“With their mouths the godless destroy their neighbors, but through knowledge the righteous escape.” (Proverbs 11:9)
The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) has appointed an international commission to investigate Israel’s conduct during Operation Protective Edge.
The UN statement said the independent team will probe “all violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law … in the context of the military operations conducted since June 13, 2014.”
The commission is to be headed by William Schabas, a Canadian professor of international law known for his bias against Israel’s leaders, especially Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and blindness toward Hamas.
“You can’t spend several years calling for the prosecution of someone, and then suddenly act as his judge. It’s absurd—and a violation of the minimal rules of due process applicable to UN fact-finding missions,” said Hillel Neuer, head of the Geneva-based advocacy group UN Watch. (CBC)
William Schabas, a Canadian professor of international law known for his bias against Israel’s leaders, will head the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) commission that will be investigating Israel’s conduct during Operation Protective Edge.
Even though Hamas is a recognized terrorist organization, when Schabas was asked on Israeli television if Hamas was a terrorist organization, he stated that it would be inappropriate for him to identify it as such since he must remain as neutral and objective as possible.
Although he has yet to identify Hamas as a terrorist organization, Schabas once urged in a speech that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should be tried “in the dock of an international court” and wrote that he could be regarded as “the single individual most likely to threaten the survival of Israel.” (CBC)
On Monday, the Israeli Foreign Ministry issued a statement that the Human Rights Council had long ago become the “Terrorists’ Rights Council” and that its conclusions were predetermined.
“If any more proof were needed, the appointment of the chairman of the panel, whose anti-Israel bias and opinions are known to all, proves beyond any doubt that Israel cannot expect justice from this body, whose report has already been written and all that is left to decide is who will sign off on it,” the statement said.
Israel’s ambassador to the UN Ron Prosor told Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, “One doesn’t need to be a fortune teller to predict” that any investigation in which Schabas is in charge is going to be “a farce.”
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon (left) is greeted by Ron Prosor (right), Israeli Permanent Representative to the UN, shortly after arriving in Israel from neighboring Jordan in 2012.
The last time the Commission investigated the Jewish state was following Operation Cast Lead, the conflict with Gaza that took place between 2008 and 2009.
The report was so biased against Israel that even the panel’s own head, South African jurist Richard Goldstone, later admitted that Israel did not intentionally target civilians. He also admitted that Israel even investigated over 400 accusations of alleged misconduct while Hamas did not investigate any of its own. (NY Times)
“If I had known then what I know now,” Goldstone wrote in 2011, “the Goldstone Report would have been a different document.”
Meanwhile, a recent editorial in the Toronto Sun, a Canadian newspaper, said Schabas’ appointment as panel head comes as no surprise, noting that UNHRC “includes a number of member countries which have no understanding of democracy or due process and whose view of the Mideast can be summed up in three words: They hate Israel.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
Prime Minister Netanyahu suggested that the panel would do better to first look at Damascus, Baghdad, and Tripoli, where real war crimes are being committed.
In a filmed statement uploaded to his official Facebook page, Netanyahu blasted the UNHRC panel for its failure to probe Hamas’s attacks on Israeli citizens and its use of its own people as “human shields.” He also noted Syrian President Bashar Assad’s “massacre” of his own people and how ISIS is targeting the destruction of the Kurds.
“Instead, the UN has decided to come and investigate Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East, a democracy that acts in a legitimate way to protect its citizens from murderous terrorism,” Netanyahu said.
Netanyahu said the actions of the UNHRC lends legitimacy to such terrorist groups as ISIS and Hamas. (Times of Israel)
Following the UNHRC announcement, Israel announced plans for an internal investigation into Israel Defense Forces (IDF) actions during Operation Protective Edge, including decisions made by the security cabinet.
“In light of the allegations that have been raised, that Israel breached international law and has not examined IDF action according to international law, the state comptroller has decided to investigate military and political decision-making during Operation Protective Edge,” Israel’s State Comptroller Joseph Shapira’s office said Wednesday. (JPost)
“But in that coming day no weapon turned against you will succeed. You will silence every voice raised up to accuse you. These benefits are enjoyed by the servants of the LORD; their vindication will come from Me.” (Isaiah 54:17)
Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Tzachi Hanegbi
In related news regarding Operation Protective Edge, Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister, Tzachi Hanegbi, said in an interview with The Media Line that 75 percent of Hamas’s 10,000 rockets had been destroyed, but there was a clear danger that it would rearm. (JPost)
In light of Hamas’ demands that Gaza borders be opened, Hanegbi said, “In order to prevent the re-arming of Hamas what we have to do is make sure there is a new security mechanism supervising whatever goes in (to the Gaza Strip).”
When asked about the fact that Israel had originally allowed cement and other materials to enter Gaza that were eventually used in the construction of terrorist tunnels, Hanegbi responded that Israel warned her allies that this would be the case, but caved under pressure from them.
“We were not very strong about it because we wanted Gaza to get her life back,” he said.
When asked why Israel didn’t do something about the tunnels earlier, Hanegbi stated, “Hamas didn’t shoot at us so we didn’t want to pre-empt an attack. This is like what we are doing in Lebanon. We know about Hezbollah’s very very effective capabilities to harm us in times of war. They have rockets, they have missiles, they have an arsenal of state-of-the-art weapons. We don’t go into Lebanon and take care of Hezbollah because we see for eight years there is deterrence and we don’t feel it’s the right thing to do to send our boys there.”
