George Clooney Bride Amal Alamuddin Won’t Serve On U.N. War Crimes Panel
Despite earlier reports, Amal Alamuddin has declined to serve on a United Nations committee charged with investigating alleged Israeli war crimes in Gaza.
In a statement, actor George Clooney’s wife-to-be said Monday night that “I was contacted by the UN about this for the first time this morning. I am honored to have received the offer, but given existing commitments — including eight ongoing cases — unfortunately could not accept this role.”
Alamuddin, a human rights lawyer and activist who is of British-Lebanese heritage, added, “I am horrified by the situation in the occupied Gaza Strip, particularly the civilian casualties, and strongly believe that there should be an independent investigation and accountability for crimes that have been committed.”
Apparently only the actions of the Israeli Defense Forces and not Hamas — which is designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department — will be subject to this investigation by the three-member investigative commission into possible violations of international law.
A spokesman for the Israeli Foreign Ministry said that the panel’s report “has already been written and remains only to be signed.” What he’s acknowledging is the UN’s extreme and long-standing anti-Israel bias will predetermine its findings that are scheduled to be released in March 2015. As The Inquisitr previously explained, the UN, now dominated by totalitarian regimes, is aggressively anti-Israel in its agenda, passing resolution after resolution against the Jewish state — the only democracy in the Middle East — for defending itself against terrorism, while almost totally ignoring the plight of many oppressed populations around the world.
As has been widely reported, while Hamas uses Palestinian civilians in Gaza as human shields, the Israeli military goes to unprecedented lengths to minimize civilian casualties often at grave risk to its own soldiers. An IDF general outlined the rules of engagement: “So what we have done is to warn the civilians over and over again to evacuate. There are no armies like this, which drop leaflets, call on the phone, bomb next to the target or carry out a ‘knock on the roof,’ and even disperse the residents with smoke.”
A 2009 report by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy claimed that in addition to a complex network of terror tunnels for sending fighters into Israel, Hamas uses “civilians and civilian facilities as cover for its military activity; schools, mosques, hospitals, and civilian housing became weapons storage facilities, Hamas headquarters, and fighting positions.”
No replacement for Amal Alamuddin on the UN panel has as yet been announced.
[Image via trackofcinema.com]
