Sen. Cotton to UN: Is Hamas a terrorist organization?
Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) on Tuesday wrote a letter to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk, highlighting the High Commissioner’s refusal to call Hamas a terrorist organization in the wake of their brutal execution of six hostages.
Senator Cotton pointed out the UN’s repeated false equivalencies between the nation of Israel and the terrorist group Hamas.
“You and your United Nations colleagues should immediately and unequivocally call Hamas what it is: a terrorist organization. The United States, United Kingdom, Israel, Australia, Japan, and even the European Union took this action long ago,” Cotton wrote in the letter to Turk.
“Yet moral blindness unfortunately seems to be your modus operandi—never more evident than in your statement earlier this month after Hamas executed six hostages. Although you professed that you were ‘horrified’ by the executions, you failed even to mention Hamas as the murderer and called for an ‘independent’ investigation into the killing. Hamas had already admitted to these barbaric murders, so I’m not sure what such an investigation would prove,” he added.
“Of course, the United Nation has an obscene penchant for targeting and smearing Israel. From the UN’s infamous ‘Zionism is Racism’ resolution a half century ago to its parroting of Hamas casualty numbers today, the UN consistently sides with terrorists against the Jewish state. Your office especially has shown contempt for Israel, repeatedly posting criticisms of Israel on your official social-media accounts and falsely accusing Israel of war crimes,” continued Cotton.
“Your moral equivalence between brutal terrorists and a nation-state protecting its citizens is appalling. You have painted Israel as the aggressor while ignoring that Hamas bears responsibility for civilian deaths in Gaza.”
“But you can address these concerns with very little effort by simply joining the rest of the civilized world. Could you please answer this simple question: Is Hamas a terrorist organization?” Cotton asked Turk.
The senator asked Turk to respond to his letter no later than September 17 and then added, “To make it very easy for you, I’ll happily accept a letter that says nothing more than ‘Hamas is a terrorist organization’ between the salutation and the signature line. Surely you can muster the courage to do that?”
On Monday, Turk called for the international community to act against Israel, devoting most of his address at the 57th session of the UN Human Rights Council to the war between Israel and the Hamas terrorist organization, and spending most of that time criticizing Israel rather than Hamas.
“Since the horrific 7 October attacks claimed the lives of over 1,200 victims in Israel and injured many others, over 40,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces, several thousand injured, and thousands remain under the rubble in Gaza,” he said, citing the figures provided by the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry, which do not distinguish between combatants and civilians and are considered highly suspect at best.
He compared the plight of the Israeli hostages who were kidnapped on October 7 to the imprisonment of terrorists by Israel, saying, “Each day, Palestinians struggle to survive. Nearly 1.9 million people have been forcibly displaced across the strip, many multiple times. 11 months on, 101 Israeli hostages are still held in Gaza. While the actual number is likely higher, almost 10,000 Palestinians are held in Israeli prisons or ad hoc military facilities, many arbitrarily, with over 50 people having died due to inhumane conditions and ill-treatment.”
The UN Human Rights Commissioner has been accused of bias against Israel. In addition to his controversial statement after the execution of six Israeli hostages by Hamas terrorists, Turk was also quick to criticize Israel after it began to respond to the massacre committed by the Hamas terrorist organization on October 7, 2023.
In November, he published a statement criticizing Israel’s response to the massacre, without having criticized Hamas or acknowledged the atrocities it committed.
