by Dr. Einat Wilf
There is no doubt
George Clooney chose a smart woman to marry. The renowned actor's
fiancee, Amal Alamuddin, a British lawyer of Lebanese-Druze descent who
specializes in human rights law, rejected outright an invitation to
partake in the United Nations Human Rights Council's investigative
commission charged with examining possible human rights violations and
war crimes allegations against Israel.
In doing so, Alamuddin
contradicted an earlier statement by UNHRC Chairwoman Navi Pillay, who
said Alamuddin agreed to join the investigative panel. With her
decision, Alamuddin proved her fundamental understanding of what is
already clear to anyone who wants to see the truth, which is that the
commission was established for one purpose only: to provide
international legitimacy and gravitas for that most ancient of hatreds.
It has been clear for
years to anyone involved in these matters that there is no connection
between the group with the Orwellian name -- "The United Nations Human
Rights Council" -- and actual human rights. The council is unified
around a singular purpose, and that is hatred of Israel. This is the
council's normative state, and is even anchored in its foundational
documents. Every few years the council enjoys the opportunity to mark
this hatred by creating an "investigative commission," which is entirely
dedicated to pouring oil on the flames of Israel hate.
In recent years, the
council has stopped even trying to conceal its intentions toward Israel.
In the past, when it created an investigative commission following
Operation Cast Lead, the Jewish judge Richard Goldstone was appointed to
head the panel. Goldstone's Jewishness was supposed to project that the
council was not biased against Israel, and Goldstone himself declared
his intention to investigate Hamas as well, even if such a task was not
stipulated in the council's original mandate. However, after Goldstone
distanced himself from the findings of the commission he himself had
led, the UNHRC apparently decided it could no longer risk jeopardizing
its goal, and has appointed an established Israel hater to chair the
current commission, to ensure that Israel will indeed be found guilty of
war crimes.
That chairman,
Professor William Schabas, declared last year: "My favorite would be
[Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu within the dock of the International
Criminal Court." Schabas has also called on the ICC to "go after"
former President Shimon Peres, 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, Schabas urged the world not only to "ignore"
then-Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s racist statements, but to
stop "exaggerating" them.
Based on this history,
voices have already emerged calling for his removal as head of the
commission, although it is perhaps preferable that the world know who is
leading it, thereby making it impossible to argue that it is objective
and balanced.
Considering Schabas'
appointment, we can wonder why the commission was given until March 2015
to publish its findings. It is possible to speed matters up, spare the
entire world the suspense, and announce today the commission's
conclusion that Israel is a horrible state, which commits war crimes,
genocide and any other atrocity found in the dictionary.
It is clear though that
the objective is not the investigation or even the report, rather it is
to give Schabas the stage he has been waiting for all this time to
condemn Israel. It has been a long time since a cat has been this happy
to be officially appointed to guard the cream.
Dr. Einat Wilf is a senior fellow with the Jewish People Policy Institute and a former member of the Knesset.
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=9597
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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