With or Without Schabas, the UN’s Gaza Investigation Is a Farce

Since it came to light that he had previously worked as a legal consultant for the PLO, William Schabas has stepped down as head of a UN inquiry into alleged violations of international law during the most recent Gaza war. But Schabas’s disdain for Israel was no secret, and besides, Gerald Steinberg writes, the entire proceeding lacks legitimacy:

The original UN Human Rights Council mandate [for the investigation] reflects the inherent bias of a body whose agenda, appointments, and sessions are controlled by the 56-nation Islamic bloc. . . . As in many such UN kangaroo courts, the case against Israel . . . was to be based largely on the “evidence” provided by the network of anti-Israel groups claiming a human-rights agenda.

Although claiming to be investigations, each of [the] documents [produced by these groups] is based on a combination of unverifiable Palestinian “testimony” and aspirational international law, meaning that legal principles are invented in order to put Israel “in the dock,” to use Schabas’s terminology.

With so much evidence of failure, any continuation of this pseudo-investigation would only serve to highlight the immoral exploitation of human rights and international law as a weapon to target Israel. In contrast, the demise of the UN’s Schabas commission would mark the long-delayed end to this farce.

Read more at Jerusalem Post

More about: ICC, Protective Edge, UNHRC, United Nations, William Schabas

How America Sowed the Seeds of the Current Middle East Crisis in 2015

Analyzing the recent direct Iranian attack on Israel, and Israel’s security situation more generally, Michael Oren looks to the 2015 agreement to restrain Iran’s nuclear program. That, and President Biden’s efforts to resurrect the deal after Donald Trump left it, are in his view the source of the current crisis:

Of the original motivations for the deal—blocking Iran’s path to the bomb and transforming Iran into a peaceful nation—neither remained. All Biden was left with was the ability to kick the can down the road and to uphold Barack Obama’s singular foreign-policy achievement.

In order to achieve that result, the administration has repeatedly refused to punish Iran for its malign actions:

Historians will survey this inexplicable record and wonder how the United States not only allowed Iran repeatedly to assault its citizens, soldiers, and allies but consistently rewarded it for doing so. They may well conclude that in a desperate effort to avoid getting dragged into a regional Middle Eastern war, the U.S. might well have precipitated one.

While America’s friends in the Middle East, especially Israel, have every reason to feel grateful for the vital assistance they received in intercepting Iran’s missile and drone onslaught, they might also ask what the U.S. can now do differently to deter Iran from further aggression. . . . Tehran will see this weekend’s direct attack on Israel as a victory—their own—for their ability to continue threatening Israel and destabilizing the Middle East with impunity.

Israel, of course, must respond differently. Our target cannot simply be the Iranian proxies that surround our country and that have waged war on us since October 7, but, as the Saudis call it, “the head of the snake.”

Read more at Free Press

More about: Barack Obama, Gaza War 2023, Iran, Iran nuclear deal, U.S. Foreign policy