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Israel critic appointed to head UNHRC Gaza probe

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The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) last night announced that Prof. William Schabas, a Canadian international law expert and lecturer at Middlesex University will head an international commission of inquiry over Operation Protective Edge. Schabas is regarded as an outspoken critic of Israel.

The UNHRC, which has a track record of hostility towards Israel, resolved last month to establish the commission to investigate “all violations of international humanitarian law … in the context of the military operations conducted since 13 June 2014.” At the time, the European Union condemned the resolution as “unbalanced, inaccurate” while the United States representative at the UNHRC called the inquiry “yet another one-sided mechanism targeting Israel.”

Although Haaretz says that Israel initially sought to find ways to work with the commission, Schabas’s appointment will likely put paid to such efforts. Schabas said last year, “My favourite would be [Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu within the dock of the International Criminal Court (ICC).” Several years earlier he called for the ICC to pursue Israeli President Shimon Peres, commenting, “Why are we going after the president of Sudan for Darfur and not the president of Israel for Gaza?”

The UNHRC President announced that alongside Schabas, the three-person commission would include Senegalese legal expert Doudou Diene and British-Lebanese lawyer Amal Alamuddin. However, Alamuddin later released a statement saying that professional commitments would prevent her from sitting on the panel. It is unclear who will replace her.

Spokesman for Israel’s Foreign Ministry, Yigal Palmor commented that Schabas’s appointment showed “that the report has already been written and remains only to be signed.” The Prime Minister’s Office called the commission “a travesty” which “should be rejected by decent people everywhere.” US State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf also criticised the commission, saying “there’s a way to investigate things that’s not one-sided and biased.”

The UNHRC launched a similar probe following Operation Cast Lead in 2009, headed by Judge Richard Goldstone, which was hugely critical of Israel. Goldstone later distanced himself from its findings.