Israel opposed a proposal at a recent United Nations forum aimed at rebuilding the Gaza Strip’s war-ravaged telecommunications infrastructure on the grounds that Palestinian connectivity is a readymade weapon for Hamas.

The resolution, which was drafted by Saudi Arabia for last week’s U.N. International Telecommunication Union summit in Geneva, is aimed at returning internet access to Gaza’s millions of disconnected denizens.

It ultimately passed under a secret ballot on June 14 — but not before it was watered down to remove some of its more strident language about Israel’s responsibility for the destruction of Gaza. The U.S. delegate at the ITU summit had specifically opposed those references.

Israel, for its part, had blasted the proposal as a whole. Israel’s ITU delegate described it as “a resolution that while seemingly benign in its intent to rebuild telecommunications infrastructure, distorts the reality of the ongoing situation in Gaza,” according to a recording of the session […]