Why Israel's Fight Against William Schabas May Be Off-Target

[Jefferson23]

Real Danger Lies in International Criminal Court



Before his foot even touches Gaza’s ground, the Canadian human rights scholar recently appointed to head the United Nations’ inquiry into the latest war there has come under withering preemptive attack.

Israeli officials and their American supporters have compared the choice of William Schabas to chair the Gaza inquiry commission to “inviting ISIS to organize religious tolerance week” — a reference to the violent, fundamentalist Islamic group whose mass murders in Syria and Iraq have won it infamy. Full-page ads in The New York Times and The Washington Post called Schabas “an apologist for radical anti-Semites.”

This barrage shouldn’t have surprised Schabas, the son of a prominent Canadian Jewish musician, who fondly recalls visits to synagogues and family meals at Jewish delicatessens. He may — as he has noted — visit Israel frequently, actively oppose an economic boycott of the Jewish state and sit on the board of The Israel Law Review and on the advisory board of a London-based Jewish human rights group.

snip* No one challenges the Canadian’s raw legal expertise. When Schabas was invited to lecture in 2004 at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, Jerry Fowler, the founding director of the museum’s Committee on Conscience, introduced him as “the world expert on the law of genocide and international law.”

Read more: http://forward.com/articles/204374/why-israels-fight-against-william-schabas-may-be-o/#ixzz3Cx3slSvv

[oberliner]

1. I agree

It's the UN Human Rights Council that is the real issue.

As Schabas himself is quoted as saying in this piece:

"One of the great problems of the U.N. human rights system is double standards.”

And that's an understatement.

[Aerows]

3. I'd go a bit further, frankly

and say the problem with the UN is the leadership of the UN. Somewhere along the way, the leadership of the UN got lost in the weeds and it turned an excellent idea into a travesty.

[Aerows]

2. Not to cast aspersions on the UN

But they started with a noble vision, and lately have been a let-down at every turn. I suspect it is a leadership problem at present. You can't address top-down problems without replacing the leadership that causes them. My .02.

[Jefferson23]

7. It is not free of politics if that is what you meant..true. It is also true they can be cowardly

when they should be strong as in the case with Israel and the US reaction to their violations
which has gone on for a long time. The more powerful you are the less likely you'll pay
for it.

[Blue Meany]

4. Without taking a position on Schabas, with whom I am not

familiar, I cannot help but notice that the are Israeli officials and apologists for the government that accuse virtually every international human rights group of having an anti-Israel bias, be it a UN agency, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, etc. Jewish and Israeli human rights organizations are accused of being self-hating Jews. One gets the impression that any group whose reports deviate significantly from IDF propaganda is going to be attacked. I wonder what the reaction would be if they had appointed an Arab Muslim to head the investigation.

[Jefferson23]

5. I feel you have more than a handle on the politics. The US bails out Israel, to date their

leadership has paid no price for their policies, which have been in violation of international
laws for a long time. If an Arab Muslim were to head the investigation they would have
similar reaction, perhaps more pronounced but the objections here are that Israel is held
to a higher standard..although as I stated, there is no truth to that on any level.

There is a list somewhere, that other nations should go ahead of Israel, and for that
reason alone, and or that what Israel is responsible for is reasonable, because they
only perpetuate discrimination and abuse of Palestinians because there is no other
means to " mow the law "..as they describe it.

[oberliner]

6. So you disagree with Schabas when he says the UNHRC has a double standard?

I am surprised by that.

[Jefferson23]

8. No..he is prefectly clear:

“Let’s just say that it’s a plausible complaint that maybe Israel has gotten a lot of attention at the Human Rights Council, but at the same time it has perhaps had a lot of inattention at the Security Council, so the double standards work in both directions for Israel,” Schabas said.