UN Watch, NGO Monitor host alternative Geneva panel on Gaza conflict as UN hears Commission’s report
June 30, 2015 | Miriam Smallman
The UN Human Rights Council gathered yesterday to hear from the Independent Commission of Inquiry on the 2014 Gaza Conflict (a session that, for the most part, was a one-sided bash-fest of Israel, and saw many countries with dubious human rights records of their own, including Syria, Iran, Qatar, and Sudan, condemning Israel.) Meanwhile, another group of organisations also convened in Geneva that day, gathering a series of legal, military, and international affairs experts to speak at a two-part panel and fill in what the UN report missed.
Multiple expert reports contradict UN’s findings in Gaza conflict
June 29, 2015 | Miriam Smallman
The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has released the results of its official inquiry into the 2014 Israel-Gaza conflict. The Commission of Inquiry, chaired by Mary McGowan Davis and Doudou Diène, appears to have come to a superficially balanced conclusion: that both Israel and ‘Palestinian armed groups’ may have committed war crimes.
A full list of documents published by the UN can be found here, and includes the full 183-page detailed report, a briefer 34-page summary, and a question-and-answer document concerning the Commission’s conclusions.
There are several resources that readers can turn to for a more comprehensive assessment of the conflict, and that fill in several important gaps that the UN report appears to skim over.
UNHCR report on Gaza/ Bipartisan group expresses concern on Iran deal
June 26, 2015
This Update brings readers two of the many critical responses to the report of the independent commission created by the UN Human Rights Council to examine last year’s Gaza conflict. It also calls attention to a bipartisan statement by 18 senior Washington policymakers and experts implicitly critical of where the US Administration is currently heading in the nuclear negotiations with Iran.
Fairfax takes its readers on a propaganda tour
June 23, 2015 | Ahron Shapiro
Fairfax’s arts supplements don’t set aside space for letters to the editor, so there’s little recourse for the public to respond to an article with a blatantly political slant, or factual problems.
Such was the case on Sunday – in the arts supplements for the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and the Canberra Times, which featured a fawning interview of Irish “travel writer” Dervla Murphy in its “Books” section.
Gaza casualties: Israeli report refutes widely cited UN figures
June 18, 2015 | Allon Lee
A mainstay of many news stories mentioning last year’s war between Israel and Hamas is the claim that the United Nations has found that 69 per cent of the 2,100 plus Palestinian fatalities were civilian.
Now, a new report by the Israeli Government into last year’s war, ably puts forward figures which appear to not only comprehensively refute that universally cited 69 per cent statistic but also to demonstrate why it is so far off reality…
Israel and Saudi Arabia/ Gaza Realities
June 18, 2015
This Update leads with some new revelations about the extent to which Israel and Saudi Arabia are cooperating in the face of shared concerns about Iran. It also includes some new discussion about Gaza realities and the problems of reconstruction there.
Senator Xenophon confuses the issues in Senate Estimates
June 17, 2015 | Ahron Shapiro
An exchange during Senate Estimates Committee hearings on June 3 between Independent Senator Nick Xenophon, DFAT’s head of its Middle East and Africa division Marc Innes-Brown and Attorney-General George Brandis has featured a rather puzzling conversation about the nature of Israel’s demand that the Palestinians recognise Israel as a Jewish state as part of any peace agreement.
Gen. Jim Molan’s findings of a just Gaza war by Israel represent a larger group of international military experts
June 16, 2015 | Miriam Smallman
Readers may have seen retired Australian Major General Jim Molan’s article in the Australian, in which he argued that Operation “Protective Edge” – Israel’s conflict with Hamas in Gaza last year – was a just war: “Given our examination of the cause of Operation Protective Edge, it would be indefensible to argue that Israel wanted it, initiated it or sustained it, or that Israel acted in anything other than defence of its citizens,” Molan wrote. “On this basis alone, Israel’s war was just.”
Israeli investigation explains the tragic incident which killed four children on a Gaza beach
June 12, 2015 | Allon Lee
Israel’s military chief legal officer has closed an investigation into the IDF shelling of a Gaza beach on July 16, 2014 that tragically killed four Palestinian children, finding they were the victims of mistaken identity.
This tragic incident, which was captured on video by journalists, became the most frequently used by critics seeking to tar all of Israel’s operations in Gaza as deliberately targeting civilians without justifiable military purpose.
Turkey’s election/How Iran will use its nuclear deal windfall
June 12, 2015
Today’s Update features some comment on Sunday’s dramatic parliamentary election result in Turkey – with the ruling AKP party and its increasingly authoritarian leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan suffering a major setback. Plus, it also contains some important new analysis of the likely regional effects of the expected monetary windfall Teheran is expected to get as a result of any nuclear deal.
