Israel Allies in foreign legislatures defend IDF’s Gaza operation

The Israel Allies Foundation coordinates activities of pro-Israel caucuses to bring a unified voice on issues and legislation regarding Israel worldwide.

By GIL STERN STERN HOFFMAN
eliot engel 311 (photo credit: Courtesy)
eliot engel 311
(photo credit: Courtesy)
Members of parliament from around the world have been making statements and writing articles supporting Operation Protective Edge as part of a global campaign launched last week by the Israel Allies Foundation.
The Israel Allies Foundation is the umbrella that coordinates activities of pro-Israel caucuses, working together to bring a unified voice on issues and legislation regarding Israel worldwide.
“At this very moment there are elected members of government in 30 countries on six continents mobilizing support for Israel,” Knesset Christian Allies Caucus director Josh Reinstein said. “Whether through resolutions, statements or the media, we are witnessing the full force of faith-based diplomacy.”
The chairman of the Israel Allies Caucus at the European Parliament, Dutch MP Bas Belder, issued a statement mourning the civilians and IDF soldiers lost in the “righteous battle against the terrorist acts committed by Hamas against the Jewish state and its citizens.”
He called for the disarming of all terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip.
Reverend Kenneth Rasalabe Joseph Meshoe, the president of the African Christian Democratic Party in South Africa, who heads the pro-Israel caucus there, commended his president, Jacob Zuma, for “resisting the temptation to join the chorus of those who condemn Israel only in the conflict.”
He invoked the late South African leader Nelson Mandela in his defense of the Jewish state.
“Israel should also have the right to defend herself against rockets fired at them by Hamas,” Meshoe said. “This is their common-law right to self defense, as the late former president Mandela rightly said: If we want to talk about justice, then let there be justice for all.”
The head of the pro-Israel caucus in the Swiss parliament, Erich von Siebenthal, attacked Hamas in an article in the Aargauer Zeitung, a daily newspaper written in Swiss-German.
“During the battles against Israel, they abuse their own people as human shields,” he wrote. “It is the tragic reality that Hamas builds on the effectiveness of the images of women and children as victims of Israeli air attacks. Dead Palestinians are for them an important propaganda success, which has had its effect in Switzerland.”
Eliot Engel (D-New York) and Trent Franks (R-Arizona), who co-chair the Israel Allies Caucus in Congress both issued statements reaffirming Israel’s right to self defense. Engel called on the Palestinian Authority to cut ties with Hamas, which he said has used the unity government as a fig leaf for its renewed commitment to terrorist kidnapping and rocket attacks.
“The recent rocket launches from Gaza into Israel dim any hope for a calm resolution,” Engel said. “True to form, this is Hamas baiting Israel into a conflict.”
Franks accused US President Barack Obama of not doing enough to support Israel during the operation. He said the administration should not have supported the PA following its unity deal with Hamas.
“For too long this administration has played the bedfellow of the Palestinian Authority, even going so far as to kowtow to the PA’s talking points,” Franks said. “The United States must now stand behind Prime Minister [Binyamin] Netanyahu as he makes the difficult decisions necessary to fulfill his promise to put an end to Hamas ‘once and for all.’”


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