The Canadian law professor who resigned this month as head of a UN inquiry into last summer’s Gaza conflict said his appointment had been troubled from the outset by intense pressure from the Israeli government, which accused him of a pro-Palestinian bias.
William Schabas resigned last week after the UN began a formal inquiry into a possible conflict of interest by him, in response to an Israeli complaint that he had done consulting work for the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and had failed to disclose it before he was appointed.
In an interview in Paris on Thursday last week, he acknowledged having done the work, but asserted it was insignificant and irrelevant to his objectivity, so he had never brought it up before he was invited to lead the commission of inquiry.
However, he said in his letter of resignation, the distraction created by the formal investigation of his background would have undercut the Gaza commission’s report, so he decided to quit.
Schabas, regarded as an authority on international law, said it had not occurred to him that having been paid US$1,300 by the PLO, for consulting on the statute of the International Criminal Court, would be an issue.
“I wrote a small paper of a technical nature,” he said. “I do this all the time. I’ve acted for all kinds of governments and organizations and individuals.”
Contrary to what he called Israel’s distorted portrayal of his relationship with the Palestinians, Schabas said: “I’m not their lawyer. I’m not their agent.”
Israeli officials were gratified that Schabas had resigned. The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that he had “a long history of outspoken hostility toward Israel.”
Israeli officials have remained deeply suspicious about the UN inquiry. They anticipated that it would largely ascribe responsibility for the deaths and damage of the 50-day Gaza war to the Israeli side and minimize the actions of Palestinian militants who lobbed thousands of rockets into Israel.
The ministry said Schabas’ resignation “cannot whitewash the fundamental and inherent bias of the commission itself, including its mandate.”
While the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has long been a source of vitriolic accusations from both sides, Schabas nonetheless expressed surprise at the diatribes he said had been sent to him.
Schabas said that he had been subjected to a stream of vulgar and violent e-mails and several death threats that appeared to have emanated from a range of locations, including from Canada and the US.
Some called him a disgrace and “a self-hating Jew,” he said, and they were among the milder ones.
Schabas, 64, said he is a descendant of Eastern European Jews on his father’s side, some of whom had died in the Holocaust, and that he was proud of his Jewish heritage.
An outspoken academic and human rights lawyer, Schabas said he had been warned by associates that leading the inquiry would be “rough going.”
“I was not prepared for the vitriol,” Schabas said. “When I saw the vigor of the attacks, I wondered, do I really want to get into this?”
After the withdrawal of another member of the three-person panel, Amal Alamuddin, a British lawyer of Lebanese descent who married actor George Clooney, Schabas said he feared that his resignation could undermine the entire investigation.
Schabas, the commission and a 12-member staff proceeded with their work, albeit forced to hear witnesses and experts in Geneva and Jordan because Israel refused to allow the investigating teams to visit Israel or the occupied West Bank.
Schabas said they could not enter Gaza from Egypt because of the deteriorating security situation in northern Sinai.
At meetings in Jordan and Switzerland, the group heard people affected and experts from both sides of last summer’s conflict, in which nearly 2,200 Palestinians were killed, according to the UN. On the Israeli side, six civilians and 67 soldiers were killed.
The panel’s final report is to be presented next month.
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