The chairman of a UN panel investigating possible war crimes in the 50-day Gaza conflict last year resigned on Monday, attributing the decision to Israeli accusations of personal bias that led to a formal inquiry over whether he should be removed.
The decision by William Schabas, a Canadian law professor who pledged to leave his “personal views at the door” when he undertook the Gaza inquiry in August last year, was conveyed to the UN Human Rights Council in a letter of resignation.
News of the resignation was welcomed in Israel, where top leaders had called his appointment a farce. They were particularly incensed over Schabas’ declaration a few years ago that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would be his “favorite” choice as a defendant at the International Criminal Court.
Israeli Ambassador to the UN Ron Prosor equated the professor’s appointment with “choosing Count Dracula to run a blood bank.”
The Israelis filed a formal complaint last month with the president of the Human Rights Council demanding the ouster of Schabas, citing, among other things, consulting work he had done for the Palestine Liberation Organization in 2012. Schabas said the consulting represented “a tiny part” of his body of academic work.
However, Schabas’ letter of resignation on Monday stated that Human Rights Council members decided to ask UN lawyers to weigh in. That appears to have spurred his decision to resign.
“The Commission of Inquiry is at a decisive stage in its work,” Schabas wrote. “It has largely completed the task of gathering material and listening to victims and other witnesses, including experts. The work on the drafting of the report is beginning. I believe that it is difficult for the work to continue while a procedure is underway to consider whether the chair of the commission should be removed.”
Schabas, a professor of international law at Middlesex University in London, added in his letter that while he was not asked to detail his consultancy work when he was appointed, his views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict had been well known. He said he had pledged to serve “with independence and impartiality.”
“This work in defense of human rights appears to have made me a huge target for malicious attacks which, if Israel’s complaint is to be taken at face value, will only intensify in the weeks to come,” he wrote.
Nearly 2,200 Palestinians, including more than 500 children, were killed, and 100,000 buildings damaged or destroyed, the UN said. On the Israeli side, six civilians and 67 soldiers were killed.
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