UN names Gaza war crimes probe panel

[H-KQGE]

Not really sure what game is being played here, if any.

http://m.aljazeera.com/story/2014811231432316350

UN names Gaza war crimes probe panel
Last updated: 3 hours ago

Israel dismisses the investigation into possible human rights violations during Gaza war as a 'kangaroo court'.


The United Nations has named experts to an international commission of inquiry into possible human rights violations and war crimes committed by both sides during Israel's military offensive in the Gaza Strip.

Israel responded to Monday's announcement, dismissing the inquiry as a UN Human Rights Council "kangaroo court".

Sami Abu Zuhri, Hamas spokesman in Gaza said "Hamas welcomes the decision to form an investigation committee into the war crimes committed by the occupation (Israel) against Gaza and it urges that it begin work as soon as possible."

The UN statement said the independent team will investigate "all violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law ... in the context of the military operations conducted since 13 June 2014."

William Schabas, a Canadian professor of international law, will head the panel whose other members are Doudou Diene, a Senegalese veteran UN human rights expert and Amal Alamuddin, a British-Lebanese lawyer.

Alamuddin later denied she would participate in the inquiry.

"I am honored to have received the offer, but given existing commitments - including eight ongoing cases - unfortunately could not accept this role," she said in a statement.

The panel is to report by March 2015 to the UN Human Rights Council. Israel has long accused the 47-member state forum of bias against it.

A month of war, marked by Israeli air strikes on Gaza and rockets fired by Hamas fighters into Israel, has killed 1,938 Palestinians and 67 Israelis while devastating wide tracts of densely populated Gaza.

Defying international law

Navi Pillay, the top UN human rights official, said on July 31 she believed Israel was deliberately defying international law in its military offensive in Gaza and that world powers should hold it accountable for possible war crimes.

Israel has attacked homes, schools, hospitals, Gaza's only power plant and UN premises in apparent violation of the Geneva Conventions, said Pillay, a former UN war crimes judge.

Hamas fighters in Gaza have violated international humanitarian law by firing rockets indiscriminately into Israel, Pillay said.

Israeli and Palestinian negotiators resumed indirect talks mediated by Egypt on Monday on ending the war, Egypt's state news agency said, after a new 72-hour truce appeared to be holding.

Dunno 'bout anyone else, but seven months is a long time for such a report that covers only this latest period of attacks. Hillel Neuer isn't a fan of William Schabas... http://www.algemeiner.com/2014/08/11/un-watchdog-questions-appointment-of-clooney-fiancee-anti-israel-lawyer-on-gaza-inquiry-panel/

Under international law, William Schabas is obliged to recuse himself because his repeated calls to indict Israeli leaders obviously gives rise to actual bias or the appearance thereof,” UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer said in a statement released in the wake of the UN’s move.

“You can’t spend several years calling for the prosecution of someone, and then suddenly act as his judge,” said Neuer. “It’s absurd — and a violation of the minimal rules of due process applicable to UN fact-finding missions.”

Neuer noted previous statements by Schabas, which, in his words, demonstrated “bias or appearance thereof:”

- “My favorite would be Netanyahu within the dock of the International Criminal Court,” Schabas declared last year.

- Schabas was an active participant before a pro-Palestinian “tribunal” that, according to a New York Times op-ed by Judge Richard Goldstone, consisted of one-sided evidence and a jury composed of “critics whose harsh views of Israel are well known.”

- In a law journal article, Schabas wrote that Netanyahu could be considered “the single individual most likely to threaten the survival of Israel.”

- A few years earlier, Schabas called for “going after” Israeli president Shimon Peres in the ICC, saying, “Why are we going after the president of Sudan for Darfur and not the president of Israel for Gaza?”

- In a 2009 blog post about the UN’s infamous Durban II conference on racism, Schabas urged the world not only to “ignore” Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s statements, but to stop “exaggerating” them. According to Schabas, those who “deserve the blame” are “Israel and its friends, who have manipulated the truth about the nature of the work of the United Nations by gross exaggeration of the role and intervention of certain fanatics.” Schabas described Ahmadinejad as nothing more than a “provocative politician,” and not a torturer of dissidents, inciter of genocidal anti-Semitism, and arch-sponsor of terrorism.

- In 2011, Schabas went to Iran to co-sponsor conferences with the Tehran-based “Center for Human Rights and Cultural Diversity,” despite its intimate ties with the fundamentalist regime, and avowed propaganda agenda. The center’s director, Kamran Hashemi, a former political officer with Iran’s foreign ministry, wrote his Ph.D under Schabas at the Irish Center for Human Rights.

And Alal Alamuddin has backed out of it citing too much work...

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/11/amal-alamuddin-un-gaza-israel-refuses-george-clooney

Amal Alamuddin refuses UN offer to investigate possible war crimes in Gaza
Through agent of her fiance, George Clooney, the British-Lebanese human rights lawyer denies reports that she will serve on inquiry commission

Amal Alamuddin, the British-Lebanese human rights lawyer who is engaged to George Clooney, has turned down a United Nations offer to investigate war crimes in Gaza.

The UN’s Geneva-based Human Rights Council announced on Monday that she would serve on a three-member commission of inquiry looking into possible violations of the rules of war during the Israeli offensive against Hamas.

But hours later Clooney’s Hollywood agent, Stan Rosenfield, issued a statement on Alamuddin’s behalf saying she had declined the post because she was too busy.

“I am horrified by the situation in the occupied Gaza Strip, particularly the civilian casualties that have been caused, and strongly believe that there should be an independent investigation and accountability for crimes that have been committed,” said the statement.


“I was contacted by the UN about this for the first time this morning. I am honoured to have received the offer, but given existing commitments – including eight ongoing cases – unfortunately could not accept this role. I wish my colleagues who will serve on the commission courage and strength in their endeavours.”

According to the Associated Press, which first reported the appointment – a story run by the Guardian, among others – Gabon ambassador Baudelaire Ndong Ella, who is president of the 47-nation UN Human Rights Council, made the announcement of her appointment.

The report said Alamuddin would serve alongside Doudou Diene of Senegal, a lawyer who has filled UN posts on racism and human rights in Ivory Coast, and Canada’s William Schabas, an international law professor at Middlesex University in London.

The UN’s top human rights body did not immediately respond to a request for clarification over why it announced the inclusion of Clooney’s fiancee.

Rosenfield told the Guardian he had little to add to Alamuddin’s statement. The UN contacted her by phone, he believed, and he said she was surprised by the subsequent press reports about the apparent appointment. “That’s why she responded so quickly.”

The Beirut-born barrister, who is fluent in French and Arabic, has represented Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, and Yulia Tymoshenko, a former prime minister of Ukraine.

A graduate of St Hugh’s College at Oxford and New York University School of Law, Alamuddin, 36, works out of the Doughty Street Chambers in London, specialising in human rights and international law.

According to the chambers’ website, she has served as counsel to the inquiry led by UN special rapporteur on counter-terrorism and human rights, Ben Emmerson QC, into the use of drones, and as an adviser to Kofi Annan.

Her engagement to Clooney, 52, was announced in April. The star of Ocean’s Eleven has campaigned for liberal causes in the US and human-rights causes abroad, notably in Darfur.

Navi Pillay, the UN’s top human rights official, accused Israel of not doing enough to protect civilians in Gaza and suggested war crimes may have been committed. She also accused Hamas of “indiscriminate attacks” on Israel.

Hollywood, which has close ties to Israel, has remained largely mute on Gaza. The few who have criticised Israel, such as Penelope Cruz, Javier Bardem and Rihanna, have been strongly rebuked by other celebrities, prompting several to backtrack.

Sam Asi, a Hollywood-based Palestinian reporter for the BBC and UK Screen, contrasted the reticence over Gaza with the Arab spring, when artists condemned oppressive regimes.

“Now, they shrink when I mention Gaza, claiming that they don’t understand what is going on. No one dares say anything. Supporting freedom for Palestinians or empathising with the suffering in Gaza, one risks being labeled antisemitic.”

He pressed one star, a Unicef ambassador, about the death of children, but she declined, said Asi, “saying that she is no expert on this matter and doesn’t want her words to be misinterpreted”.

Maybe a chance of inside subversion? A ploy from the start? Hollywood doesn't have close ties with Israel, it basically controls it. So, with actors supporting Palestinians & then being forced to backtrack, and Alamuddin having represented Assange and the spin from that, could they have tried to use all this and fabricate other information later on?