Several Israeli politicians have spoken up in recent days blasting the United Nations Human Rights Council panel investigating last year’s conflict between Israel and Hamas. The Times of Israel carried remarks from Israeli politicians across the spectrum criticizing the panel, known as the Schabas commission, for its ignorance and bias. The commission was named for William Schabas, who initially headed the inquiry before revelations emerged of his paid work for the Palestinian Authority, forcing him to resign in disgrace.
Haim Jelin, an MK from the Yesh Atid party who formerly led the Eshkol Regional Council, spoke about his experience testifying before the panel in January in Geneva, The Times of Israel reported.
“It is truly ignorance,” Jelin said. “I felt that they were asking questions that were utterly disconnected from reality. It shows the enormous gap that exists between what they know and think and the truth.”
As an example, the radio station, which obtained a recording of his testimony (Jelin spoke in Hebrew while committee members questioned him in English), played back a question by Mary McGowan Davis, the former New York justice who would go on to head of the investigation. She asked Jelin, about 30 minutes into the recording, “I’m just curious as to how far these camps were, or how close they were, to your council, the area that you represent.”
The implication of the question was that Gazan factions may have been firing at Israeli soldiers rather than civilians during the war. Jelin answered that there had been an army base in the area, but that it had been moved a year and a half before the war.
In a separate article, the Times quoted Yesh Atid party leader Yair Lapid’s criticisms of the panel.
“A quarter of a million people dead in Syria, Iraq is falling apart, beheadings in Saudi Arabia, a million dead in Sudan, Libya has ceased to exist as a functioning state, and only Israel is obsessively investigated again and again and again, always with the assumption that the Jews are to blame for everything,” Lapid said.
Calling the Israeli army “the most moral army in the world,” he enumerated all the steps that it takes to avoid inflicting civilian casualties: phoning ahead before aerial attacks to give people a chance to leave their homes; ordering pilots to turn back from missions because civilians have been detected in the area; and building “a field hospital for its enemies during an operation, on the edge of the battlefield.”
“All of this happens while we’re fighting a terror organization of the worst kind. Terrorists who shoot at our soldiers and civilians from hospitals, from mosques, from kindergartens, from schools. Hamas fired at Israel, at Israel’s citizens, women and the elderly, from UN buildings, in breach of UN treaties. But who does the UN investigate? Us,” Lapid said.
Naftali Bennett, head of the Jewish Home party, added, “I saw with my own eyes how the [Israeli] army sacrificed the basic principles of combat to avoid harming civilians, who turned out any number of times to be combatants in disguise. If we stand firm, the Schabas report will end up just like the Goldstone one did. Even when we are attacked and judged, we will never forget for a moment that we are in the right.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu echoed these sentiments today while meeting with Polish foreign minister Grzegorz Schetyna, speaking about the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s recent investigation into the IDF’s conduct last summer.
We fulfill our responsibility to protect our people against terrorist who perpetuate and perpetrate a double war crime. Hamas terrorist deliberately target our civilians while deliberately hiding behind their civilians. That’s a double war crime. And I think that it under-points the fact that there is a travesty here. Because even though we’re fighting, Hamas terrorists who are committing the double war crime of targeting our civilians while hiding behind their civilians, Israel operates in accordance with the highest standards of international law. We take every step to avoid civilian casualties, including on the enemy’s sides. We don’t do this because of some UN committee. We do it because this is deeply ingrained in our values. We don’t shrink from investigating ourselves when necessary and Israel’s mechanisms to investigate our own military are second to none. I say that without any hesitation. There is no country that investigates its military for possible wrongdoings more that Israel. There is no such country in the world. We examine all such allegations professionally, thoroughly, where they’re subjected to an independent judicial review by military and civilian courts.
Now I compare this to this committee that we have. The UN Human Rights Committee that has put a so called investigation against Israel. Israel was pronounced guilty before the investigation even began. They appointed a person to head this committee who was being paid by the Palestinian. This committee has more resolutions against Israel than against North Korea, Syria, and Iran combined. This tells you of what we’re dealing with. So this campaign, these attacks against Israel, these investigations against Israel have nothing to do with human rights. They have everything to do with politically inspired attacks in a cynical effort to de-legitimize Israel using UN bodies.
Yesterday Palestinian President Abbas called for the labeling and boycotting of Israeli products. This is definitely not the language of peace. We will continue to resist boycotts, defamations, de-legitimization. We’ll do that internationally, we’ll do that locally if we need to, and our hand will remain stretched out for peace for any partner that wants to have peace with us. And I hope, Mr. Minister, we can discuss how to advance a genuine peace and stop the slandering of Israel.
[Photo: Israel Defense Forces / Flickr ]