the Council’s influence will diminish. Obama needs to condemn the Human Rights Council and encourage the United Nations to better monitor it, if not shut it down altogether. Otherwise, the United States’ only stalwart ally and the only democracy in the Middle East may face further pressure from the Human Rights Council and other international anti-Zionists.