Here's a new variant of an old story. The background: it seems that the UN Human Rights Council will 'finally' call upon Hamas to account for its role in the Gaza conflict of January 2009 - to account, for example, for 'the thousands of missiles that were lobbed by Hamas directly at civilian populations in southern Israel'. More background:
Human Rights Watch [has] issued a statement saying that Israel's military investigations have fallen "far short of addressing the widespread and serious allegations of unlawful conduct during the fighting." But Hamas, it said, has "announced no serious investigations whatsoever."
And the new variant of the old story? Well, according to a HRW spokesman, much of the blame for Hamas's not having being held to account for this falls on... Israel. Oh, and the US.
Fred Abrahams, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch, said that the reason Hamas has so far avoided serious scrutiny has much to do with the campaign waged by countries like the United States and Israel to deny the group legitimacy.
You see, because the UN falls in with the policies of the Western states towards Hamas, it is less well-placed to 'demand accountability' from them. That's a new one on me: you can't hold organizations accountable for crimes under international law until you have recognized their political legitimacy. Is this a fancy version of the thesis that tyrannies, gangs of terrorists, criminals and so forth may be held to lower standards than the rest of us - in effect that one shouldn't get too excited about the misdemeanours of those who have no respect for the rule of law? Whatever the case, it's poppycock. Organizations not deemed (by whoever happens to be doing the deeming) to be legitimate, are just as much accountable for their misdeameanours as governments that are held to be legitimate. If a UN body has been remiss in following up on Hamas's self-accounting for its targeting of civilians, then the UN body is responsible for that. To suggest that the responsibility is Israel's is laughable.
