More chemical weapons attacks in Syria? Illustrative photo of soldier training. Photo courtesy of Mr James Brabenec (IMCOM)
Reports of the latest chemical weapons attack on a Syrian hospital—suspected to have been carried out by the Assad regime against their own people—has led the United Nations most powerful council to schedule an emergency session, while one of the top leaders of Judaism in Israel on Sunday termed the conflict in Syria a “genocide.” As the UN Security Council prepares to discuss the latest Syrian chemical attack, United States Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley has called for a new investigation.
“The Security Council has to come together and demand immediate access for first responders, support an independent investigation into what happened, and hold accountable those responsible for this atrocious act,” said Haley in a press release from her office. She wasn’t the only one to call for action.
Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Israel Rabbi Yitzchak Yosef said in a press release, “I have said in the past and I will say it again: What is happening in Syria is genocide of women and children in its cruelest form, using weapons of mass destruction. We have a moral obligation not to keep quiet and to try and stop this massacre.”
Israel has already intervened in Syria in the past to prevent the Bashar al-Assad regime from obtaining nuclear weapons by bombing their developing nuclear reactor. Yosef hinted at that past military action, as well as the Holocaust and Biblical law—or Torah in Hebrew—in his latest comments.
“As Jews who have experienced genocide, as Jews whose Torah is a light to the nations, it is our moral obligation to try and stop this murder,” said Yosef, whose comments were published by the Chief Rabbinate Spokesman. “It is an obligation no less important than the moral obligation to destroy the nuclear reactor in Syria.”
Hours after the Chief Rabbi’s comments, Russia is claiming that Israel struck a Syrian air base, according to the Sputnik International news website.
The US didn’t call the Syrian actions genocide, but they expressed outrage at the regime if the allegations prove true. And the Assad regime weren’t the only ones being condemned.
“The Assad regime and its backers must be held accountable and any further attacks prevented immediately. Russia, with its unwavering support for the regime, ultimately bears responsibility for these brutal attacks, targeting of countless civilians, and the suffocation of Syria’s most vulnerable communities with chemical weapons,” said US State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert in a statement from her office.
Nauert said Russia’s support of Syria and failure to prevent chemical weapons attacks despite international efforts to end them “calls into question” Moscow’s commitment to achieving peace in the civil war and their support for the non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
Said Nauert, “The United States calls on Russia to end this unmitigated support immediately and work with the international community to prevent further, barbaric chemical weapons attacks.”
(By Joshua Spurlock, www.themideastupdate.com, April 8, 2018)