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 on Jerusalem Post: http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Swan-song-for-Schabas-389909