Apropos that UN Human Rights Council resolution on Sri Lanka, a dismaying fact, if it is one, is reported at the end of the following paragraph from a leader in today's Times:
Support for this deeply flawed resolution came from the usual suspects - China, Russia, India, Pakistan and a clutch of Asian and Islamic nations determined to prevent the council ever investigating human rights violations in their own or any country. It was sad to see Israel, for obvious political motives, joining in this charade, claiming that massacres, violence, repression and internment are an "internal affair".
I have not so far been able to find another source for this, but on the assumption that the Times wouldn't be printing it without a reliable basis for doing so [see, now, the update below], I'm bound to ask what the government of Israel thinks it's doing in taking this position. If it wants authority for the view that massacres and such are not purely an internal affair, it need look no further than a judgement by the Israeli Supreme Court in 1961, explaining why an Israeli court could try Adolf Eichmann. To yield in the present case to a self-interested political calculation is, in any case, shortsighted in the extreme: declaring such matters an internal affair would free not only Israel from outside scrutiny - and, in fact, taking a realistic view of how things now stand for Israel in the world, it won't even do that - but it would mean attacks on Israeli civilians by Hamas or other terrorist groups must also then escape the scrutiny of international bodies. For the government of Israel, of all governments, to overlook this is a culpable failure of judgement.
Likewise the Netanyahu government's desire to allow 'natural growth' for Jewish settlements on the West Bank. From the very beginning these settlements have represented an obstacle to peace between Israelis and Palestinians, to a lasting and just resolution of the conflict and a two-state solution. A freeze on their further growth is essential as a token of serious intent: to show that the process of Jewish settlement on occupied Palestinian land is seen as reversible. For this reason, Hillary Clinton's statement on the matter is welcome:
He [President Obama] wants to see a stop to settlements - not some settlements, not outposts, not 'natural growth' exceptions... That is our position. That is what we have communicated very clearly.
In the same connection, see this report:
[W]hen Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu came to Capitol Hill for a May 18 meeting after being pressed by President Obama to freeze the expansion of West Bank settlements, he was "stunned," Netanyahu aides said, to hear what seemed like a well-coordinated attack against his stand on settlements. The criticism came from congressional leaders, key lawmakers dealing with foreign relations and even from a group of Jewish members.
.....
The Israeli prime minister also found little support for his position on settlements from the organized Jewish community. Jewish communal groups have largely remained silent and did not spring to Netanyahu's defense.
Update at 4.45 PM. Perhaps there wasn't any reliable basis for what was said about Israel in that Times leader. The relevant sentence has now been removed from the online version. But see here and here for confirmation of how it originally appeared. I'm leaving the post as it is - for the argument contained in the first part, and for the second part, obviously unaffected by the Times's emendation.