In the aftermath of the exchange, in which Israel freed Palestinians,imprisoned for everything from dissent to violence in return for the release of Gilad Shalit, an Israeli Defense Force soldier captured in the July War with Lebanon’s Hizballah, Israeli opinion is divided, but only slightly: according to polls taken immediately after the release, between 74 and 80 percent of the Israeli public support the exchange. Indeed, addressing concerns as to the inequality of the exchange, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu quoted from the Talmud: “He who saves one soul, it is as though he saved an entire world.” Meanwhile, Palestinians are jubilant at the prospect of having secured the release of so many, for what they consider so little. It seems that for once, a solution has been brokered in the endlessly intractable conflict between Israel and the Palestinian people that somewhat satisfies everyone.

Yet the prisoner exchange, seemingly a one-shot, no-strings-attached PR boon for the Israeli government and Hamas alike, will have far-reaching consequences for which neither party is prepared. The exchange, brokered in secret by Egypt between the two parties, failed to engage either the Israeli or Palestinian public in a way that would have given them a sense of future potential for open cooperation. The concept of negotiation between Israel and Hamas has been thrust upon both publics quite suddenly, giving them little stake in the talks or the possibility of others in the future. Moreover, as the initial joy fades, the exchange serves to remind both parties of the tense relationship that created the need to exchange such prisoners—captured in times of conflict, imprisoned for political dissent and terrorism—in the first place. Indeed, both sides view this act as one of just compensation rather than one of reconciliation. The impact it will have for both Israeli security prospects and Palestinian aspirations is minimal at best and costly at worst.

While the deal has received much praise from the Israeli public, it is mysterious that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other senior government officials dealing with the exchange would believe such a security risk to be wise. It seems illogical that, a government and, moreover, a nation so concerned with the threat of terrorism of which they consider Hamas a key breeder, would broker a deal that releases men and women whose involvement included but was not limited to a 2001 Jerusalem pizzeria bombing, the 2002 “Passover Massacre” in Netanya, and a 2004 shooting attack on the Trans-Israel Highway. To the Israelis, these incidents no doubt represent profound threats to their security, and the release of those who committed them seems an odd risk to take considering the importance they place on that existence. Israeli opposition leader Tzipi Livni, among others, has pointed out this discrepancy.

Yet while Israeli’s security interests have been imperiled by the prisoner exchange, Palestinians aspirations for statehood have been dealt a far greater blow. The release, while celebrated by those families whose loved ones had come home, some of whom had been imprisoned since 1987′s first intifada, was quickly hailed by Hamas themselves as evidence of the need to take more Israeli soldiers hostage since, clearly, it had proven effective. “The people want a new Gilad!” protesters chanted at a Hamas rally in Gaza City, shortly after the exchange. And while the capture of Gilad Shalit does appear to have paid dividends for Hamas, it has become painfully evident to Palestinians that violent action against the state of Israel only results in increased security measures and repression. Hamas’ citing of this exchange as a success, then, has the potential to derail the non-violent Palestinian opposition to Israel that has become more widespread in recent years.

Moreover, the exchange has increased the legitimacy and popularity of Hamas at the expense of the West Bank’s Fatah, whose influence has been called into question and weakened by the deal. Israel and the international community alike generally regard Fatah as the more legitimate Palestinian government; any substantive peace deal, therefore, would necessitate their involvement. Relations between Israel and Fatah, however, are tenuous at best, and an upsurge in violence by Hamas, by taking prisoners or using similar means would most likely reflect poorly on the Palestinian cause as a whole, and therefore Fatah by association. Moreover, historically, this sort of violence has led to increasingly repressive Israeli security measures, which would set Palestinian expectations back substantially.

Furthermore, even if Hamas’ rhetoric fails to derail the Palestinian cause, the deal they brokered with Israel has taken the spotlight away from the issues that concern Palestinians the most. While Shalit’s release and the role Hamas’ played in it has caused a stir in the media, little attention has been paid to the underlying causes of the conflict, dizzying in scope and, as of late, unaddressed by either party through negotiation. Any attempts at peace talks have stalled and a UN bid, while symbolically significant, has been doomed to failure. Palestinians continue to exist in an oddly bifurcated, quasi-independent non-state, which they view as imminently threatened by Israel’s persistent creation of “facts on the ground” in the form of illegal settlements. Yet international attention regarding the conflict has been distracted from the unabated settlement construction in East Jerusalem, supported by PM Netanyahu, among others, by a high-publicity event with little implication for the larger issues at stake.

Some will argue that the joy and relief that both sides have felt in the days following the exchange will promote a mutual spirit of goodwill, inciting reconciliation and future peace. Others argue that the negotiation necessary to cut the Israel-Hamas deal served to break the ice between the two parties, laying a path for future talks. “This is a sign of a good deal,” wrote Uri Dromi, former spokesman for previous Israeli PM’s Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres, “when both sides walk away equally dissatisfied.” This might have been true if a deal containing any substance had been reached.

Yet the fact that talks that did not address the underlying issues concerning Palestinian statehood and its implications—for Jerusalem— water issues, the return of refugees and Israeli security, to name a few—yet still require outside mediation does not bode well for any future relationship. Furthermore, neither the Palestinian nor Israeli public saw the talks as such: to each side, the deal represented the long-awaited return of men and women, imprisoned by an unjust party for fighting a just cause. Indeed, the Israeli government did not even attempt to portray it as such. “I have brought your son home to you,” Netanyahu announced, upon bringing Shalit to his parents’ home in northern Israel. The bravado and simplicity of his statement brushed aside any acknowledgment of the complexity of the deal he had just made, as well as its implications for his nation and another’s future.

For Hamas, the prisoner deal seemed too good to be true. For the Israeli and Palestinian public, it is. If the exchange served any purpose, it was to remind people from both societies of another type of prisoner—the one that they themselves have become, held hostage by directionless leadership willing to make long-term sacrifices for short-term popularity.

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.