Opinion

Phony friends of Israel

Congressional Democrats say they want to defend Israel — but without taking on Israel’s enemies.

Bizarre choice — so bizarre as to make their professed support for Israel practically meaningless.

At issue is a resolution proposed by Rep. Pete King (R-Long Island) that calls on Washington to quit the US Human Rights Council — which two weeks ago voted 32-3 to condemn Israel’s raid on the Gaza-bound flotilla.

Incredibly, not a single House Democrat — not even from the New York delegation — is willing to co-sponsor King’s resolution “unless we take out the language about the UN,” he says.

Why? No Democrat wants to go on record disagreeing with President Obama’s decision to end the Bush-era boycott of the anti-Israel council — whose members include such human-rights champions as Iran and Libya.

At the time, the White House insisted that its presence would help reform the United Nations’ Geneva-based body.

Some reform: Yesterday, the HRC released a report from its Mideast investigator, Richard Falk, calling for a global economic and cultural boycott of Israel, which it compares to apartheid South Africa.

Meanwhile, Cuba’s Geneva mission distributed to council members a statement by Fidel Castro charging that Israel “would not hesitate to send the one and a half million [Palestinians] to the crematoria, where millions of Jews of all ages were exterminated by the Nazis.”

And, just two weeks ago, Syria’s delegate to the HRC said during a debate that Israeli children are taught to sing about sucking the blood of Arabs.

And this is the outfit that Democrats want the US to remain part of.

“I hope they put our relationship with Israel above their relationship with Obama,” says King of his Democratic colleagues. Not likely.

Disgraceful.