The latest hurdle that the Israeli government has placed in front of the United Nations fact-finding mission about what happened in Jenin was not unexpected. What was surprising is that the Israeli government initially welcomed this fact-finding mission. Israel time and time again put another hurdle to delay that mission, impede its mandate, or better even abort it completely.

The Israeli government has stated repeatedly that it has nothing to hide. Yet, when Terje Roed-Larsen, the UN special envoy spoke about the horror he saw in Jenin, he was declared a persona non grata and was branded, as expected, an anti-Semite, forgetting that the victims themselves, the Arabs, are Semites.

Shimon Peres, the Israeli foreign minister, stated that this fact-finding mission cannot question whomever it wants to question. If Israel, as it claims, really has nothing to hide, why is it refusing questioning?

The bottom line here is clear: Israel wants the world to see what Israel wants the world to see, that is, seeing through the eyes of the Israeli government. Israel wants no blame, no indictment, no embarrassment and no questioning.

It wants to be supported, unconditionally, whether it does right or wrong. This does not make any sense and does not make it righteous. Unfortunately, several news channels have played out Israel’s policy.

Not only this, they exposed their own real hypocrisy by showing the real thing, the Palestinian version, on their international channels and showing a scaled down version, which is what Israel wants the Americans to see, here on their American channel.

They probably thought among the international competition, they could not lie. But here in America, all news channels show the Israeli version of the story, and no one can see the international channels which are broadcast on satellite to Europe and the Middle East.

What is really sad in all of this is that the United Nations has fallen hostage to Israel, which dictates its own terms on the organization, instead of the organization dictating its terms on the world.

Ashraf Hamad

Graduate student

Electrical and computer engineering