The UN Human Rights Council makes a fool of itself again

Michael Rubin

 
Leave it to the United Nations Human Rights Council: It never misses an opportunity to subvert human rights and, by doing so, it encourages terrorism and sullies the broader U.N. brand.

For decades, now, U.N. Watch has chronicled its descent into the absurd, and its fixation with Israel-bashing regardless of the circumstances. Consider Jordanian Prince Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, the U.N. Human Rights commissioner. He saw no irony in a special session to condemn Israel followed by a call for inquiry. So what Prince Zeid apparently believes is verdict first, investigation second?

Zeid and the many authoritarian governments on the U.N. Human Rights Council may want to score a propaganda point, but the real tragedy is that Zeid’s actions are an assault on humanitarian law. The issue isn’t Palestinian justice, but rather Palestinian politics. Remember, the situation in Gaza may be bad—the result of more than a decade of Hamas governance and the U.N.’s willingness to acquiesce and subsidize it—but the humanitarian situation does not approach the tragedy faced by many others in the world. And if the situation was truly occupation, then the same type of protest would be occurring in the West Bank where many Palestinians actually live under occupation (Israel having left Gaza 13 years ago). Rather, the reason for the violence in Gaza is Palestinian politics, and the desire of Hamas to make a play for leadership ahead of ailing Palestinian chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ death.

Whether Israel shot those rushing its border and seeking to breach the border fence is beyond dispute. But, frankly, Israeli forces had every right to do so. Contrary to the condemnation and useful idiocy of human rights groups, the Hamas protesters were not nonviolent. They used civilians as human shields and burned tires in order to restrict visibility and provide cover for tunneling and placement of explosives. And Hamas itself announced that 50 of those killed were its members, a group sworn to the genocidal destruction of the Jewish state. Under such circumstances, it appears Israel showed far greater restraint than any member state on the Human Rights Council would under similar circumstances.

Prince Zeid, call your office and ask about the up to 25,000 Palestinians the Jordanian government killed during Black September.

The problem is this: By condemning Israel for defending itself, the U.N. is giving a free pass to the actions of Hamas that run in contravention of the rules of war. Hamas, without a doubt, hid behind civilians and had its operatives dress in civilian clothes. Take, for example, the now-famous example of a Hamas activist on crutches who ditches them to run away when the Israelis push back on his actions. Or the case of a Hamas activist who used his cover as journalist to gather intelligence and even run drone operations. Here, the Washington Post’s useful idiocy rather than outrage at Hamas disguising operatives as journalists should have been the real scandal.

Simply put, human rights law seldom applies to terrorists for a very good reason: To blur the distinction between combatant and noncombatant is to undermine humanitarian law. The 1907 Hague regulations which formed the legal bases of the 1949 Geneva Conventions incorporated a four-part test to determine eligibility under international humanitarian rule. To be afforded the rights of legal combatants, the Hague regulations required irregulars to “be commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates; to have a fixed distinctive emblem recognizable at a distance; to carry arms openly; and to conduct their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.”

In this, Hamas failed each test. Therefore, humanitarian law does not apply. To find otherwise perversely incentivizes terrorists — not only in the Gaza Strip, but everywhere else to eschew the rules of war. Suddenly, Prince Zeid’s actions have a very real cost, almost on par with his predecessor Mary Robinson’s April 2002 legitimization of suicide bombing against civilian targets as a legitimate form of human rights discourse.

By all means, investigate Israel. But, make no mistake: the cravenness of Zeid and the politicization of groups seeking to use the U.N.’s human rights infrastructure to wage lawfare against Israel are doing more to undercut human rights than they might imagine.

Then again, given how many on the Human Rights Council hail from authoritarian states, that may be the idea.

Michael Rubin is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, where he researches Arab politics, the Gulf Cooperation Council, Iran, Iraq, the Kurds, terrorism, and Turkey. He concurrently teaches classes on terrorism for the FBI and on security, politics, religion, and history for US and NATO military units.

A former Pentagon official, Dr. Rubin has lived in post-revolution Iran, Yemen, and both pre- and postwar Iraq, and he spent time with the Taliban before 9/11. He is the author, coauthor, and coeditor of several books exploring Iranian history, American diplomacy, Kurdish studies, and Shi’ite politics, including “Kurdistan Rising”