Johannesburg — Ask Richard Goldstone what possessed him, a Jew and self-described supporter of Israel, to accept the job of chief United Nations investigator of alleged war crimes committed in Gaza last winter, and the legendary South African judge invokes his past.
His decision in 1980 to accept the racist South African government’s offer of a judicial appointment was “the most difficult of my career,” he has said. The government back then occasionally appointed liberals as judges in order to, as he described it, “make good its boast of having an independent judiciary.” The danger of lending legitimacy to an immoral system by serving it was very real.
But ultimately, the hope of liberals that the legal system could be expanded from within to effect social change was vindicated for him when one of his rulings effectively ended South Africa’s policy of racially-segregated neighborhoods.
On September 15, Goldstone submitted his team’s report on human rights violations in the Gaza conflict to the U.N. Human Rights Council. It is a 574-page review — based on 188 individual interviews; 10,000 pages of documents; 1,200 photos, including satellite imagery, and 30 videos — that blisters with specificity.
The report states that both Israel and Hamas, the Palestinian group controlling Gaza, committed war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity. It cites the many rockets launched by Hamas against Israeli civilians in the months preceding and during the conflict as war crimes; likewise, an instance of Israeli soldiers shelling a home in which they had forced Palestinian civilians to assemble and seven incidents in which it says Israeli soldiers shot civilians “while they were trying to leave their homes to walk to a safer place, waving white flags, in some of the cases, following an injunction from the Israeli forces to do so.”
The report also found that despite its claims to have thoroughly investigated human rights allegations made against its military’s conduct, “the Government of Israel had not carried out any credible investigations into alleged violations.” Nor, it found, had Hamas.
Goldstone’s mission recommended that the Security Council require both parties to conduct such investigations and report back within six months on the results, and on any prosecutions they will carry out on the violations identified in its report. If either party fails to do so, Goldstone urged the Security Council to refer the matter to the prosecutor for the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
Condemnation of the report came quickly from Israel and its supporters. They especially lambasted Goldstone’s effort to scrutinize both parties equally as, in the words of the Anti-Defamation League, “a dangerous and totally unwarranted equivalence between the Israel Defense Forces and the terrorists of Hamas.”
But the less predictable response will come from the U.N. Human Rights Council. Its repeated condemnations of Israel — 15 times in less than two years, while condemning no other country — have led to accusations that the body is inherently anti-Israel. The question that has yet to be answered is whether the council will now take up Goldstone’s report in its entirety, or, as per its original resolution ordering the investigation, only address the alleged crimes committed by Israel.
The answer to that question will also determine whether Goldstone achieves his stated objective of expanding the U.N.’s purview of human rights, as he did South Africa’s, or whether, as his critics predict, he will be shown up as a naive idealist, one who enabled an implacably Israel-obsessed body to use the findings of a distinguished pro-Israel Jewish jurist to justify its actions.
Interviewed just four days before the report’s release, Goldstone was determinedly upbeat about the report’s prospects and unapologetic about his decision to take up the job.
“I was driven particularly because I thought the outcome might, in a small way, assist the peace process,” he told the Forward. “I really thought I was one person who could achieve an even-handed mission.”
Goldstone is widely credited with having helped bring down the curtain on apartheid through a government-commissioned investigation he led that exposed the existence of covert state-sponsored terror units deployed by South Africa against its own black citizenry.
“He was brave. He could’ve been killed,” said Benjamin Pogrund, a former South African journalist and the founder of Yakar Center for Social Concern in Jerusalem.
Nelson Mandela, the country’s first post-apartheid president, later appointed Goldstone to the country’s highest court. More recently, Goldstone has served as the chief U.N. prosecutor of human rights and war crimes in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia.
Goldstone is proud of his Jewish identity and links it firmly to his human rights concerns. A president emeritus of World ORT, an international Jewish vocational training organization that maintains some of its biggest projects in Israel, he also serves on the Hebrew University of Jersulem’s board of governors.
Characterizing the struggle for human rights as “a secular religion of our time,” Goldstone once described the existence of the State of Israel as its Jewish embodiment. “This struggle for human rights has been in the most profound existential sense very much the struggle for ourselves — for our own Jewish destiny. For the creation of the State of Israel,” he said.
“I’ve been involved with Israel since I can remember,” Goldstone told the Forward. “My mother was very active in the women’s Zionist movement.” His daughter, Nicole, lived in Israel.
On human rights, Goldstone told the International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists in 1995, “We must not only insist that we be judged by those standards by our neighbors and by the international community. We should indeed object vehemently when any seeks to judge us by any other standards,” he said.
But Goldstone denied that his religious identity was relevant to his appointment. “I’ve no doubt the fact I’m a Jew wasn’t the reason I was approached. Navi Pillay, a fellow South African judge and United Nations high commissioner for human rights, directly approached me because of my involvement in international criminal justice,” he said.
In its original January 12 resolution, the human rights council called for an investigation of Israel’s alleged human rights violations — and only Israel’s. Citing “the grave violations of human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, particularly due to the recent Israeli military attacks,” the council’s resolution charged its president to appoint a mission to investigate “all violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law by the occupying power, Israel, against the Palestinian people.”
Given this one-sided condemnation, many were mystified when Goldstone accepted the offer to head up the probe. According to press reports, former U.N. high commissioner for human rights Mary Robinson described the council as “guided not by human rights, but by politics” when she herself declined the job, specifically citing the resolution’s exclusive focus on Israel.
“Richard was uncertain, but people encouraged him to accept, saying because he’s a Jew with a legal background, he’d give a fair assessment,” an old family friend said. “He’s never been a shul-goer, but his Jewishness has never been a question.”
But according to Goldstone, when the council president, Martin Uhomoibhi of Nigeria, appointed him, he accepted only on the condition that Uhomoibhi expand the mandate to look at the actions of both sides of the conflict. Uhomoibhi agreed to this, he said.
Indeed, when Uhomoibhi released his official invitation for individuals with information about alleged violations to submit evidence, he noted that “pursuant” to the council’s resolution, he had established the Goldstone task force “to investigate all violations of International Human Rights Law and International Humanitarian Law that might have been committed at any time in the context of the military operations that were conducted in Gaza during the period from 27 December 2008 to 18 January 2009, whether before, during or after.”
It was this change in the charge — and the inclusion in its timeframe of the months preceding Israel’s military campaign when Hamas was launching rockets into Israel — that allowed Goldstone to frame his mission as one to examine abuses “on both sides” of the conflict.
Not everyone agrees this really changes anything. Irwin Cotler, an international law expert and former Canadian Justice Minister who is sympathetic to Israel’s legal position, said, “As a Supreme Court judge, he knows that the mandate still stands unless it is either altered or in some way repealed and replaced by a new resolution of the council,” Cotler said.
“I believe Goldstone himself wishes to engage in a fair-minded mission. But this mission has been tainted from the beginning,” he said. “I don’t know why he has accepted such a flawed mandate, unless he believes he can alter the whole process single-handedly and redeem it.”
Israel, citing the one-sided council resolution, refused to cooperate with Goldstone’s probe; the council ultimately paid the expenses for Israeli witnesses to travel to Geneva to give testimony. Upon its release, Israel condemned the report for, among other things ignoring “the deliberate strategy of Hamas of operating within and behind the civilian population and turning densely populated areas into an arena of battle.” It dismissed the recommendations against Hamas as “token.”
The Israeli response did not address any of the report’s factual findings.
“The big question is what the U.N. does with the report,” said Selma Browde, an anti-apartheid and Middle East Peace activist. Her husband, Jules Browde, an eminent human rights lawyer and former counsel for Mandela who has long known Goldstone, said, “It would be tragic if the council misused it in a less than even-handed way.” They spoke shortly before the report’s release.
Goldstone, his work now done, sounded resigned. “What they do with the report is out of our hands,” he said. “I am not prepared to speculate on the consequences of an unevenhanded response.”
Contact Claudia Braude at feedback@forward.com
The Forward welcomes reader comments in order to promote thoughtful discussion on issues of importance to the Jewish community. In the interest of maintaining a civil forum, the Forward requires that all commenters be appropriately respectful toward our writers, other commenters and the subjects of the articles. Vigorous debate and reasoned critique are welcome; name-calling and personal invective are not. While we generally do not seek to edit or actively moderate comments, the Forward reserves the right to remove comments for any reason.
Copyright © 2013, Forward Association, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Reconsider Decision on Rabbis and Intermarriage
Is Steven Hawking’s Decision To Boycott Israel a Boon to BDS?
Alas, Poor GOP: 3 D.C. Scandals That Weren't
Forced Out by Nazis, Grandmother Returns With Family to German Hometown 
Mother of Jewish Teen Killed on Brooklyn Bridge Speaks Out
You've successfully signed up!
In a oft borrowed phrase, the road to Hell is paved with many good intentions.
The whole commission was tainted read statements of it's members during operation Cast Lead.They had their minds made up.
http://israelmatzav.blogspot.com/2009/09/goldstone-commission-biased-from-outset.html
How on earth can anyone claim that Goldstone could be biased? The entire world knows that it was Israel who attacked Gaza with thousands of tonnes of bombs, with tanks, with jets, with the navy and everything else when Hamas had held the peace for 4.5 months with no rocket fire and when not one person had been killed by Hamas for years but hundreds of Palestinians had been murdered by Israel.
There is a delusion among many in the jewish diaspora that they are totally above the law but they are not. Will Israel whine again if the Palestinians cannot investigate the arbitrary murder of opponents in the Gaza strip or the brutality Fatah carry out with Israel's complicity in the West Bank?
If Israel cannot be bothered investigating properly they will simply have to shut up won't they because no-one on earth will care.
Marilyn, you're right that Israel doesn't properly invstigate charges against its own soldiers.
Human Rights Watch described how the IDF conducts a "field investigation" of misconduct by its soldiers. That means they ask the soldiers and officers on the ground for their version of the events. If the soldiers and officers say they didn't do anything wrong, that's the end of the investigation.
Human Rights Watch, B'Tselem, and all the human rights organizations have said for years that they would investigate charges against the IDF, they would talk to the Palestinian victims and eyewitnesses to get sworn affadavits, and the Palestinians would say that nobody ever talked to them before.
Then the IDF would deny that their soldiers did anything wrong -- without ever having talked to the Palestinian eyewitnesses.
This is just ridiculous. Both sides of committed crimes? More then 3000 Palestinians have died and only less then 50 Israel and thats called Fair? we’ve observed the most gruesome atrocities launched upon the innocent civilian, non-combatant population of Gaza. Most of the 1,383 deaths in last year’s operation ‘Cast Lead’, conducted by the Israeli forces, were civilians, 333 of them being children. In the aftermath, Gaza has now become one of the world’s largest concentration camps. The fact is that currently, more than 80% of the civilians in Gaza can’t find reliable sources of food (UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Locked in: The Humanitarian Impact of Two Years of Blockade on the Gaza Strip, August 2009). This is as a direct result of the inhumane Israeli restrictions placed on Life-Sustaining International food aid. They’re blocking food for God’s sake, not unnecessary items, but food!! Our US Tax dollars were used to inflict the original loss of life, think about it, that’s more than a third of the lives lost on 9/11. Now US aid is being used to block basic food aid from reaching civilians? What does Israel gain from this, other than prolonging the suffering of those who have already lost so much? Can you imagine yourself and your family being in a situation where they don’t know if they’ll get their next meal? Visit www.ifamericansknew.org to find out more on how you can help in bringing to an end the use of our tax dollars in perpetuating this torture and injustice!!
And he delivered his report two days before Rosh Hashana, just in time to ruin everyone's new year celebration.
What's equally scary is that his report gives validation to the rabid Israel haters, like many of the comments above.
This report is a big deal, due to its specificity and due to the fact that, unlike so many mindless leftists, it judges the deliberate targeting of civilians by Hamas to also be a war crime. Hamas didn't kill as many as IDF, but not for lack of trying -- 11,000 rockets in 8 years, or six a day. But the rocket attacks had died down -- there was a moratorium that had lasted months, until Hamas opened up the rocket attacks again and Israel went in. I assume Hamas wanted Bibbi elected, and it got its wish. But western pressure on Hamas had been intense as well, and they hadn't gotten much credit for the moratorium.
I taught journalists in the former Yugoslavia -- making 20 trips over a period of 4 years -- and followed Richard Goldstone as a prosecutor on the Yugoslav tribunal. He is a fact-driven, intellectually honest individual. If enough people understand that, his report might have a chance to survive politics at the UN and Israeli mudslinging.
Congrats to The Forward for elevating the level of debate.
editorsteve wrote:
>But the rocket attacks had died down -- there was a moratorium that had lasted months, until Hamas opened up the rocket attacks again and Israel went in.
The reason Hamas opened up the rocket attacks again, according to law professor George Bisharat http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123154826952369919.html is that Israel broke the truce on Nov. 4, raiding the Gaza strip and killing a Palestinian. Hamas responded with rockets, and Israel killed 5 more Palestinians.
It seems that Israel broke the truce, knowing that it would provoke Hamas to fire rockets.
So Goldstone is jewish. So what? Karl Marx was Jewish. So was Paul of Tarsus. Sometimes the greatest threat to a community comes from within.
btw, editorsteve, who are these "mindless leftists" who don't judge the deliberate targeting of civilians by Hamas to also be a war crime?
Certainly not Amnesty International, B'Tselem, Human Rights Watch, or Palestinians like George Bisharat or Ali Abunimah.
By using the straw man of "mindless leftists," you're lowering the level of debate.
And Norman the Pals would of course never lie or exaggerate when being interviewed by all the "Human Rights Org.". Jennin and a million more lies like this and only a fool would believe anything they say. It is their culture to lie and exaggerate and it is your culture to fall for it every time.
Come on, Norman, don't be disingenious. You know what we all mean by mindless leftists. It has become increasingly fashionable -- particularly but not exclusively on the left -- to hold Israel responsible for anything bad that happens in the Middle East. It is encouraging to see that there are some Palestinian activists who are willing to aid in the investigation of their own side's actions, but those activists are still in the minority and largely silenced in their own society.
Israel has done things wrong; we know this because it is an open and democratic society with a free press that does not hesitate to criticize its leaders. (I know, that's putting it mildly.) As a result it is much easier to dig up Israeli dirt than it is to find credible testimony against Hamas or Fatah. On the other hand, Palestinian society maintains a code of Omerta in regards to the abuses of Hamas and Fatah.
We can hope (but not really expect) that at some point ordinary Palestinian citizens will recognize how poorly served they are by their own corrupt and brutal leaders.
For all the pear-shaped neocons trying to assert their mensch-hood barking at people lieing like old time Leninist professional activists, here is a real MENSCH-- quiet and upright who calls them as he sees them-- holding on high the Jewish Ethic. God smiles on him for courage is not something we are given but a reflection of our faith in Him. Right or wrong, professor, you are indeed a mensch!
Re who broke the hudna (not a ceasefire):
Someone above cites Bisharat who claims that because the IDF destroyed a tunnel on Nov. 4th that was dug a few mere meters away from the boundary with Israel, whose intent was to allow Palestinian belligerent combatants to enter Israel either for a human bombing of Israeli civilians, or to kidnap Israeli soldiers for ransom, Israel broke the hudna.
But never mind that that Hamas fired rockets and mortars into Israel even after their unilateral declaration of the hudna, or that it only took Hamas nearly a month after Nov. 4 to announce their intention to end the Hudna.
What is interesting is that Hamas declared war on Wednesday, December 24th, a full three days before Israel did, with their announcement of what Hamas called 'Operation Oil Stain' (or 'Oil Slick' in some translations). On that day, Hamas shot over 40 Qassam rockets and over 80 projectiles altogether towards civilians in Israel. It was by far the biggest barrage that Israel had seen since February.
Hamas press releases on Dec. 28 and Jan. 1 continued to call it by this name even well after the Israeli response started. They never considered it a one-time operation. Hamas looked at Israel's response as being a part of a war it started.
A couple of days later Hamas changed its tune, using both the "Oil Slick" term as well as the new term "Battle of Discord" on January 3, and using the new term exclusively on January 4th.
In other words, for about a week after Israel's counterattack, Hamas took credit for starting the war. Once it became clear that Hamas could gain more political points by claiming to be victims of Israeli aggression, they abandoned their earlier boasting about Operation Oil Slick and the media and human rights groups ignored Hamas' declaration of war in every single report to date.
See: http://tinyurl.com/l7zbpt
Baruch Hashem that the IDF has no commanders the likes of Goldstone. As any clear minded aware person knows, freely-elected Hamas has as its intention to destroy Israel from top to bottom. They openly promote genocide. Hence they cleverly fought a "home made rocket" war of attrition and garnered global liberal support by presenting themselves as victims. Conversely, Israel being the size, population, and place/position that it is - and facing the enormous quantity of enemies it has - wars must be fought in a certain ultra-fierce way - a way that has its antecedents in the Tanach. That's what happened - and the "Palestinians" got off lightly, in my view. But they got the message: next time will be much worse. As for Goldstone, he's another high-minded idealistic disgrace to the Jewish people.
Judge Goldstone's report, as reported in the NY Times, reeked of moral equivalence, failed to take cognizance of why Israel responded after numerous rocket attacks, and was based on a simple lack of an elementary fact-war is hell. To paraphrase George Will, if the CivilWar was fought by Judge Goldstone's criteria, Lincoln, Grant, Sherman and Farragut were war criminals and we would still have slavery in the US.
Someone wrote: "So Goldstone, B'Tselem and Human Rights Watch don't just interview Palestinian witnesses and believe them. They interview all the witnesses and compare their accounts, and they try to talk to the accused to get their side."
I wonder if even a single Palestinian witness handpicked (who knows how?) to testify before Goldstone supports a 2 state solution. One has only to look at the testimony of Dr. Iyyad El-Sarraji who has been celebrated in the New York Times: he was critical of Yasir Arafat, and he is from the left, not an Islamist or even an Arafat follower.
But what is not reported in the Western media about Sarraji is that he has publicly spoken out against the 1993 Oslo Accords and argued that the Palestinians should never have abandoned armed struggle. To see the racist language with which Dr. Sarraji availed himself before the UN Human Rights Council Commission availed himself see: http://tinyurl.com/mfwwfr
Goldstone's report doesn't mention the fact that under authoritarian Hamas rule, any witness in Gaza who sharply dissented from or contradicted Hamas talking points would be dealt with soon after Goldstone picked up and left. Nor does Goldstone's report mention that witnesses always testified in front of Hamas handlers.
Here's an example from: http://tinyurl.com/msjgj7
In discussing that prior Israeli report on the Gaza conflict, The Operation in Gaza: Factual and Legal Aspects, Goldstone and his colleagues reproduce a passage that the Israeli report had quoted from the magazine Newsweek, which included this sentence:
In the Tal-al Hawa neighborhood nearby, however, Talal Safadi, an official in the leftist Palestinian People's Party, said that resistance fighters were firing from positions all around the hospital.
The Goldstone report then comments on this, questioning the evidence presented by Israel:
While the Israeli Government does not comment further on the specific attack, it would appear to invoke these comments to justify the strikes on the hospital and surrounding area.
612. The Mission understands that the Israeli Government may consider relying on journalists’ reporting as likely to be treated as more impartial than reliance on its own intelligence information. The Mission is nonetheless struck by the lack of any suggestion in Israel’s report of July 2009 that there were members of armed groups present in the hospital at the time.
One should note first that, of course, Israel did have intelligence information that armed groups were present in the hospital. That’s why they fired back at them. But more importantly, the UN’s claim here is a breathtaking distortion of what the Israeli report said, for immediately after the quote from Newsweek, the Israeli report presented exactly what the Goldstone report charged was lacking:
174. A report from Corriere della Sera confirms that the grounds, ambulances and uniforms of the al-Quds hospital had been hijacked by terrorist operatives:
Magah al Rachmah, aged 25, residing a few dozen meters from the four large buildings of the now seriously damaged health complex, says about this fact: “The men of Hamas took refuge mainly in the building that houses the administrative offices of al Quds. They used the ambulances and forced ambulance drivers and nurses to take off their uniforms with the paramedic symbols, so they could blend in better and elude Israeli snipers.”
Here’s a portion of the page from the Israeli report:
173. According to Newsweek, Palestinian gunmen admitted using the al-Quds hospital for firing at Israel:
"One of the most notorious incidents during the war was the Jan. 15 shelling of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society buildings in the downtown Tal-al Hawa part of Gaza City, followed by a shell hitting their Al Quds Hospital next door; the subsequent fire forced all 500 patients to be evacuated... In the Tal-al Hawa neighborhood nearby, however, Talal Safadi, an official in the leftist Palestinian People's Party, said that resistance fighters were firing from positions all around the hospital. He shrugged that off, having a bigger beef with Hamas. "They failed to win the battle."" [169]
174. A report from Corriere della Sera confirms that the grounds, ambulances and uniforms of the al-Quds hospital had been hijacked by terrorist operatives:
"Magah al Rachmah, aged 25, residing a few dozen meters from the four large buildings of the now seriously damaged health complex, says about this fact: "The men of Hamas took refuge mainly in the building that houses the administrative offices of al Quds. They used the ambulances..." ------------------------------
Thus, rather than dealing with the evidence in the Israeli report, Goldstone and his colleagues simply ignored those parts that disproved their charges. If Justice Goldstone and his eminent colleagues can’t even accurately characterize and quote from a straightforward Israeli report, why would anyone trust them to do anything more complicated? Like, for example, impartially investigating alleged war crimes.
Whether this was an honest error, or something less innocent, it raises grave questions about the credibility of the Goldstone report. The UN should immediately and forthrightly correct this error and should apologize to the government of Israel.
On another point, someone else up thread wrote: "They’re blocking food for God’s sake, not unnecessary items, but food!!"
This is a bald faced lie. If only those who rely on 'If Only Americans Knew' for their talking points, only knew: http://tinyurl.com/msyshf
What do you know. Israel elected a president that will fight, not talk. Negotiation has done nothing for Israel.
Must be driving those Jewish liberal-socialists insane. When I was a kid we had a saying, "talk is cheap"
Palestinians starving? where is all that arab oil money, the whole Egyptian border is open for food shipments. The plain fact is that these arab countries WANT TO KEEP THE PALESTINIANS POOR AND HUNGRY AS A SYMBOL FOR THEIR WORLD-WIDE PROPOGANDA CAMPAIGN. Which is why the only thing brought across the Egyptian border is weapos to kill Israelis.
For all I know that grandmother was wired with an explosive vest, would it be the first time these terrorists used women and children, if I recall it is a favorite tactic.
Sorry, war is hell, sometimes "sh-t happens". But if I was a small country surrounded by people that wanted to wipe me off the face of the earth. I do not believe I would do anything different, nobody is going to send help to Israel. Obama never.
So I say "Israel, do whatever it is you need to do to survive"
Teach these liberal SOB's that NEVER AGAIN means NEVER AGAIN
A jewish conservative and proud of it.
I don't get it. Would someone out there name any number of countries which would just stand by while one, much less 11,000 armed rockets were heaved into their country aimed at their citizens by the neighbouring government. Just what sort of "measured response" can you imagine most countries are willing to pursue? given that circumstance. I'd like some realistic examples.
Israel has been firing rockets from helicopters and fighter jets into the Palestinian territories for the last 30 years. They have assassinated people driving cars in the street, with their entire families.
For example, a few years ago, there was an incident in which (recalling the details from memory) the Israelis killed the Palestinian minister of health by firing a missile at him from the air. He was a doctor who had many Israeli friends. It turned out to be a mistake, but the Israeli government refused to acknowledge any responsibility. His family sued the Israeli government in court, with the help of some Israeli peace organizations, who were trying to encourage nonviolent Palestinians, but he got nowhere in court. This was before the Palestinians were firing rockets.
So what should the Palestinians do when the Israelis are firing armed rockets at them?
You seem to be incapable of putting yourself in the other person's position.
Israel is doomed. Why? Because the "people of the book" can no longer engage in dialogue.
Both sides do nothing but accuse and engage in character assassination. If we didn't have the Arabs to fight, we'd destroy ourselves with such hatred.
This Goldstsone report is a bit of a joke. Just imagine he were investigating nazi war cimes etc. So he'd write down, for "balance", that the Warsaw uprising fighters also committed war crimes etc.? And the media would repeat such nonsense without a whimper of criticism? Sad are the days when ruffians and thugs rule in rich lands and their court jesters sing and dance to their glory.
Here's the New York Times roundup of opinions about the Goldstone report.
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/17/goldstones-gaza/#more-13053 September 17, 2009, 5:34 pm Goldstone’s Gaza By Eric Etheridge
Someone wrote: "So Goldstone, B'Tselem and Human Rights Watch don't just interview Palestinian witnesses and believe them. They interview all the witnesses and compare their accounts, and they try to talk to the accused to get their side."
I wonder if even a single Palestinian witness handpicked (who knows how?) to testify before Goldstone supports a 2 state solution. One has only to look at the testimony of Dr. Iyyad El-Sarraji who has been celebrated in the New York Times: he was critical of Yasir Arafat, and he is from the left, not an Islamist or even an Arafat follower.
But what is not reported in the Western media about Sarraji is that he has publicly spoken out against the 1993 Oslo Accords and argued that the Palestinians should never have abandoned armed struggle. To see the racist language with which Dr. Sarraji availed himself before the UN Human Rights Council Commission availed himself see: http://tinyurl.com/mfwwfr
Goldstone's report doesn't mention the fact that under authoritarian Hamas rule, any witness in Gaza who sharply dissented from or contradicted Hamas talking points would be dealt with soon after Goldstone picked up and left. Nor does Goldstone's report mention that witnesses always testified in front of Hamas handlers.
Here's an example from: http://tinyurl.com/msjgj7
In discussing that prior Israeli report on the Gaza conflict, The Operation in Gaza: Factual and Legal Aspects, Goldstone and his colleagues reproduce a passage that the Israeli report had quoted from the magazine Newsweek, which included this sentence:
In the Tal-al Hawa neighborhood nearby, however, Talal Safadi, an official in the leftist Palestinian People's Party, said that resistance fighters were firing from positions all around the hospital.
The Goldstone report then comments on this, questioning the evidence presented by Israel:
While the Israeli Government does not comment further on the specific attack, it would appear to invoke these comments to justify the strikes on the hospital and surrounding area.
612. The Mission understands that the Israeli Government may consider relying on journalists’ reporting as likely to be treated as more impartial than reliance on its own intelligence information. The Mission is nonetheless struck by the lack of any suggestion in Israel’s report of July 2009 that there were members of armed groups present in the hospital at the time.
One should note first that, of course, Israel did have intelligence information that armed groups were present in the hospital. That’s why they fired back at them. But more importantly, the UN’s claim here is a breathtaking distortion of what the Israeli report said, for immediately after the quote from Newsweek, the Israeli report presented exactly what the Goldstone report charged was lacking:
174. A report from Corriere della Sera confirms that the grounds, ambulances and uniforms of the al-Quds hospital had been hijacked by terrorist operatives:
Magah al Rachmah, aged 25, residing a few dozen meters from the four large buildings of the now seriously damaged health complex, says about this fact: “The men of Hamas took refuge mainly in the building that houses the administrative offices of al Quds. They used the ambulances and forced ambulance drivers and nurses to take off their uniforms with the paramedic symbols, so they could blend in better and elude Israeli snipers.”
Here’s a portion of the page from the Israeli report:
173. According to Newsweek, Palestinian gunmen admitted using the al-Quds hospital for firing at Israel:
"One of the most notorious incidents during the war was the Jan. 15 shelling of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society buildings in the downtown Tal-al Hawa part of Gaza City, followed by a shell hitting their Al Quds Hospital next door; the subsequent fire forced all 500 patients to be evacuated... In the Tal-al Hawa neighborhood nearby, however, Talal Safadi, an official in the leftist Palestinian People's Party, said that resistance fighters were firing from positions all around the hospital. He shrugged that off, having a bigger beef with Hamas. "They failed to win the battle."" [169]
174. A report from Corriere della Sera confirms that the grounds, ambulances and uniforms of the al-Quds hospital had been hijacked by terrorist operatives:
"Magah al Rachmah, aged 25, residing a few dozen meters from the four large buildings of the now seriously damaged health complex, says about this fact: "The men of Hamas took refuge mainly in the building that houses the administrative offices of al Quds. They used the ambulances..." ------------------------------
Thus, rather than dealing with the evidence in the Israeli report, Goldstone and his colleagues simply ignored those parts that disproved their charges. If Justice Goldstone and his eminent colleagues can’t even accurately characterize and quote from a straightforward Israeli report, why would anyone trust them to do anything more complicated? Like, for example, impartially investigating alleged war crimes.
Whether this was an honest error, or something less innocent, it raises grave questions about the credibility of the Goldstone report. The UN should immediately and forthrightly correct this error and should apologize to the government of Israel.
On another point, someone else up thread wrote: "They’re blocking food for God’s sake, not unnecessary items, but food!!"
This is a bald faced lie. If only those who rely on 'If Only Americans Knew' for their talking points, only knew: http://tinyurl.com/msyshf
Israel was surprised at the ferocity of Goldstone's report because it turned its back on him.
http://forecasthighs.com/2009/09/18/grappling-with-goldstone/
When the US military accidently kills civilians, it is called collateral damage. ( Read Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan). There is an apology by a US general and that's all.
When Israeli forces kill civilians or other non-combatants in the Gaza Strip, as a response to thousands of rockets fired by Hamas and other militant groups into Israel indisciminately, a UN investigation takes place.
In Iraq, the US has been responsible for the deaths and injuries to thousands, if not tens of thousands of Iraqis., some of them civilians. We often times do (US generals) apologize and say we are sorry for those deaths, but it part of the war.
In Iraq, it is well known that the insurgents have hidden in mosques, hospitals, schools. They become legitimate targets under international law.
In the Gaza Strip, militants do hide behind the skirts of their womenfolk and children. They sometimes use ambulences to ferry ammunition and other weaponry.
It is unfortunate that anyone has to die..whether Arabs or Jews or others fighting with the IDF., but it happens.
Look, if anyone were to fire even one Kassam ( a very lethal crude rocket) into a US city, lets say from Canada or Mexico ( re: San Diego, Los Angeles, Buffalo, Brownsville), what do you think our reaction would be? If 10,000 rockets were fired, including the more accurate Katyushas and Grads..threatening entire city populations, chemical plants, oil refineries..how long would we tolerate it?
Would the UN appoint a commission ( using an American jurist ) as it did with the instant situation in the Gaza Strip.
Let us remember that the IDF soldier, Shalit, is still a captive somewhere, and the Red Cross is prevented from visiting him.
That alone justifies Israel's actions, not to forget the terror of rockets falling in or near Israeli cities and towns.
I'm not sure I agree with Israel for not permitting Goldstone ( whose head is as thick as a rock) to travel directly to the Strip, or forcing witnesses to go to Geneva. Suppose Goldstone did fly to Tel Aviv, so what?
In a war, people get killed. One poster says Israel has killed hundreds of Gaza Strip Palestinians during retaliatory raids. Maybe! But so what? The real question should be, why is Hamas allowing the rockets to be fired in the first place? Don't they understand that Israel must and will retaliate? NO country would allow this to recur.
Russia had and has a problem with it's Muslim neighbors. It acted to protect it's self interests. The same applies to the former Soviet Georgia.
When a country is attacked, it must fight back. Collateral deaths are part of this scenario. During WW2, we (US) bombed Japanese and German cities. We killed hundreds of thousands of civilians. Germany declared war on US, and Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. They understood the possible consequences.
I'm sure that had Japan/Germany won..there would be a commission to try US war criminals. They lost thank G-d.
Israel withdrew from the Strip..and got thousands of rockets instead, plus the Intifada, which BTW, killed over 1,000 Israelis (or 60,000 Americans). We did not lose 60,000 soldiers in two wars, in Korea and Vietnam, yet we killed over 1m of their people.
Who is kidding whom. Iran/Iraq war caused over 1m deaths. Did the UN form commissions to determine who was responsible?
Goldstone's actions in South Africa are a shame. The situation in that country is now worse then ever., even though they have a black leadership.
He loves Israel...well with lovers like that, who needs enemies? Why doesn't he investigate what is occurring in Iran and the brutal treatment of it's own people?
I will tell you, Iran would lock this guy up..and throw him in with the other incarcerated protests..after torturing him.
He should have dismissed himself. His role just aggravates an already sensitive situation.
As far as food, is a poster blind? Every time I see pictures from the Israeli border, I see tens of trucks carrying food, medicine, fuel, etc. to the Palestinians. The boycott does preclude certain items, like cement (can be used for military purposes). That is Israel's perogative.
Since Egypt also has a border with the Strip and allows smuggling in or arms..why not allow food, etc.?
Egypt's response has been, we don't want to do Israel's work or lessen Israel's responsibility. We should also be reminded that since 1948, the Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip have joined other Arab armies (Egypt) whenever there was fighting..and in fact had their own militias (read El Fatah).
Israel's mistake is in responding to the UN at ALL and also is in allowing virtually unfettered smuggling between Egypt and the Strip, with only an occasional strike or attempt to destroy a tunnel or two.
It should simply OCCUPY the entire border area with Egypt. and tell the UN where the sun doesn't shine.
Israel is too soft, too timid and too respectful of Arab sensitivities.
Reverse the situation...and understand what Hamas would do, if it could.
The only one who expressed full reality in this forum is Dav Lev. Thank you for speaking the truth, Dav Lev.
On Nov. 4, Israelis raided a tunnel that Hamas was going to use to capture Israeli soldiers. The tunnel was close to the border fence, and the Palestinians could be seen preparing it. No matter what truce is in force, the Israelis reserve the right to make a preemptive strike if it is known that the enemy is preparing its own attack. That Israeli kill power is greater than that of Hamas is well-known by Hamas, and yet it does not keep Hamas or Hezbullah, for that matter, from positioning its men within civilian, residential areas begging for civilian casualties. Israel raids have specific goals. Israelis will not act without provocation, even if the provocation is still in the initial stages. Why should we wait for the enemy to finish its preparations?