UN: Israel Independence Day Fireworks Noise ‘Collective Punishment’

“The noisy displays rub salt in the collective would inflicted by Israel when the latter refused to be pushed into the sea.”

Geneva, May 13 – The United Nations Human Rights Council again weighed in against Israel today, calling Wednesday night’s fireworks in honor of the country’s Independence Day collective punishment of the Palestinians, some of whom had to hear the noise.

The Council convened an emergency session to address Palestinian allegations as soon as the fireworks began after 8 pm local time, and produced a condemnation of Israel for subjecting Palestinians to the sounds of the fireworks and scaring Palestinian dogs, if Palestinians kept dogs. Testimony before the Council included photographs of cowering children, which were originally taken in Aleppo, Syria, during an aerial bombardment by the Russian Air Force.

The Human Rights Council will convene at a later date to decide whether to appoint an investigator to report on this episode, and whether such an appointee’s mandate would include the 2016 Independence Day fireworks only, or would also examine the celebratory pyrotechnics of previous years, and their negative psychological impact on Palestinians.

“This body condemns in no uncertain terms the emotional pummeling of the Palestinians with ostentatious, noisy displays that rub salt in the collective wound inflicted by Israel when the latter refused to be pushed into the sea in 1948 and again in 1967,” read the UNHRC resolution. “We call on the international community to stand by the Palestinians in their struggle to survive in the aftermath of their failure to commit against the Jews the very genocide they accuse the Jews of committing for the last sixty-eight years.”

Two nations threatened to vote against the measure if the proposed resolution did not also include a paragraph blaming Israel for injuries sustained by celebrants or locals when Palestinians celebrate or mourn various occasions with bursts of automatic weapons fire into the air. However, other delegates managed to persuade China and Syria to withdraw that demand in exchange for commitments to bring before the Council at least four draft proposals in the next four months aimed at finding fault with Israel as a means of distracting from massive, ongoing human rights abuses in those two countries.

A second proposal was also debated but ultimately not brought to a vote at the session, owing to disagreement between its sponsors as to the exact wording. The proposed resolution condemned Israel for Palestinian production of improvised firearms, saying that Israel effectively blockades Palestinians, thus not allowing them to develop a proper firearms industry with which to supply people who attack Israelis, and they must rely on homemade, more dangerous or unreliable weapons.

(h/t Jacob Erickson)