The United Nation's Confusion About Human Rights
"[The UN commission set up by the UN Human Rights Council was an] anti-Israel body [with a track record of not responding to true human rights violations around the globe]."
"This is the same council that in 2014 made more decisions against Israel than against Iran, Syria and North Korea combined."
"[Gaza's Hamas rulers] need to be investigated, not Israel."
Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu
"Crimes against humanity, war crimes and the crime of aggression, all of which I think it can be shown have been perpetrated at various times during the history of the State of Israel."
"My favourite would be Netanyahu in the dock at the International Criminal Court."
"When I was asked if I would accept nomination to the Commission of Inquiry, I was not requested to provide any details of my past statements and other activities concerning Palestine and Israel."
William Schabas, Canadian law professor, chair, UN Human Rights Council independent Gaza war inquiry
AP Photo/Jiri Buller How could Schabas have believed that taking money from
one of the sides to a dispute – to provide advice directly related to
the subject he was now called upon to consider – would not be a problem.
The 47-member UN Human Rights Council whose makeup is inclusive of Arab and Muslim-majority countries has garnered a reputation of having passed more resolutions specifically condemning alleged abuses committed by Israel, than human rights abuses well known on the record to have been committed by other states, including some of the states sitting on the commission themselves. A bit of nit-picking?
Professor Schabas has defended his record, describing himself as a "scholar involved in international human rights, I have regularly condemned perpetrators of violations. This work in defence of human rights appears to have made me a huge target for malicious attacks", he wrote, in resigning as head of the special investigation. An investigation that human rights luminaries such as China, Russia, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates voted in favour of.
Mr. Schabas resents his critics who claim that to do justice to the task placed before him he would morally have had to be neutral in his outlook. The Council when calling for the investigation in which he was involved, spoke of "deploring" Israel's "grave violations of the human rights of the Palestinian civilian population", making no note of "Hamas", its terrorist tunnels or its rockets into Israel.
Israel, in other words, committed a grave violation of human rights in seeking to respond to the threats and the real-time danger in which its civilian population found themselves, targeted by Hamas terrorists. Mr. Schabas had worked in 2012 to provide the Palestine Liberation Organization with a legal opinion respecting their approach to the International Court of Justice against Israel.
He claimed in his appointment that he would not allow his past criticism of Israeli leaders to affect his judgement or his ability to carry out the investigation he was charged with heading. Palestinian rockets deliberately made targets of Israel's settlements across the border from Gaza and Israeli civilians; many of those rockets were launched from civilian sites in Gaza.
The International Criminal Court has just cleared both Serbia and Croatia of having committed "genocide", ruling that neither had an intent to do so, since under the 1948 UN Convention, genocide is defined as acts "committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group."
As reality has it, Hamas's charter specifically calls for the eradication of the state of Israel; Hamas leaders have stated that it would be most convenient for them and their agenda if more Jews moved to Israel from their worldwide diaspora, since it would make it easier for Hamas to destroy world Jewry if they were all located more conveniently right next door. If that doesn't make their intention genocidal, what would?
The intention of the findings of the special investigation is to reach a conclusion that could make it very useful for the Palestinians to turn over the findings to the International Criminal Court, to act on the findings, to sit in judgement on Israel. Evidence points to Hamas being more suited to be brought before the International Criminal Court than a country forced time and again to defend its citizens from violent attacks whose purpose is the state's destruction.
Labels: Conflict, Hamas, Human Rights Council, Israel, Security, Terrorism, United Nations
posted by Pieface @ Thursday, February 05, 2015
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