United Nations Demonization of Israel Backfires

 

United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) has released its self-declared, in-depth, revealing, factual, unbiased, principled and unprejudiced report equating the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) tactics during Operation Protective Edge with the terror-motivated acts by Hamas. Initially the Canadian Jurist William Schabas had been appointed to head the UNHRC committee tasked with investigating Operation Protective Edge to assure that the ensuing report would be transparent, factual and above reproach but was forced to resign that post as he was found to have a long history of anti-Israel invective and had done contract work with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) terror group among other damning inferences. When interviewed about his feelings over the entire matter of his possibly biased and anti-Israel invectives, part of his response gave particular insight to the validity of the claim that had so referred those shortcomings and to Israeli officials’ denunciations of his appointment, he was quoted to declare, “I wasn’t insulted. To be insulted you need to respect the people who criticize you, and I don’t have respect for them.” Answering the accusations equating his appointment by Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman (Yisrael Beytenu) claiming, This appointment simply “serves to show that even the biggest hypocrites in the international organs cannot ignore the fact that Schabas’ appointment to investigate Israel was akin to the appointment of Cain to investigate the murder of Abel,” William Schabas shot back, “That isn’t worthy of a response. I didn’t murder anyone. Is legal counsel to the PLO a mistake? Is criticizing Netanyahu a crime?”

 

Further research at the time had revealed more transgressions and focused on Prof. William Schabas statements when speaking in a 2013 panel revealed his great eagerness to hold such a position enabling him to prosecute Israel for war crimes stated he holds a “profound belief, that international law can be used to demonstrate and underscore the violations committed by the state of Israel, and moreover can be used to hold accountable individuals who have perpetrated international crimes against the people of Palestine.” He added even if that involved “Years ago there were no courts at all,” he noted (at minute 25:15 in the video embedded below). “When (the charge of) ‘genocide’ was invented there was no court at all. There was no court for crimes against humanity, but we have them now. And with a bit of luck and by twisting things and maneuvering we can get them before the courts.” He also has stated that should he ever have been granted such an opportunity to prosecute Israel, “I would have been inclined to talk about crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression, all of which I think can be shown have been perpetrated at various times during the history of the state of Israel. These are all crimes that have become increasingly robust in their definition in recent decades and for which we now have international institutions capable of prosecuting the crimes.”

William Schabas – Russell Tribunal on Palestine – New York Published on Jan 7, 2013
From Vow to Law: How can Prohibition of Sociocide Become an International Norm?

 

Replacing Jurist William Schabas was, what some, ourselves included, might perceive as an equitable replacement holding many of the same deficiencies as Schabas, Judge Mary McGowan Davis of the 2009 Goldstone Committee fame as she sat in that ‘august and impartial’ tribunal as well which Judge Richard Goldstone who chaired that investigatory inquisition later retracted the report Judge Richard Goldstone wrote on Friday in the Washington Post, “If I had known then what I know now, the Goldstone Report would have been a different document.” Further in his confessitorial article Judge Goldstone wrote, “While the investigations published by the Israeli military and recognized in the U.N. committee’s report have established the validity of some incidents that we investigated in cases involving individual soldiers, they also indicate that civilians were not intentionally targeted as a matter of policy.” Judge Mary McGowan Davis has never shown a single iota of regret nor expressed her feeling that there may have been a motivational bias to the findings of the Goldstone Report committee’s inquiries.

 

This excuse for a report basically goes to whatever extremes that were necessary to denounce Israel, her leadership, and most insulting of all, the IDF of crimes equal or greater than those of the arch terrorists of Hamas whose charter calls for the annihilation of every last Jew on planet earth and the conquest of the planet forcing every inhabitant to not merely believe in Islam, but to do so with the same convictions, hatreds and depravations as do the leadership of Hamas or to die by their sword. Such degrading and damning accusations not only need be refuted and fought with every fiber of muscle and brain available to Israel and her friends but also by those who cherish and honor truth and equality. It is one thing to investigate every conceivable angle as a method of assuring that no stone is left unturned and that every ill intent becomes revealed and a completely different thing to list every imagined criminal act simply to equate those acting purely in defense of their nation and its people with a terrorist groups whose aim is not only to inflict as much harm, structural damage and loss of life on the other side but to also assure that the result is of equal or greater harm, structural damage and loss of life on those who they are presumably defending simply so that it can be claimed that both sides are equally guilty before the courts and committees tasked with the enforcement of international law. The audacity and cold-blooded calculations of Hamas and their allies such as Islamic Jihad and al-Qaeda was revealed during Operation Protective Edge when they reported that the IDF forces had targeted and caused grievous damage to a Gazan hospital when they knew and the IDF had tracked a rocket fired from Gaza, one of four with other three striking in the Mediterranean Sea, the Shati Refugee Camp and Ashkelon in addition to the one striking the Shifa Hospital which was alleged to have been an Israeli strike. We reported this in our article titled How to Spell Hypocrite, US or UN? published on April 28, 2015, along with the tracking picture below depicting the tracks of the four rockets fired from within Gaza by Hamas, Islamic Jihad or another of the other terror groups operating with the blessings of Hamas Security Forces, the so-to-speak law in Gaza.

 

 

Radar Trajectory of barrage launched from within Gaza depicting strike points including the short round strike on the Shifa Hospital which Israel blamed by Hamas and Media accepted Hamas talking point unchecked

 

Perhaps this would be a good time to recall our recent recounting of the report from Professor Stern of Vanderbilt Law School’s content which we had quoted just the other day on June 20, 2015, in our article Coddling Barbarians While Condemning the Civilized
“It was abundantly clear that IDF commanders had gone beyond any mandates that international law requires to avoid civilian casualties. The IDF’s warnings certainly go beyond what the law requires, but they also sometimes go beyond what would be operational good sense elsewhere. People are going to start thinking that the United States and other Western democracies should follow the same examples in different types of conflict. That’s a real risk.” A further conclusion from the report added that the IDF, “is setting an unreasonable precedent for other democratic countries of the world who may also be fighting in asymmetric wars against brutal non-state actors who abuse these laws.” Pnina Sharvit Baruch, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) concurred with the report adding her assessment stating legal advisers from other militaries around the world confront her with “recurring claims” that the IDF “is going too far in its self-imposed restrictions intended to protect civilians, and that this may cause trouble down the line for other democratic nations fighting organized armed groups.”

 

The report from above painted an entirely different picture of the IDF actions than that of the United Nations, not much of a surprise there. Perhaps weighing the targeted aim of the two articles might provide further insight as to which report was objective and which report was objectionable. The report by Professor Stern of Vanderbilt Law School was commissioned and performed to show what was the level of the IDF during Operation Protective Edge and how their standards would impact other Western Nation’s forces when operating in anti-terror interventions under conditions of a similar nature to those of Israel operating against Hamas, Islamic Jihad and even some ISIS and al-Qaeda forces which are rumored to also operate out of Gaza along with Fatah, the political party which Mahmoud Abbas holds the chairmanship, and where the terrorists are hiding amongst innocent civilians and even going to the extreme of using them as human shields, especially using children to guard rocket launchers and mortar launch sites. The United Nations Human Rights Council was investigating and writing a report to satisfy the one-hundred-ninety-three nations voting in the General Assembly where the Arab League is allied with the Non-Aligned National Movement (NAM) which combines to over one-hundred of the General Assembly votes and almost always unite on any article for discussions and vote which either criticizes Israel or elevates the Arab/Muslim countries in return for support for all items viewed favorable by the nations in NAM. The motivations speak for themselves as one side sought only to vilify Israel even at the expense of the terror groups in Gaza who honestly could not care less about what the United Nations may say or do, they are already considered as a terrorist entity so what additional harm could come to them, and the other study wanted to know exactly how stringently the Israeli troops were restricted in their actions against those very same terrorist groups and what they found was fairly frightening for the Western military elite military commanders knowing that much of the same cautionary restrictions utilized by the IDF very well could be expected to define their actions. Imagine the Pentagon having to send a drone to drop leaflets on an intended site ten minutes before using a second drone to launch the attack on the command tent in the midst of the camp and expecting to remove an al-Qaeda commander in the process? I do not recall ever reading that such was their procedure nor do I expect it ever will be. Even when it comes to restrictions that are self-imposed a double standard exists and is imposed by the IDF on the IDF without expecting any other military in the world to have to emulate their precautions.

 

Meanwhile, the usual culprits will laud over the results of this predictably slanted and abusive report which equates the IDF and their tactics and precautions to protect innocents and civilians from harm simply by being in a targeted location at the wrong time with Hamas who regularly all but drapes young children over their rocket launchers. It is exactly as Prime Minister Netanyahu stated on NBC’s Meet the Press, “The difference between us, we are using missile defense to protect our civilians, and they’re using their civilians to protect their missiles.” There is no comparison between the IDF and Hamas and company beyond the simple reality that both are on the same battleground. Equating these opposites is the ultimate in hypocrisy and the culmination of what was the intent when it was decided to open the United Nations from its original membership which included only those nations who were actually capable of enforcing order and principles of civilized behavior and governance to simply any nation caring to apply thus turning the General Assembly into the voice for dictators and terrorists. Who cannot remember Yasser Arafat walking onto the stage before the gathered nations of the General Assembly wearing his usual green fatigues and with his decorative handgun strapped to his side looking like he was recovering from a weekend binge and coming straight there without the comfort of a shower and a shave. That in and of itself speaks to the respect deserved by most of the United Nations agencies, the ever present agencies who have been investigated and almost regularly found to be distributing the food supplies under their care in exchange for sexual pleasures and other equally offensive acts. The United Nations has become such a disgrace that people would be well-advised to hide their daughters and wives when the United Nations is coming to their aid otherwise who knows what depravities will result. Yet these are the people who claim the moral righteousness to sit in judgement of the IDF and United States Armed Forces. Are these two institutions above the occasional but rare misdeeds? Yes, every military, every group has a few bad apples in their barrel, but these two armed services also police their own and honestly investigate charges and have recorded evidence of placing such soldiers found guilty of improprieties in prison and other punishments and their receiving less than honorable discharge from their service, a mark that is inerasable and will follow and dog one for the remainder of their lives. Such a discharge speaks loudly and will prevent such a person from ever receiving the trust of the people in the nation. Perhaps partly it is knowing that if found out one faces such dire results which adds that one extra threat making such misbehavior that rare though I prefer to believe that their military members are that honorable simply because it is the right way to act and to treat others with the same respect they wish to receive.

 

Beyond the Cusp