Chief of UN Gaza Probe, in 2010: Netanyahu Greatest Threat to Israel

This clip is an excerpt from a panel taped at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland in 2010. The section relevant to Gaza and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu begins at 38:25.

• Israel Slams UN Panel Probing Gaza War
• A New Demon for the PM
• Israel Should Help the UN Gaza Panel
• Israel Shuns UN Probe Into Gaza War
• Israel Agrees to Work With UN on Gaza Probe
• Don’t Be Afraid of International Institutions

"Frankly, if I had to think of an individual who would be the greatest threat for the survival of Israel, I'd probably choose Netanyahu," Schabas says.

The United Nations Human Rights Council last week named the three members of an international commission of inquiry to investigate possible war crimes by Israel during Operation Protective Edge in Gaza.

The panel will be chaired by Prof. William Schabas, a Canadian expert on international law whose academic focus has been on genocide. He is known to be highly critical of Israel and harshly attacked Operation Cast Lead at the time (2008-09).

He praised the report issued by the Goldstone Committee following that operation, and said the commission’s chairman, Richard Goldstone, should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Schabas has called in the past for the International Criminal Court in The Hague to put Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former President Shimon Peres on trial. Last year, at a conference in New York, Schabas said: “My favorite would be Netanyahu within the dock of the International Criminal Court.” A few years earlier, he said that if there was an indictment in the ICC against the president of Sudan for genocide, why should a similar indictment not be issued against the Israeli president for events in Gaza.