The Arab League’s “Fact Finding” Mission to Gaza presented a report of its findings and called for future lawfare against Israel.  John Dugard, the notorious UN Rapporteur, led the team and the EU and European government funded PCHR “prepared the agenda for the mission and coordinated its meetings and field visits. It also provided technical assistance for the mission.”  The object of the mission was to “investigate Israeli crimes and human rights violations” and to hold “Israel legally accountable for war crimes committed by Israeli Occupation Forces in Gaza”.  The report called for “the formation of a team of lawyers and legal experts to consider various options to prosecute Israelis accused of committing war crimes against the Palestinian people.”  The report also advocated further NGO lawfare, of which PCHR is a leader, by “supporting legal steps and efforts made by NGOs in the field and calling upon those NGOs to coordinate their efforts with the League of Arab States.”

Of course, the report repeated many unsubstantiated claims advanced by NGOs including PCHR’s discredited casualty figures; false accusations regarding the use of white phosphorous; and conclusory allegations of indiscriminate and disproportionate use of force by the IDF even though the report admits it had no evidence to judge Israeli intent or military advantage.  The report also incredulously claims that it found no evidence of Hamas’ use of human shields despite the testimony of UN and ICRC officials and overwhelming documentary evidence to the contrary.

It is no surprise that PCHR was the mission coordinator.  PCHR regularly omits or minimizes the context of terrorism in its reporting; refers to attacks on Israeli civilians as “resistance”; and terrorist lab explosions or misfired rockets as “internal explosions”.  Remind us again why this organization is heralded for promoting human rights and why it gets hundreds of thousands of European taxpayer dollars?