My Brother's Keeper: Month 2, Week 4 Day 3.

At 00:00 local (21:00GMT) on Monday (11/8/14) both Israel and Hamas began another 72 hour cease-fire. So far that cease-fire has held.

In the hours prior to the start of the cease-fire though Hamas demonstrated that it still has stockpiles of the more sophisticated, longer range M-72 and M-302 rockets by firing some deep into Israel targeting the cities of Ashdod and Tel Aviv. Although all of the rockets were intercepted by the Iron Dome system or fell on open areas they still represent a significant threat to the wider security situation. Despite the international chorus of faux outrage Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has actually handled this current crisis more responsibly and in a more humane fashion then any of his predecessors. However he has come under increasing pressure from his political rivals in Israel - particularly Avigdor Liberman and his Yisreal Beiteinu party to mount a long term ground invasion of Gaza in order to completely destroy Hamas and possibly even resume the Israeli occupation. The continued presence and firing of military grade rockets by Hamas makes it very easy for more extreme Israeli politicians to argue that Netanyahu hasn't done enough to protect Israeli civilians leading to calls for him to act even more aggressively or even step down as Prime Minister.

Despite this the cease-fire does rather leave me with very little to talk about. That is because my position on the diplomatic efforts to find a long term solution remains unchanged from Sunday (11/8/14). That is to say Hamas and other Palestinian factions need to work with Egypt on the Rafah proposal so it can be presented to Israel and then the wider international community. Despite there being little news of progress on that front Israel did yesterday move to sweeten the deal for Hamas by offering the complete the fourth round of prisoner releases that were agreed as part of the Gilad Shalit release in return for Hamas handing over the bodies of Oron Shaul and Hadar Goldin - the two solider who were killed during the ground operation but whose burial sites remain unknown.

As something of a sideshow to the situation the UN branded but 100% Saudi funded commission of inquiry into possible rights abuses during the conflict was announced yesterday. This was immediately followed by the news that one member of the three person commission - Amal Alamuddin - had refused her invitation to sit on the panel. Despite being a practising human rights lawyer Alamuddin seemed like an odd choice for the panel because it seems extremely likely that she would be compromised by her fiancee George Clooney's work in Darfur.

Essentially in the late 1990's and the early 2000's Israel responded to any criticism of its actions in Palestine by telling the international community to look at what was going on in the Darfur region of Sudan. The implication being that the international community was only interested in Palestine because they were being anti-Semitic. In response the international community started taking a very close look at what was happening in Darfur - Clooney paid for most of the observation satellites - and started using it as a metaphor for what was going on in Israel/Palestine. This led to the Sudanese President - Omar al-Bashir - being indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) on pretty spurious grounds. The reason why the ICC arrest warrant against al-Bashir has not been executed is because everybody knows that the case would fall to pieces if ever brought to trial.

Then someone pointed out that the Darfur crisis wasn't even the biggest conflict going on in Sudan at the time. This prompted the international community to suggest a "Two State Solution" to the conflict between the Northern and Southern Sudanese tribes. As a result Sudan was divided in two in 2011. This has been something of an unmitigated disaster with inter-ethnic fighting raging across South Sudan forcing 1.1million people to become refugees and 4 million people in the brink of famine. Things have got so bad that the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) are today visiting South Sudan so they can witness the consequences of their folly in person.

As such the Darfur case study really highlights that while international humanitarian law is vitally important the highly politicised commissions of inquiry it prompts often only succeed in making the situation much worse. The tyranny of lawyers and diplomats if you will.

However I think that main reason that Alamuddin turned down her seat on this commission is because she knew full well that she was only picked in the hope her soon-to-be husband would bring a lot of attention to the inquiry. I will leave you to draw your own conclusions about what that says about Saudi Arabia's attitude towards human rights and women's rights in particular.

The appointment of William Schabas as the commissions head should also prove very interesting. On one hand Schabas is a professor of law with a speciality for genocide. As such he should be all to aware of the definitions of things like "genocide" and "war crimes" and therefore understand that they simply don't apply here. However Schabas has in the past displayed a clear anti-Israel bias. For example he suggested that Netanyahu should have indicted by the ICC following Operation Cast Lead despite the fact that Netanyahu's involvement was minimal compared to that of Tzipi Livni's and Ehud Barak. Also it is quite clear that Saudi Arabia is only funding this commission in order that its findings can be used to pursue Saudi Arabia's political objectives.

As a result I think this commission is going to be more about Schabas' personal battle between his professional integrity and his paycheck then anything to do with either Israel or Gaza.

17:05 on 12/8/14 (UK date).