At 00:00 local (21:00GMT) on Monday (11/8/14) both Israel and Hamas
began another 72 hour cease-fire. So far that cease-fire has held.
In the hours prior to the start of the cease-fire though Hamas
demonstrated that it still has stockpiles of the more sophisticated,
longer range M-72 and M-302 rockets by firing some deep into Israel
targeting the cities of Ashdod and Tel Aviv. Although all of the rockets
were intercepted by the Iron Dome system or fell on open areas they
still represent a significant threat to the wider security situation.
Despite the international chorus of faux outrage Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu has actually handled this current crisis more
responsibly and in a more humane fashion then any of his predecessors.
However he has come under increasing pressure from his political rivals
in Israel - particularly Avigdor Liberman and his Yisreal Beiteinu party
to mount a long term ground invasion of Gaza in order to completely
destroy Hamas and possibly even resume the Israeli occupation. The
continued presence and firing of military grade rockets by Hamas makes
it very easy for more extreme Israeli politicians to argue that
Netanyahu hasn't done enough to protect Israeli civilians leading to
calls for him to act even more aggressively or even step down as Prime
Minister.
Despite this the cease-fire does rather leave me with very little to
talk about. That is because my position on the diplomatic efforts to
find a long term solution remains unchanged from Sunday (11/8/14). That
is to say Hamas and other Palestinian factions need to work with Egypt
on the Rafah proposal so it can be presented to Israel and then the
wider international community. Despite there being little news of
progress on that front Israel did yesterday move to sweeten the deal for
Hamas by offering the complete the fourth round of prisoner releases
that were agreed as part of the Gilad Shalit release in return for Hamas
handing over the bodies of Oron Shaul and Hadar Goldin - the two
solider who were killed during the ground operation but whose burial
sites remain unknown.
As something of a sideshow to the situation the UN branded but 100%
Saudi funded commission of inquiry into possible rights abuses during
the conflict was announced yesterday. This was immediately followed by
the news that one member of the three person commission - Amal Alamuddin
- had refused her invitation to sit on the panel. Despite being a
practising human rights lawyer Alamuddin seemed like an odd choice for
the panel because it seems extremely likely that she would be
compromised by her fiancee George Clooney's work in Darfur.
Essentially in the late 1990's and the early 2000's Israel responded to
any criticism of its actions in Palestine by telling the international
community to look at what was going on in the Darfur region of Sudan.
The implication being that the international community was only
interested in Palestine because they were being anti-Semitic. In
response the international community started taking a very close look at
what was happening in Darfur - Clooney paid for most of the observation
satellites - and started using it as a metaphor for what was going on
in Israel/Palestine. This led to the Sudanese President - Omar al-Bashir
- being indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) on pretty
spurious grounds. The reason why the ICC arrest warrant against
al-Bashir has not been executed is because everybody knows that the case
would fall to pieces if ever brought to trial.
Then someone pointed out that the Darfur crisis wasn't even the biggest
conflict going on in Sudan at the time. This prompted the international
community to suggest a "Two State Solution" to the conflict between the
Northern and Southern Sudanese tribes. As a result Sudan was divided in
two in 2011. This has been something of an unmitigated disaster with
inter-ethnic fighting raging across South Sudan forcing 1.1million
people to become refugees and 4 million people in the brink of famine.
Things have got so bad that the United Nations Security Council (UNSC)
are today visiting South Sudan so they can witness the consequences of
their folly in person.
As such the Darfur case study really highlights that while international
humanitarian law is vitally important the highly politicised
commissions of inquiry it prompts often only succeed in making the
situation much worse. The tyranny of lawyers and diplomats if you will.
However I think that main reason that Alamuddin turned down her seat on
this commission is because she knew full well that she was only picked
in the hope her soon-to-be husband would bring a lot of attention to the
inquiry. I will leave you to draw your own conclusions about what that
says about Saudi Arabia's attitude towards human rights and women's
rights in particular.
The appointment of William Schabas as the commission's head should also
prove very interesting. On one hand Schabas is a professor of law with a
speciality for genocide. As such he should be all to aware of the
definitions of things like "genocide" and "war crimes" and therefore
understand that they simply don't apply here. However Schabas has in the
past displayed a clear anti-Israel bias. For example he suggested that
Netanyahu should have indicted by the ICC following Operation Cast Lead
despite the fact that Netanyahu's involvement was minimal compared to
that of Tzipi Livni's and Ehud Barak. Also it is quite clear that Saudi
Arabia is only funding this commission in order that its findings can be
used to pursue Saudi Arabia's political objectives.
As a result I think this commission is going to be more about Schabas'
personal battle between his professional integrity and his paycheck then
anything to do with either Israel or Gaza.
(Originally Posted) 17:05 on 12/8/14 (UK date).
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