Impartiality, irrelevance and accountability

Israel’s recent complaint against Canadian lawyer and international law expert William Schabas has led to his resignation from the UN Human Rights Council’s fact finding commission on Gaza. Schabas was accused of having a conflict of interest – the reason for this being his having provided consultation to the PLO in 2012 with regard to the consequences of Palestine’s status upgrade to a non-member state at the UN.

According to Schabas’s letter of resignation, which was partially quoted by Ma’an news agency, the complaint does not address the legal context of his consultation but rather implies “that in some way I am henceforth beholden to the Palestinian Liberation Organisation.”

Zionist media has jumped on the issue, and has attempted to highlight Schabas’s resignation as a spectacle that has caused embarrassment “to the whole UN apparatus that appointed and promoted him,” according to Anne Bayefsky from the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust.

The Jerusalem Post, for example, has regurgitated the age-old alleged anti-Israel bias that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is fond of churning out in relation to the United Nations and affiliated organisations. Quoting both Netanyahu and Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, the newspaper attempts to deflect attention away from Israel’s premeditated colonial violence by portraying the UNHCR as an anti-Israel institution.

In fact, Schabas’s consultation work for the PLO is far from the main issue in Israel’s repeated attempts at stifling investigation efforts. Underlying reasons include the perpetual manipulation of the UN platform by Israel, the remote possibility of investigations into war crimes by the International Criminal Court, as well as the settler-colonial state’s notion of “impartiality” – a word it defines only in relation to itself.

At regular intervals, Israel unleashes verbal attacks upon the UN for its alleged bias, despite the fact that the UN has actively sought to defend Israel’s colonial practices through two particular frameworks – a refusal to insist on decolonisation by upholding Israel’s right to defend itself, and the constant misrepresentation of Palestinians by disseminating a hegemonic narrative that is then utilised to pass futile resolutions and recommendations. The platform provided by the UN is regarded by Israel as an opportunity through which to justify its colonial process – hence any slight deviation that might bring the organisation closer to the human rights framework it allegedly upholds is seen as detrimental to Israel and its plans for expansion.

Deflecting attention from war crimes is a tactic that Israel has employed countless times within the international arena; often in collaboration with the same organisations purportedly harbouring an anti-Israel bias. Irrelevance thus becomes another weapon for Israel to use – emphasising an alleged conflict of interest that is of no consequence to determining whether or not war crimes have been committed against the Palestinian population in order to deflect attention away from the true matter in hand.

Israel’s expectations of “impartiality” – defined on its own terms – will continue to dominate over the reality of its oppressive practices and policies that safeguard its existence. Accusing the UNHRC of being incompatible with human rights should be considered within the wide spectrum of accusations that Israel has unleashed against the organisation. While compromise and integrity remains a vital characteristic of any institution affiliated to the UN, Israel’s aim is ultimately to pre-emptively discredit any findings that could potentially incriminate it and, in turn, contribute to the list of atrocities for which the UN is alleged to be directly responsible.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.