Former Head of Inquiry Into Gaza War Says He Faced Pressure and Threats
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Version 0 of 1. PARIS — The Canadian law professor who resigned this month as head of a United Nations inquiry into last summer’s Gaza conflict said his appointment had been troubled from the outset by intense pressure from Israel’s government, which accused him of a pro-Palestinian bias. The professor, William Schabas, also said in an interview in Paris last Thursday that he had been subjected to a stream of vulgar and violent emails and several death threats that appeared to have emanated from a range of locations, including from Canada and the United States. Some called him a disgrace and “a self-hating Jew,” he said, and they were among the milder ones. Professor Schabas resigned last week after the United Nations 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 and had failed to disclose it before he was appointed. 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. Professor Schabas, regarded as an authority on international law, said it had not occurred to him that having been paid $1,300 by the P.L.O., 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 toward the Palestinians, Professor Schabas said: “I’m not their lawyer. I’m not their agent.” Israeli officials were gratified that Professor Schabas had resigned. The Foreign Ministry asserted in a statement that he had “a long history of outspoken hostility toward Israel.” But Israeli officials have remained deeply suspicious about the United Nations 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. Israel’s Foreign Ministry said Professor Schabas’s resignation “cannot whitewash the fundamental and inherent bias of the commission itself, including its mandate,” and that “the removal of one symptom does not cure the disease.” While the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has long been a source of vitriolic accusations from both sides, Professor Schabas nonetheless expressed surprise at the diatribes he said had been sent to him. He showed vulgar emails and a copy of a death threat sent to his office at Middlesex University in London, which he reported to the police. The letter, stamped and mailed in Israel in August, said he would be killed “with a powerful virus.” It was signed by two people who wrote that they had no connection to the Israeli authorities but were devoted to “chasing the enemies of Israel and of the Jews wherever they are.” Paul Hirschson, the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s deputy spokesman, said the government repudiated all such messages. “We are not in the habit of issuing threats,” he said. “That’s not our style and it’s not right. He should take them and complain to the relevant authorities.” Professor Schabas, 64, said he was 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 scholar and human rights lawyer, Professor Schabas said he had been warned by associates that leading the inquiry would be “rough going.” “I was asked to do a public service,” he said. “My sense was, unless you have a really good reason not to, you do it, so I did not shirk from it.” The work was unpaid, he said. Protests from Israel and pro-Israeli lobbies elsewhere over his appointment came immediately after he was named to head the inquiry by the Geneva-based United Nations Human Rights Council, primarily because of his past vocal criticism of Israeli policies toward the Palestinians. He was especially castigated for a remark he had once made, that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel should be brought before the International Criminal Court. “I was not prepared for the vitriol,” Professor Schabas said. “When I saw the vigor of the attacks, I wondered, do I really want to get into this?” But after the withdrawal of another member of the three-person panel, Amal Alamuddin, a British lawyer of Lebanese descent who married the actor George Clooney, Professor Schabas said, he feared that his resignation could undermine the entire investigation. Professor 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. He also 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 victims and experts from both sides of last summer’s conflict, in which nearly 2,200 Palestinians, including more than 500 children, were killed, according to the United Nations. On the Israeli side, six civilians and 67 soldiers were killed. The panel’s final report is to be presented in March. Professor Schabas said he did not regret having accepted the position. He also said some of the Israeli reaction to his work had been positive. He cited as an example Gideon Levy, a columnist for the Haaretz newspaper, who wrote that it was impossible “to be an international law expert and sympathize with what Israel is doing.” |