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New Chair Can't Salvage UN Gaza Travesty
(Commentary) Jonathan S. Tobin - The UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) spends most of its time ignoring all of the most egregious violations of human rights and atrocities around the world and, instead, concentrates almost all of its energies on demonizing Israel and its efforts to defend its citizens against terrorist attacks. William Schabas, the Canadian law professor who headed the UNHRC commission to investigate last summer's Gaza war and who had already denounced Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu as a war criminal, has now resigned. But anyone who has followed the UNHRC knows that no matter how much effort Israel puts into its defense, the result won't change. Schabas was merely the figurehead at the top of a UN structure that dictates an indictment of Israel. It should be recalled that the UNHRC's investigation of the 2008 war in Gaza - the Goldstone Commission - was a travesty that was focused almost entirely on delegitimizing Israeli self-defense while largely downplaying the actual war crimes committed by the Hamas rulers of Gaza. Rather than wring its hands about the likelihood of an unfair attack on Israel about the Gaza war, the U.S. ought to be leading efforts to isolate the UNHRC so as to prevent it from doing even more damage.