Israeli and American diplomats came to the United Nations not to praise the Goldstone Report, but to bury it. And unlike Marc Antony in his eulogy for Julius Caesar, they meant it.
As a result of their efforts, it appears all but certain that the report accusing Israel and the Palestinian faction Hamas of war crimes and possible crimes against humanity will not reach any binding international forums.
The report, released September 15, caused a huge initial international stir, not only because of its findings, the bulk of which focused on Israel, but also because of its ultimate recommendation: that the United Nations Security Council, which has binding power under international law, require Israel and Hamas, which controls Gaza, to conduct their own respective independent investigations of the evidence of human rights violations cited in the report. If they do not do so within six months, the report urged the Security Council to refer their cases to the International Criminal Court in the Hague.
But in the days following the release of Goldstone’s report, it became clear that in the arm-wrestling contest between international rights organizations and the established Israeli-American diplomatic bond, the latter wins easily.
The 574-page report, commissioned by the U.N.’s Human Rights Council, was overseen by Judge Richard Goldstone, a widely respected South African jurist who served on his country’s highest court and went on to prosecute war crimes in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. The report scrutinized the events of last winter’s Operation Cast Lead, in which Israel bombarded Gaza from the air and ground in response to the continued firing of rockets by Hamas militants at Israeli towns.
Estimates of Palestinian dead from the campaign range from 1,166 to 1,417. The number of non-combatants among them remains in sharp dispute, running from 300 (Israel’s) to 1,000 (Hamas). An estimated 4,000 Palestinian homes were destroyed. Thirteen Israelis were killed during the conflict.
Israel refused to cooperate in the investigation, citing the council’s one-sided condemnation of it in the resolution commissioning the report. It blocked Goldstone from entering Israel to pursue his probe, though Goldstone had secured the backing of the council’s president to expand his mandate to scrutinize Hamas, as well. The Goldstone Commission was thus unable to examine Israeli homes hit by the rockets. And it could not interview Israelis injured by them, but for a few who traveled to Geneva at the Human Rights Council’s expense to testify.
Although the report raised serious accusations against Hamas, the Palestinian faction ruling Gaza, Israel and its supporters condemned it as anti-Israel, citing its lengthier and more detailed accounts of alleged Israeli human rights violations and its use of the terms “war crimes” and “possible crimes against humanity” to describe Israeli actions. Jerusalem was especially worried about the report’s recommendation to refer the issue to the International Criminal Court if Israel refused to launch an independent investigation of its own.
The report’s defenders countered that Israel’s complaint was a case of a child murdering his parents, then seeking special consideration as an orphan. The scantier scrutiny of Hamas’s misdeeds was hardly surprising, they argued, given Israel’s decision to deny the investigators access to the scene of Hamas’s crimes, or to its victims.
Israel’s drive to counter the report began moments after Goldstone’s presentation of it. Israeli leaders took to the airways and blasted the report as biased. They also made reference to an earlier document prepared by the Israeli foreign ministry, which counters some of the points made by Goldstone.
On the diplomatic front, Israeli officials in Washington, New York and Jerusalem pressed Israel’s key goal with their American counterparts: to quarantine the report within the confines of the council and ensure that it is not picked up by other international forums. Danny Ayalon, Israel’s deputy foreign minister, was on an official Washington visit and met with Susan Rice, American ambassador to the U.N., and raised the issue with her, as well.
The argument that Israel presented to American officials and to diplomats from Russia and key European countries was designed to appeal to their own self-interest. The Goldstone report, Israeli officials asserted, carries a hidden danger for all countries participating in international military campaigns against terrorism. Supporters of Israel pointed out that the United States military, for one, has killed many civilians during its military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“This is a report that should worry every country fighting terror,” said Jonathan Peled, spokesman of the Israeli Embassy in Washington. “We need to make sure this report does not endanger the U.S. and other countries.”
Ayalon urged American Jewish leaders to take on the report. Most major Jewish groups issued statements condemning Goldstone’s findings and calling on the international community to look at the Israeli military’s inquiry into its Gaza operation. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee called the report “deeply flawed” and said that Goldstone’s investigation was rigged.
Key supporters of Israel in Congress also lashed out at the council. New York Democrat Gary Ackerman, chair of the House Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia, fumed that the report’s authors lived in a “self-righteous fantasyland.”
Some Israeli officials went after Goldstone. Israeli Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz denounced him as an “anti-Semite.”
“Just as a non-Jew can be anti-Semitic, a Jew can also be anti-Semitic and discriminate against our people and despise and hate our people,” he told the New York paper The Jewish Week.
Goldstone has a history of support for Israel that includes his current service on the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s board of governors.
But despite mounting pressure from Israel and its supporters in the United States, the administration took its time in making a clear statement on the report. A State Department spokesman initially said that because of the report’s length, he had no immediate comment.
This made some pro-Israel activists edgy. Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, said two days after the release of the findings that he was “shocked and distressed” that the United States had yet to come out unequivocally against the report.
But by September 18, three days after the report’s release, the State Department declared Goldstone’s findings unfair toward Israel — citing the lack of equal scrutiny stressed by others. Notably, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly did not challenge any of the report’s specific findings of human rights violations by Israel or Hamas.
“While the report makes overly sweeping conclusions of fact and law with respect to Israel, its conclusions regarding Hamas’s deplorable conduct and its failure to comply with international humanitarian law during the conflict are more general and tentative,” he said.
Kelly also made clear that the United States saw the Human Rights Council as the only venue for discussing Goldstone’s report. The administration has “very serious concerns” about attempts to take up the issue at other international bodies, he said.
Goldstone’s report was published just as the United States began its term as a member of the Human Rights Council. Administration officials said the Goldstone report demonstrated the need for the United States to sit on the council and make sure Israel is treated fairly.
While condemnation in the council is unavoidable, the U.S., which has veto power in the Security Council, can make clear it will not allow a resolution to pass. Israeli officials were confident that the U.S would easily prevent the issue from being raised at the Security Council.
Still, Jewish groups and pro-Israel activists stressed that it remains important to fight the Goldstone report in the public arena to ensure that its findings are not adopted as world public opinion.
That fear could only be reinforced by the assessment of international law expert Richard Falk, a Princeton University professor, strong critic of Israel and earlier U.N. appointee charged with investigating allegations of Israeli war crimes.
Falk cited the report’s likely impact on “the symbols of legitimacy, what I have called the legitimacy war” between Israel and the Palestinians.
“Increasingly,” he wrote on the website Mideast Online, “The Palestinians have been winning this second non-military war.”
Falk predicted the report would mean gains for the international movement to boycott Israel and would fray Israel’s Jewish support, as well. “The weight of the report will be felt by world public opinion,” he predicted.
Contact Nathan Guttman at guttman@forward.com
The release of the Goldstone report initially made the Jewish anti-Semites leap with joy. Here was their great opportunity to mobilize much of the world to possible punitive action to strangle Israel economically. This article showing the Goldstone report as failing will greatly upset our enemies of Jewish extraction. Let us remember that an anti-Semite of Jewish extraction, such as Goldstone, can be as evil as any jihadist intent on killing Jews. And let us also recall it was Stalin who had his fanatically loyal Jewish storm troopers who volunteered to spy on the Jewish community in their effort to erase Judaism in the Soviet Union.
One needn't consider Goldstone to be an anti-Semitic or "self hating" Jew to recognize this report for the travesty it is, and to fault Goldstone for going along with it. The very mandate under which he operated - his "understandings" with the HRC President notwithstanding - was prejudicial on its face. The "investigators" - Goldstone aside - had long standing anti-Israel credentials. The methodology involved taking "testimony" Gaza residents with an obviously vested interest in blaming Israel, along with NGOs like HRW to which Goldstone himself had a long standing association. There was virtually no cross examination to verify the veracity of the claims. Nor was there much effort to seek out evidence of Palestinian culpability, the use of "human shields", etc. Indeed the team often said there was "no evidence" in support of Israeli claims, though such evidence is quite easy to find if one looks for it.
So what we had was a prejudicial mandate, biased "investigators", unchallenged witnesses, and a flawed methodology. Is it any wonder Israel chose not to cooperate in this kangaroo court?
While it is satisfying for some readers to attack Goldstone and impugn his character and motivation, or to attack the Forward for presenting a balanced and well-informed account of his report, none of this will magically make the report cease to exist. It would make a lot more sense to try to figure out how Israel is to operate in the present international climate, both to combat terrorism and to change the climate.
I don't think people are reading this report properly. Put yourself in the Secretary-General's shoes. You have thousands of UNRWA employees in Gaza, many of them local hires, and your first priority is to protect them so they can continue supplying welfare and you can keep their loyalty. How are you supposed to do that in the Arab refugee camps without U.N. police and troops which the Security Council won't supply? Especially in a Gaza where Arabs claim that Hamas throws those who oppose it from roof-tops?
Might you not choose to issue reports exculpating those who threaten your employees, even as you try to document their crimes in the hope that they could one day in the future be brought to justice? Bray loudly in agreement with tormentors as you whisper for help to others? Didn't Hamas threaten the UNRWA if it dared to teach about the Holocaust, and didn't the UNRWA accede to Hamas' wishes?
So you have to read the report carefully. For example, the report contains the admission from Hamas leaders that they deliberately employed civilians as human shields, yet calls this boasting rather than proof of criminal intent. This protects the UN's employees. Yet as a "non-judicial document" do such labels apply if the contents of the report are ever cited as evidence in a court of law?
Israel's "crimes" seem to be pretty insubstantial, or point to recognized flaws in international law. (See Robinson's Sept. 22nd column in the Wall Street Journal.)
If the ostrich posing as a government doesn't soon take its head out of the sand, eventually one of its enemies will sneak up behind it and take a bite out of its ass. Condemning the crimes of Hamas, et.al., is one thing; it is akin to shooting fish in a barrel, easy, anyone can do it, almost everyone does, perhaps everyone should; it's fool-proof. However, ignoring our own deteriorating moral and ethical stance, though it is easy, is proof of fools. Israel's right-wing imperialistic drift derives its impetus from our refusal to confront our own crimes against Palestinian civilians which in turn allows us to commit more gratuitous acts of unnecessary but brutal violence. We are entering a giant vortex of the blind leading the blind into a vicious circle from which we might not be able to escape. Perhaps it is already too late; if we do not demand accountability from our government and from our citizen army, the Zionist experiment will eventually be distorted beyond recognition. History will spit it out like a thing once willingly tasted, but found newly bitter.
The mandate was so flawed that Goldstone should not have accepted the position. Irwin Cotler a no less notable civil rights lawyer was offered the same post before Goldstone and turned it down on the basis of it's fatally flawed mandate. Was the investigation's mandate not originated from the same body that brought us the Durban travesty?
The Children of Israel vs. the Children of Adam, the final battle between two species. This is not about religion and never has been. Read the Qur'an and not the KORAN and you will discover the Jews true origins, they are Satan's Offspring, monkeys and swine.
It is not necessary to read Jameela's lucid comments to realize what Israel is up against. We are also waiting for Hamas to submit their report regarding their own actions. Don't hold your breath!
Im not evil, Im just FAMOUS!!!!!! The streets of Gaza are paved with gold, like the first syllable of my name. get it?
The UN Human Rights Council appointed Richard Goldstone, an eminent jurist, to head an investigation of possible war crimes committed by both Israel and Hamas in the period preceding and including the Gaza war. Goldstone's commission found both Israel and Hamas guilty of war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity. However, the emphasis of the report is on Israel with considerably less coverage of Hamas's crimes. The factual basis for Israel's human rights violation should not be blindly accepted. Recall the claims of human right violations in Gaza made by Israeli soldiers that were based on hearsay and turned out to be wrong.
If the Arab states belonging to the Human Rights Council have their way, the report will be transmitted to the UN Security Council which might, in turn, decide to transfer the matter to the International Criminal Court (ICC). The ICC could issue international arrest warrants for Israeli officials accused of war crimes.
Clearly the U.N. Human Rights Council has an anti-Israel bias. It has condemned Israel fifteen times in the last two years and has not condemned any other government, not Sudan for its genocide in Darfur, nor China for its suppression in Tibet nor Iran for its violent repression of political dissent. Claudia Braude reports in the Forward, '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.” Braude goes on to note, 'But according to Goldstone, when Martin Uhomoibhi of Nigeria, council president, appointed him, he accepted only on the condition that Uhomoibhi expand the mandate to look at the actions of both sides of the conflict.' _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ The complete version of this newsletter is distributed via e-mail, at no charge. To get your copy, send your e-mail address to chovevai@yahoo.com _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Nobody can accuse Goldstone of being a self-hating Jew. He has served as president of ORT and is on the Board of Governors of the Hebrew University. One can, however, take exception to the conclusions of the report. Shalhevet Zohar writes in the Jerusalem Post, 'The president (Peres) blamed Hamas for launching the war, claiming the terror group had committed numerous horrendous war crimes, and stressed that Israel had to defend itself. "Hamas carried out attacks against the children of Israel, detonating bombs in city centers, hurting civilians, firing more than 12,000 rockets and mortar shells at innocent civilians with one clear aim - to kill," he wrote in a statement. The report legitimizes terrorism, shooting and killing, while ignoring every state's right and obligation to self-defense, which are clearly anchored in the UN charter.'
Scrutinizing the report, it is clear that Goldstone is a captive of his biases – as are we all. Goldstone's biases are racist – third worlders can do little that is wrong and first worlders do little right. These biases are undoubtedly a result of his experiences in the anti-apartheid fight in his native South Africa but are inappropriate for the Israeli Palestinian conflict. Consider clauses 312 and 313 of the Goldstone Report -
312. The series of economic and political measures imposed against the Gaza Strip began around February 2006 with the Hamas electoral victory in the legislative elections. This was also accompanied by the withholding of financial support for the Gaza Strip by some donor countries and actions of other countries that amounted to open or tacit support of the Israeli blockade. Hamas took over effective power in the Gaza Strip on 15 June 2007. Shortly thereafter Israel declared the Gaza Strip a “hostile territory,” enacting a series of economic, social and military measures purportedly designed to isolate and strangle Hamas. These have made a deep impact on the population’s living standards.
313. The blockade comprises measures such as the closure of border crossings, sometimes completely for a number of days, for people, goods and services, and for the provision of fuel and electricity. The closure has had severe effects on trade and general business activity, agriculture and industry in the Gaza Strip. Electricity and fuel that are provided from Israel are essential for a broad range of activities from business to education, health services, industry and agriculture. Further limits to the fishing area in the sea adjacent to the Gaza Strip were fixed and enforced by Israel, negatively impacting on fishing activities and the livelihood of the fishing community.
Israel also established a buffer zone of variable and uncertain width along the border, together with a sizeable no-go area in the northern part of the Gaza Strip where some Israeli settlements used to be situated. This no-go area is in practice an enlarged buffer zone in the northern part of the Gaza Strip where people cannot go. The creation of the buffer zone has forced the relocation of a number of factories from this area closer to Gaza City, causing serious environmental concerns and potential health hazards for the population. People’s movements have also been drastically restricted, with only a few businesspeople allowed to cross on a very irregular and unpredictable basis.
What is most revealing in clause 312 is the phrasing 'Hamas took over effective power in the Gaza Strip on 15 June 2007' with no hint of the fact that Hamas came to power in a bloody coup, killing many of their fellow Palestinians who belonged to Fatah. This glossing over of reality, which ignores the supreme human rights violation of murder, is surely a sign of bias – a bias confirmed in clause 313, which discusses the Israeli blockade of Gaza but ignores the reasons for the blockade. There is no mention here of Israel's need to stop weapons being smuggled into Gaza. It is only when we get to page 455 of the 575 page report that weapon smuggling is mentioned - in clause 1652. Even there, no connection is made between the smuggling of rockets and the Israeli blockade. Nor is there any mention, in discussing the buffer zones in Gaza, of the rockets being launched from there – rockets meant to kill Israelis.
Most revealing of Goldstone's bias is the use of the word dissent in the report. Hard as it is to believe, wherever the word dissent is used, it is used to condemn Israel for suppressing dissenting points of view. The word dissent is never used to describe Palestinian suppression of dissenters, either in Gaza or the West Bank. Everyone knows that whatever the imperfections of Israeli society may be, Israeli reporters do not get shot or imprisoned for criticizing the government. The Palestinians, in contrast, have a long history of shooting, torturing and imprisoning critics.
You can download and print the complete report and read it on Yom Kippur if the sermon is too long. Go http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/specialsession/9/docs/UNFFMGC_Report.pdf
The UN Weapons Inspector is very competent at assessing the nuclear capabilities of Iran, as he was of Iraq - and proved the US government wrong. He does not consider Iran's nuclear capacity as an immediate threat. Israel has active nuclear capacity which is of course the reason that Iran might want to protect itself. Israel will not publicly admit to having nuclear weapons. All sides must de-escalate if we take the threat seriously.
Submersion of the Goldstone report is also a disaster for US security. We need this precedent for bringing people to the International Criminal Court for intentionally targeting civilians or for disproportionate response -- both of which are defined and banned in the 1949 additions to the Geneva Convention. The ICC is not much of a deterrent against the killers themselves, but it absolutely is a deterrent to their funders and backers in public life. The world would be a safer place.
The President can make all the speeches he wants to the Islamic world about being fairminded and evenhamded with regard to the Middle East. As long as he is unwilling to DO anything that makes it more difficult for Israel to continue to oppress Palestinians and block the path to a genuine and equitable peace, no one in the Islamic world will consider him credible.
My guess is that he is counting votes on his healthcare proposal and doesn't feel the time is right to take on AIPAC. The problem with that logic is that the time will NEVER be right. Unless and until a US president has the political courage to expemd the capital necessary to defeat AIPAC and pressure Israel into abandoning the settlement policy, nothing will ever change in the Middle East.
I see Mr. Guttman didn't think it worthwhile to mention who Goldstone referenced most in his report, nor discuss the type of pathetic interviewing conducted by Goldstone's committee.
As for the first matter the Goldstone report relies predominantly on 3 NGO's for their "facts". First we have the death toll falsifying PCHR who count militant combatants described as such - including descriptions of the circumstances of their respective "martyrdom" operations on Islamist web sites - as non-belligerent civilians.
Next up we have the Hamas Justice Ministry founded NGO, TAWTHEQ (an Arabic acronym for the ‘Central Commission for Documentation and Pursuit of Israeli War Criminals’), which was quoted in the context of the Gaza war in Goldstone’s report even more often than HRW and seems to be mentioned in the report body about as often as PCHR (although PCHR is mentioned more in footnotes).
The 3rd NGO is the one which in their ME and North Africa division relies on the reportage of a Nazi memorabilia fetishist (currently on temporary leave), and two antizionist partisans, one of whom cheered the Black September massacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics and the other who previously served as an active Arab lobbyist and apparently has a deep admiration for Norman Finklestein as well as some highly questionable Facebook friendships with characters like Allison 'blood libel' Weir and ISM founder Adam Shapiro, The eminent Goldstone sat on this NGO's Board of Directors and even plagiarized a passage from a report written by the aforementioned Munich Massacre enthusiast in his UNHRC report.
On top of these 3 NGOs which constituted the bulk of Goldstone's research sources, the Goldstone Commission relied on interviews with Hamas selected and monitored Gazan witnesses (some of whom were Hamas members themselves) and lobbed either totally irrelevant, or facile and non-probing softball follow up questions at them, which can be seen on the UN website where the Goldstone report is published. By contrast, Goldstone fell asleep during one of the few witness testimonies offered by an Israeli who travelled all the way to Geneva to testify.
Mr. Guttman however will have none of this in his Forward article. And anyone who brings any of these issues up is by Guttman's and some others' metrics, a right wing smear propagandist following in lockstep with a nefarious Walt and Mearsheimerian pro Israel agenda.
Sorry Mr. Guttman. I am not right wing and I am not the type that degrades or trivializes the Laws of War and it is precisely because of my respect for the Laws of War that I am disgusted with the methodology and contents of the 574 page UNHRC sponsored document authored by the eminent Goldstone. It isn't because Israel can do no wrong that Goldstone's report is credulous and even odious; rather it is because Goldstone's report is credulous and in so doing makes a mockery of International Law that demands it to be strongly critiqued.
It is pathetic to see a journalist/pundit whose task it is to examine an issue in its depth with a critical mind, resort to the lame between the lines pretense that pro-Israel forces are stifling justice for their own provincial interests. One can only imagine that Guttman is the type of ingratiating, please-love-me simpleton that so dreads being stigmatized as not left-wing enough for his peers, that he is too cowed to provide a critical examination of the Goldstone report itself and instead resorts to a Walt & Mearsheimerian logic to stigmatize anyone who was disappointed by the wanting contents of the report and its shoddy methodology.
Richard Falk ["former judge of South Africa’s Constitutional Court, the first prosecutor at The Hague on behalf of the International Criminal Court for Former Yugolavia, and anti-apartheid campaigner"]: Why the Goldstone Report Matters
Why The Goldstone Report Matters
One reason for Israeli worry stemming from the report, is the green light given to national courts throughout the world to enforce international criminal law against Israelis suspects should they travel abroad and be detained for prosecution or extradition in some third country. Such individuals could be charged with war crimes arising from their involvement in the Gaza War, notes Richard A. Falk.
“So why did the Israeli government boycott the commission? The real answer is quite simple: they knew full well that the commission, any commission, would have to reach the conclusions it did reach.” - Uri Avnery (Israeli peace activist, and former Knesset member), 'On the Goldstone Report' 19 Sept 2009.
Richard Goldstone, former judge of South Aftica’s Constitutional Court, the first prosecutor at The Hague on behalf of the International Criminal Court for Former Yugolavia, and anti-apartheid campaigner reports that he was most reluctant to take on the job of chairing the UN fact-finding mission charged with investigating allegations of war crimes committed by Israel and Hamas during the three week Gaza War of last winter. Goldstone explains that his reluctance was due to the issue being “deeply charged and politically loaded,” and was overcome because he and his fellow commissioners were “professionals committed to an objective, fact-based investigation,” adding that “above all, I accepted because I believe deeply in the rule of law and the laws of war,” as well as the duty to protect civilians to the extent possible in combat zones. The four-person fact-finding mission was composed of widely respected and highly qualified individuals, including the distinguished international law scholar, Christine Chinkin, a professor at the London School of Economics. Undoubtedly adding complexity to Goldstone’s decision is the fact that he is Jewish, with deep emotional and family ties to Israel and Zionism, bonds solidified by his long association with several organizations active in Israel.
Despite the impeccable credentials of the commission members, and the worldwide reputation of Richard Goldstone as a person of integrity and political balance, Israel refused cooperation from the outset. It did not even allow the UN undertaking to enter Israel or the Palestinian Territories, forcing reliance on the Egyptian government to facilitate entry at Rafah to Gaza. As Uri Avnery observes, however much Israel may attack the commission report as one-sided and unfair, the only plausible explanation of its refusal to cooperate with fact-finding and taking the opportunity to tell its side of the story was that it had nothing to tell that could hope to overcome the overwhelming evidence of the Israeli failure to carry out its attacks on Gaza last winter in accordance with the international law of war. No credible international commission could reach any set of conclusions other than those reached by the Goldstone Report on the central allegations.
In substantive respects the Goldstone Report adds nothing new. Its main contribution is to confirm widely reported and analyzed Israeli military practices during the Gaza War. There had been several reliable reports already issued, condemning Israel’s tactics as violations of the laws of war and international humanitarian law, including by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and a variety of respected Israeli human rights groups. Journalists and senior United Nations civil servants had reached similar conclusions. Perhaps, most damning of all the material available before the Goldstone Report was the publication of a document entitled “Breaking the Silence,” containing commentaries by thirty members of the Israel Defense Forces who had taken part in Operation Cast Lead (the Israeli official name for the Gaza War). These soldiers spoke movingly about the loose rules of engagement issued by their commanders that explains why so little care was taken to avoid civilian casualties. The sense emerges from what these IDF soldiers who were in no sense critical of Israel or even of the Gaza War as such, that Israeli policy emerged out of a combination of efforts ‘to teach the people of Gaza a lesson for their support of Hamas’ and to keep IDF casualties as close to zero as possible even if meant massive death and destruction for innocent Palestinians.
Given this background of a prior international consensus on the unlawfulness of Operation Cast Lead, we must first wonder why this massive report of 575 pages has been greeted with such alarm by Israel and given so much attention in the world media. It added little to what was previously known. Arguably, it was more sensitive to Israel’s contentions that Hamas was guilty of war crimes by firing rockets into its territory than earlier reports had been. And in many ways the Goldstone Report endorses the misleading main line of the Israeli narrative by assuming that Israel was acting in self-defense against a terrorist adversary. The report focuses its criticism on Israel’s excessive and indiscriminate uses of force. It does this by examining the evidence surrounding a series of incidents involving attacks on civilians and non-military targets. The report also does draw attention to the unlawful blockade that has restricted the flow of food, fuel, and medical supplies to subsistence levels in Gaza before, during, and since Operation Cast Lead. Such a blockade is a flagrant instance of collective punishment, explicitly prohibited by Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention setting forth the legal duties of an occupying power.
All along Israel had rejected international criticism of its conduct of military operations in the Gaza War, claiming that the IDF was the most moral fighting force on the face of the earth. The IDF conducted some nominal investigations of alleged unlawful behavior that consistently vindicated the military tactics relied upon and steadfastly promised to protect any Israeli military officer or political leader internationally accused of war crimes. In view of this extensive background of confirmed allegation and angry Israeli rejection, why has the Goldstone Report been treated in Tel Aviv as a bombshell that is deeply threatening to Israel’s stature as a sovereign state? Israel’s president, Shimon Peres, calling the report “a mockery of history” that “fails to distinguish the aggressor and a state exercising the right of self-defense,” insisting that it “legitimizes terrorist activity, the pursuit of murder and death.” More commonly Israel’s zealous defenders condemned the report as one-sided, biased, reaching foregone conclusions, and emanating from the supposedly bastion of anti-Israeli attitudes at the UN’s Human Rights Council. This line of response to any criticism of Israel’s behavior in occupied Palestine, especially if it comes from the UN or human rights NGOs is to cry “foul play!” and avoid any real look at the substance of the charges. It is an example of what I call ‘the politics of deflection,’ attempting to shift the attention of an audience away from the message to the messenger. The more damning the criticism, the more ferocious the response. From this perspective, the Goldstone Report obviously hit the bullsye!
Considered more carefully, there are some good reasons for Israel’s panicked reaction to this damning report. First, it does come with the backing of an eminent international personality who cannot credibly be accused of anti-Israel bias, making it harder to deflect attention from the findings no matter how loud the screaming of ‘foul play.’ Any fair reading of the report would show that it was balanced, was eminently mindful of Israel’s arguments relating to security, and indeed gave Israel the benefit of the doubt on some key issues. Secondly, the unsurprising findings are coupled with strong recommendations that do go well beyond previous reports. Two are likely causing the Israeli leadership great worry: the report recommends strongly that if Israel and Hamas do not themselves within six months engage in an investigation and followup action meeting international standards of objectivity with respect to these violations of the law of war, then the Security Council should be brought into the picture, being encouraged to consider referring the whole issue of Israeli and Hamas accountability to the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Even if Israel is spared this indignity by the diplomatic muscle of the United States, and possibly some European governments, the negative public relations implications of a failure to abide by this report could be severe.
Thirdly, whatever happens in the UN System, and at the Human Rights Council in Geneva, the weight of the report will be felt by world public opinion. Ever since the Gaza War the solidity of Jewish support for Israel has been fraying at the edges, and this will likely now fray much further. More globally, a very robust boycott and divestment movement was gaining momentum ever since the Gaza War, and the Goldstone Report can only lend added support to such initiatives. There is a growing sense around the world that the only chance for the Palestinians to achieve some kind of just peace depends on the outcome over the symbols of legitimacy, what I have called the Legitimacy War. Increasingly, the Palestinians have been winning this second non-military war. Such a war fought on a global political battlefield is what eventually and unexpectedly undermined the apartheid regime in South Africa, and has become much more threatening to the Israeli sense of security than has armed Palestinian resistance.
A fourth reason for Israeli worry stemming from the report, is the green light given to national courts throughout the world to enforce international criminal law against Israelis suspects should they travel abroad and be detained for prosecution or extradition in some third country. Such individuals could be charged with war crimes arising from their involvement in the Gaza War. The report in this way encourages somewhat controversial reliance on what is known among lawyers as ‘universal jurisdiction,’ that is, the authority of courts in any country to detain for extradition or to prosecute individuals for violations of international criminal law regardless of where the alleged offenses took place. Reaction in the Israeli media reveals that Israeli citizens are already anxious about being apprehended during foreign travel. As one law commentator put it in the Israeli press, “From now on, not only soldiers should be careful when they travel abroad, but also ministers and legal advisers.” It is well to recall that Article 1 of the Geneva Conventions calls on states throughout the world “to respect and ensure respect” for international humanitarian law “in all circumstances.” Remembering the efforts in 1998 of several European courts to prosecute Augusto Pinochet for crimes committed while he was head of state in Chile, is a reminder that national courts can be used to prosecute political and military leaders for crimes committed elsewhere than in the territory of the prosecuting state.
Of course, Israel will fight back. It has already launched a media and diplomatic blitz designed to portray the report as so one-sided as to be unworthy of serious attention. The United States Government has already disappointingly appeared to endorse this view, and repudiate the central recommendation in the Goldstone Report that the Security Council be assigned the task of implementing its findings. The American Ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, evidently told a closed session of the Security Council on September 16, just a day after the report was issued, that “[w]e have serious concerns about many recommendations in the report.” Elaborating on this, Ambassador Rice indicated that the UN Human Rights Council, which has no implementing authority, is the only proper venue for any action to be taken on the basis of the report. The initial struggle will likely be whether to follow the recommendation of the report to have the Security Council refer the issues of accountability to the International Criminal Court, which could be blocked by a veto from the United States or other permanent members.
There are reasons to applaud the forthrightness and comprehensiveness of the report, its care, and scrupulous willingness to conclude that both Israel and Hamas seem responsible for behavior that appears to constitute war crimes, if not crimes against humanity. Although Israel has succeeded in having the issue of one-sidedness focus on fairness to Israel, there are also some reasons to insist that the report falls short of Palestinian hopes. For one thing, the report takes for granted, the dubious proposition that Israel was entitled to act against Gaza in self-defense, thereby excluding inquiry into whether crimes against the peace in the form of aggression had taken place by the launching of the attack. In this respect, the report takes no notice of the temporary ceasefire that had cut the rocket fire directed at Israel practically to zero in the months preceding the attacks, nor of Hamas’ repeated efforts to extend the ceasefire indefinitely provided Israel lifted its unlawful blockade of Gaza. Further it was Israel that had seemed to provoke the breakdown of the ceasefire when it launched a lethal attack on Hamas militants in Gaza on November 4, 2008. Israel disregarded this seemingly available diplomatic alternative to war to achieve security on its borders. Recourse to war, even if the facts justify self-defense, is according to international law, a last resort. By ignoring Israel’s initiation of a one-sided war the Goldstone Report accepts the dubious central premise of Operation Cast Lead, and avoids making a finding of aggression.
Also, disappointing was the failure of the report to comment upon the Israeli denial of a refugee option to the civilian population trapped in the tiny, crowded combat zone that constitutes the Gaza Strip. Israel closed all crossings during the period of the Gaza War, allowing only Gaza residents with foreign passports to leave. It is rare in modern warfare that civilians are not given the option to become refugees. Although there is no specific provision of the laws of war requiring a state at war to allow civilians to leave the combat zone, it seems like an elementary humanitarian requirement, and should at least have been mentioned either as part of customary international law or as a gap in the law that should be filled. The importance of this issue is reinforced by many accounts of the widespread post-traumatic stress experienced by the civilians in Gaza, especially children that comprise 53% of the population. One might also notice that the report accords considerable attention to Gilad Shalit, the one IDF prisoner held by Hamas in Gaza, recommending his release on humanitarian grounds, while making no comparable suggestion to Israel although it is holding thousands of Palestinians under conditions of harsh detention.
In the end, the Goldstone Report is unlikely to break the inter-governmental refusal to challenge the Israeli blockade of Gaza or to induce the United Nations to challenge Israeli impunity in any meaningful way. Depending on backroom diplomacy, the United States may or may not be able to avoid playing a public role of shielding Israel from accountability for its behavior during the Gaza War or its continuing refusal to abide by international humanitarian law by lifting the blockade that continues to impinge daily upon the health of the entire population of Gaza.
Despite these limitations, the report is an historic contribution to the Palestinian struggle for justice, an impeccable documentation of a crucial chapter in their victimization under occupation. Its impact will be felt most impressively on the growing civil society movement throughout the world to impose cultural, sporting, and academic boycotts, as well as to discourage investment, trade, and tourism with Israel. It may yet be the case that as in the anti-apartheid struggle the shift in the relation of forces in the Palestinian favor will occur not through diplomacy or as a result of armed resistance, but on the symbolic battlefield of legitimacy that has become global in scope, what might be described as the new political relevance of moral and legal globalization.
Richard A. Falk – is an American professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University, author or co-author of 20 books, and an appointee to two United Nations positions on the Palestinian territories.
Wir schweigen nicht, wir sind Euer böses Gewissen
I see Mr. Guttman didn't think it worthwhile to mention who Goldstone referenced most in his report, nor discuss the type of pathetic interviewing conducted by Goldstone's committee.
As for the first matter the Goldstone report relies predominantly on 3 NGO's for their "facts". First we have the death toll falsifying PCHR who count militant combatants described as such - including descriptions of the circumstances of their respective "martyrdom" operations on Islamist web sites - as non-belligerent civilians.
Next up we have the Hamas Justice Ministry founded NGO, TAWTHEQ (an Arabic acronym for the ‘Central Commission for Documentation and Pursuit of Israeli War Criminals’), which was quoted in the context of the Gaza war in Goldstone’s report even more often than HRW and seems to be mentioned in the report body about as often as PCHR (although PCHR is mentioned more in footnotes).
The 3rd NGO is the one which in their ME and North Africa division relies on the reportage of a Nazi memorabilia fetishist (currently on temporary leave), and two antizionist partisans, one of whom cheered the Black September massacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics and the other who previously served as an active Arab lobbyist and apparently has a deep admiration for Norman Finklestein as well as some highly questionable Facebook friendships with characters like Allison 'blood libel' Weir and ISM founder Adam Shapiro, The eminent Goldstone sat on this NGO's Board of Directors and even plagiarized a passage from a report written by the aforementioned Munich Massacre enthusiast in his UNHRC report.
On top of these 3 NGOs which constituted the bulk of Goldstone's research sources, the Goldstone Commission relied on interviews with Hamas selected and monitored Gazan witnesses (some of whom were Hamas members themselves) and lobbed either totally irrelevant, or facile and non-probing softball follow up questions at them, which can be seen on the UN website where the Goldstone report is published. By contrast, Goldstone fell asleep during one of the few witness testimonies offered by an Israeli who travelled all the way to Geneva to testify.
Mr. Guttman however will have none of this in his Forward article. And anyone who brings any of these issues up is by Guttman's and some others' metrics, a right wing smear propagandist following in lockstep with a nefarious Walt and Mearsheimerian pro Israel agenda.
Sorry Mr. Guttman. I am not right wing and I am not the type that degrades or trivializes the Laws of War and it is precisely because of my respect for the Laws of War that I am disgusted with the methodology and contents of the 574 page UNHRC sponsored document authored by the eminent Goldstone. It isn't because Israel can do no wrong that Goldstone's report is credulous and even odious; rather it is because Goldstone's report is credulous and in so doing makes a mockery of International Law that demands it to be strongly critiqued.
It is pathetic to see a journalist/pundit whose task it is to examine an issue in its depth with a critical mind, resort to the lame between the lines pretense that pro-Israel forces are stifling justice for their own provincial interests. One can only imagine that Guttman is the type of ingratiating, please-love-me simpleton that so dreads being stigmatized as not left-wing enough for his peers, that he is too cowed to provide a critical examination of the Goldstone report itself and instead resorts to a Walt & Mearsheimerian logic to stigmatize anyone who was disappointed by the wanting contents of the report and its shoddy methodology.
Take a look at a report prepared for the Jerusalem Council on Public Affairs (JCPA) that documents how the Goldstone Commission even failed to deal with the Hamas threat to civilians in Gaza and details the process by which the commission managed to avoid this topic. The commission did not use critical source material--"freely accessible Palestinian material in Arabic"--as reference points for questioning witnesses, disputing the innocent bystander status of individuals mentioned by witnesses etc. See http://jcpa.org/JCPA/Templates/ShowPage.asp?DRIT=1&DBID=1&LNGID=1&TMID=111&FID=442&PID=0&IID=3086&TTL=Blocking_the_Truth_of_the_Gaza_War.
from: http://www.israeli-occupation.org/2009-09-16/goldstones-daughter-my-fathers-participation-softened-un-gaza-report/
By Haaretz Service – 16 Sept 2009 www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1115017.html
Had Richard Goldstone not served as the head of the UN inquiry into the Gaza war, the accusations against Israel would have been harsher, Goldstone’s daughter, Nicole, said in an interview conducted in Hebrew with Army Radio on Wednesday.
“My father took on this job because he thought he is doing the best thing for peace, for everyone, and also for Israel,” Nicole Goldstone told Army Radio.
She added that her father wrestled with the decision to take on the task. “It wasn’t easy [for him],” Nicole Goldstone said. “My father did not expect to see and hear what he saw and heard.”
The bottom line for supporters of Israel is that Israel stands above criticism, no matter what, and whoever indulges in such is clearly a Jew-hating anti-Semite, no matter if his Zionist credentials shine brighter than most of his critics.
All this is demonstrated by the attacks on Goldstone and most of the posts here. The underlying reason for the criticism is NOT that the report is unfair or does not take Hamas to task (which it does) but that it takes Israel to task at all, which is the greatest crime. After all, how could Israel be guilty of anything when its every action is pure as the driven snow, when the IDF is the most moral army in the world, and Israel a righteous example to the gentiles, a shining light upon a hill? Thus Israeli wrongdoing is clearly impossible, therefore all who criticize are Jew-haters.
This was the usual U.N. kangaroo court. Very simple.
Some people compare the Israeli killings to the Nazi killings. Indeed, the deliberate killing of 3-year-old children is the kind of thing the Nazis used to do.
There are two main differences between the Israelis and the Nazis:
(1) The Nazis wanted to exterminate the Jews as official policy. In contrast, only a few Jews, such as Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu, want to exterminate the Gazans as official policy. http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1180527966693
(2) Very few Nazis opposed the indiscriminate killing of Jews. In contrast, a significant minority of Jews oppose the indiscriminate killing of Palestinians.
Are you among the Jews who oppose the indiscriminate killing of Palestinians? Or are you among the Jews who defend it?
To the editor Forward on line: I am appalled and disgusted at the remarks of TheAZCowBoy, Tombstone, AZ, and am astonished that his remarks have not been considered "name-calling and personal invective". They are threatening and not fit to be posted in this forum.
Dear Ted Century: You are certainly correct about AZCowboy's comment. Right now, some technical glitch seems to be disabling our "delete" function via remote access. (I am at home.) We are working on it. Meantime, I apologize for each minute AZCowboy's racist rant remains up. --Larry Cohler-Esses, Forward news editor
A call to moral accounting Yom Kippur is far more than a day of physical discipline for Jews
By Rabbi Brant Rosen
On Sunday night, the Jewish community will begin our annual Yom Kippur fast.
The physical deprivation is a crucial element of the day, but as with many faith traditions, the fasting itself isn't really the point. Going without food and water is, rather, a device, intended to sharpen our senses and lead to reflection.
This reflection is notably, pointedly, not a personal pursuit. All through the Yom Kippur prayers, we're called to do "cheshbon nefesh," a moral accounting, as a community: "We have sinned," we pray. "Forgive us."
But though the rituals are ancient, they’re never far removed from modern life. Between our prayers, American Jews are sure also to discuss the current events that touch our community most deeply: the prospects for Israeli-Palestinian peace, President Barack Obama’s recent meetings with the leaders of Israel and the Palestinian Authority, and the United Nations’ recent Goldstone Report, in which both Israel and the Hamas government are accused of war crimes. To my great sorrow, however, many in the Jewish community have already rejected the latter out of hand.
Rather than jointly consider Israel’s acts in Gaza, carry out real cheshbon nefesh, and accept our communal responsibility, it has proven easier for many of us to employ communal defense mechanisms, and insist that in this particular case, there’s no need for reflection.
Since the report’s publication, the UN and commission chair Judge Richard Goldstone have been vilified and disparaged, by both the Israeli government and American Jewish leaders. There has been little consideration of the actual findings, or the fact that Israel refused to cooperate with the commission, or conduct its own investigation.
As a rabbi, this grieves me deeply. For, painful as it is for us to admit, Israel’s behavior in Gaza has consistently betrayed our shared Jewish ethical legacy.
This was true before the war, when the Israeli blockade denied Palestinians basic necessities; it was true during the war, when Israel responded with disproportionate force to Hamas rockets; and it has been true since the war, as Israel has deepened the blockade, preventing Gazans from rebuilding their homes. As a result of Israeli actions, some 60 percent of Gazans don’t have continual access to water and face near-daily power outages of up to 10 hours at a time, while hundreds of thousands are dependent on foreign aid agencies for food.
A humanitarian crisis of this magnitude demands a response from within the Jewish faith community—and knee-jerk rejection of any and all criticism of Israel won’t change the facts. It will only distance us from a just and peaceful solution to this conflict.
I don’t mean to suggest that the report is perfect. No human endeavor is. Evidence of bias in the commission’s make-up is important, and should be honestly addressed, as the White House has suggested. But to categorically reject the Goldstone findings—which echo the work of highly respected Israeli and international human rights groups such as B’tselem and Human Rights Watch—is to thrust our heads into the sand. In the end, the report’s most critical recommendation is that Israel and Hamas thoroughly and credibly investigate themselves, and hold accountable any combatants or commanders who violated the law.
The actions of the Jewish State ultimately reflect upon the Jewish people throughout the world. We in the Diaspora Jewish community have long taken pride in the accomplishments of the Jewish State. As with any family, the success of some reflects a warm light on us all. But pride cannot blind us to the capacity for error on the part of the country we hold so dear. We cannot identify with the successes, but refuse to see the failures.
As we approach Yom Kippur, I call on America’s Jews to examine the Goldstone findings, and consider their implications. In the spirit of the season, we must consider the painful truth of Israel’s behavior in Gaza, and understand that we must work, together, to discover the truth—and then urge on all relevant parties in the search for peace.
Every Yom Kippur, we read the words of the prophet Isaiah: “Is such the fast I desire, a day for people to starve their bodies? ... No, this is the fast I desire: To unlock the fetters of wickedness and untie the cords of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free.”
Let this be the Yom Kippur on which American Jews choose not just to starve their bodies, but also to unlock the fetters and untie the cords—let this be the Yom Kippur on which we act on the Scriptural imperative to “seek peace and pursue it,” by calling ourselves and Israel to account.
Brant Rosen is the rabbi of the Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation in Evanston and co-founder of Ta’anit Tzedek: Jewish Fast for Gaza.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-oped0927mideastsep27,0,654462.story
"For, painful as it is for us to admit, Israel’s behavior in Gaza has consistently betrayed our shared Jewish ethical legacy."
Thanks for posting this, Michael.
The Goldstone report is another attempt to delegitimize Israel, up to and including its right to defend itself. It is part of the post-Durban world, including the smears calling Israel an "apartheid state," etc.
Here's an historical quirk: n terms of economics, philosophy, and politics, the Communist states have left very little behind, so discredited did this system become -- save for left-wing anti-Semitism. What has now taken root in western thought -- "Zionism is racism," etc. -- was first "pioneered" by Marxist-Leninists. In 1968, for instance, during the anti-Semitic purges in Poland, party leader Wladyslaw Gomulka distinguished between "Zionist" Jews, "cosmopolitan" Jews, and "loyal Polish Communist" Jews. The various left-wing anti-Zionist Jewish groups in western countries are now demonstrating their "loyalty" to their own countries by in effect repeating these "distinctions." This has, in the final analysis, been Communism's "historic contribution" to western thought.
But we have even more to worry about: There may loom ahead for all of us Jews a terrible fork in the road: as Israel becomes ever more isolated in its struggle to maintain its existence, will the day come when we have to choose between supporting the state, per se, or turning our backs on it because of its flagrant violations of human rights and international law (as defined by the international community through the various courts, the UN, etc.)? Israel may even cease being an electoral democracy, should a scenario emerge where a Knesset elected, say, by anti-Zionist Jews (leftists, haredim) and Israeli Arabs, votes to "de-Zionize" the state.
Most Jews prefer not to think about such a stark reality and it is, admittedly, not on the horizon -- yet.But wise people prepare for unpleasant possibilities.
Norman (and others who may be interested)---
Thanks for your advice on moderating the comments. As you may know, until recently, we did not enable comments for news stories at all. I am finding that moderating them is is a difficult, unending job that I can do only in my spare moments, amid my other tasks. Unfortunately, many commenters are uncivil. So, it becomes a question of figuring out where in uncivil territory to draw the line. For the Forward, obscenity is definitely over that line. So are threats, diatribes of a clearly racist or genocidal nature, and personal character attacks against other commenters (as distinct from attacks on their views or arguments).
Until a few days ago, there were several people doing this job, each applying their own sense of how to apply our guidelines, noted below. But now, it's just me. That will mean more work for me but should make things more consistent. Even so, the other demands on my time and my own learning curve on this have made my application of the delete button uneven, which I know must seem unfair. Bear with me as I improve. Hopefully over time, debaters and discussants from all viewpoints will be better able to do their thing and not be chased away or drowned out by ranters.
Larry Cohler-Esses Assistant managing editor and news editor, the Forward
Larry,
I understand the difficulty and I am happy to bear with you while you work it out.
My own experience from moderating an email list was that it's often better to simply remind a person who is breaking the rules what the rules are and that he's breaking them.
It's amazing how far you can get by simply setting clear limits and asking people to cooperate.
Most people are very cooperative as soon as they realize that they're dealing with a human being at the other end, not a computer server.
Back to the original subject of this article and its unintentionally embarrassing headline --
I heard Phyllis Bennis Sunday on WBAI-FM's program, Beyond the Pale http://www.beyondthepale.org/episode/2009/09/27
She said the significance of the Goldstone report is that "the right wing and the settlement movement are on the defensive. They can no longer pretend to speak for all Jews." People never talked back before.
Obama told them to stop the settlements, but didn't push it. He should have told them that if they didn't halt the settlements, they wouldn't get their $3 billion a year in aid, and that the U.S. wouldn't protect Israel any more with their veto in the Security Council.
FROM RICHARD A. FALK'S BIO IN WIKIPEDIA: Falk has published a number of books and essays analyzing the legality of the Vietnam War and other military operations. With regard to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, he has written that it is "inescapable that an objective observer would reach the conclusion that this Iraq war is a war of aggression, and as such, that it amounts to a Crime against Peace of the sort for which surviving German leaders were indicted, prosecuted and punished at the Nuremberg trials conducted shortly after the Second World War."[6] He is a member of the Editorial Boards of The Nation and The Progressive, and Chair of the Board of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.[7][8] He is a former advisory board member of the World Federalist Institute[9] and the American Movement for World Government.[10] ======================================================================= The Chorus of the Left has begun. The game plan is that any time Israel defends herself scream bloody murder, so even if she wins she loses by being sullied in the world media. Keep saying that even Jews are turning against Israel. Make her descent seem inevitable. Make anyone supporting the defense of her population from attack feel like a defender of war criminals. Support divestment and the boycott of Israelis worldwide. Turn the Jewish people into pariahs again, and say it is their own fault. Dismantle the Jewish state and call it a victory for decency.
Richard A. Falk's amen to the Goldstone report is both predictable and unimpressive. His bona fides place him squarely where you'd expect him to be, in the anti-Israel camp. I would like to see as much effort given to exposing real genocide and brutality in the many world trouble spots that cry out for it instead of the second-guessing, micro-scrutiny of Israel. This focus in itself is inherently biased.
it is a shame that the palestinians continue to suffer.
anyone that surmises or dreams that the end result cooked up by the imperialists in charge is in no way postive for the oppressed and often murdered palestinians only reference a map of palestine in 1948 and one in 2009.
despicable? yes.
apologies
that should read
.....is in "any" way...
no false positives here
still despicable
I would point out that Frank, who claims to support Israel more than we do, has not himself made Aliyah.
Larry,
On the subject of moderating the Forward's comments section --
I would like it if comments could be set to a certain maximum length, maybe two screens.
I don't like it when people cut and paste long articles from other publications, when they could tell us the point of the article, give us a paragraph, and link to the other publication.
The purpose of these comments (I assume) is for Forward readers to see what other readers are thinking.
That's difficult when you have to wade through screen after screen of long articles by people who have no trouble getting their ideas published elsewhere.
Don Fernandez Sequoia Consulting, Inc. 4848 San Felipe Rd (408) 274-4364 Voice #150-312 (408) 516-9832 Fax San Jose, CA 95135 (408) 482-3327 Cell don@sequoia-partners.com
Really amazing and an important read for Jew’s and non-Jew’s, obviously Israel has made a huge impact on my life. But something must be done to protect that country and Judaism as well as our own United States of America. If Israel is oblierated the U.S. WILL BE NEXT... That is if we don't fight for our right to defend our democracy and not fall into the trap of socialism.
Subject: Netanyahu at his best
Even those who aren't particularly sympathetic to Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu, could get a good measure of satisfaction from this interview with British Television during the retaliation against Hamas' shelling of Israel. The interviewer asked him: "How come so many more Palestinians have been killed in this conflict than Israelis?" (A nasty question if there ever was one!) Netanyahu: "Are you sure that you want to start asking in that direction?" Interviewer: (Falling into the trap) Why not? Netanyahu: "Because in World War II more Germans were killed than British and Americans combined, but there is no doubt in anyone's mind that the war was caused by Germany's aggression. And in response to the German blitz on London, the British wiped out the entire city of Dresden, burning to death more German civilians than the number of people killed in Hiroshima. Moreover, I could remind you that in 1944, when the R.A.F. tried to bomb the Gestapo Headquarters in Copenhagen, some of the bombs missed their target and fell on a Danish children's hospital, killing 83 little children. Perhaps you have another question?" Apparently, Benjamin Netanyahu gave another interview and was asked about Israel's occupation of Arab lands. His response was, "It's our land". The reporter (CNN or the like) was stunned - read below "It's our land..." It's important information since we don't get fair and accurate reporting from the media and facts tend to get lost in the jumble of daily events. "Crash Course on the Arab-Israeli Conflict." Here are overlooked facts in the current & past Middle East situation. These were compiled by a Christian university professor:
BRIEF FACTS ON THE ISRAELI CONFLICT TODAY... (It takes just 1.5 minutes to read!) It makes sense and it's not slanted. Jew and non-Jew -- it doesn't matter.
1. Nationhood and Jerusalem: Israel became a nation in 1312 BC, two thousand (2000) years before the rise of Islam. 2. Arab refugees in Israel began identifying themselves as part of a Palestinian people in 1967, two decades after the establishment of the modern State of Israel. 3. Since the Jewish conquest in 1272 BC, the Jews have had dominion over the land for one thousand (1000) years with a continuous presence in the land for the past 3,300 years. 4. The only Arab dominion since the conquest in 635 lasted no more than 22 years. 5. For over 3,300 years, Jerusalem has been the Jewish capital. Jerusalem has never been the capital of any Arab or Muslim entity. Even when the Jordanians occupied Jerusalem, they never sought to make it their capital, and Arab leaders did not come to visit. 6. Jerusalem is mentioned over 700 times in Tanach, the Jewish Holy Scriptures. Jerusalem is not mentioned once in the Koran. 7. King David founded the city of Jerusalem. Mohammed never came to Jerusalem. 8. Jews pray facing Jerusalem. Muslims pray with their backs toward Jerusalem. 9. Arab and Jewish Refugees: in 1948 the Arab refugees were encouraged to leave Israel by Arab leaders promising to purge the land of Jews. Sixty-eight percent left (many in fear of retaliation by their own brethren, the Arabs), without ever seeing an Israeli soldier. The ones who stayed were afforded the same peace, civility, and citizenship rights as everyone else.
10. The Jewish refugees were forced to flee from Arab lands due to Arab brutality, persecution and pogroms.
11. The number of Arab refugees who left Israel in 1948 is estimated to be around 630,000. The number of Jewish refugees from Arab lands is estimated to be the same. 12. Arab refugees were INTENTIONALLY not absorbed or integrated into the Arab lands to which they fled, despite the vast Arab territory. Out of the 100,000,000 refugees since World War II, theirs is the only refugee group in the world that has never been absorbed or integrated into their own people's lands. Jewish refugees were completely absorbed into Israel, a country no larger than the state of New Jersey.
13. The Arab-Israeli Conflict: the Arabs are represented by eight separate nations, not including the Palestinians. There is only one Jewish nation. The Arab nations initiated all five wars and lost. Israel defended itself each time and won. 14. The PLO's Charter still calls for the destruction of the State of Israel. Israel has given the Palestinians most of the West Bank land, autonomy under the Palestinian Authority, and has supplied them. 15. Under Jordanian rule, Jewish holy sites were desecrated and the Jews were denied access to places of worship. Under Israeli rule, all Muslim and Christian sites have been preserved and made accessible to people of all faiths. 16. The UN Record on Israel and the Arabs: of the 175 Security Council resolutions passed before 1990, 97 were directed against Israel. 17. Of the 690 General Assembly resolutions voted on before 1990, 429 were directed against Israel. 18. The UN was silent while 58 Jerusalem synagogues were destroyed by the Jordanians.
19. The UN was silent while the Jordanians systematically desecrated the ancient Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives. 20. The UN was silent while the Jordanians enforced an apartheid-like a policy of preventing Jews from visiting the Temple Mount and the Western Wall. These are incredible times. We have to ask what our role should be. What will we tell our grandchildren about what we did when there was a turning point in Jewish destiny, an opportunity to make a difference?
The UN has just rolled out a new overhauled website. Presumably, the idea was to make it clearer what the UN does and to make it easier to access the goings-on. Insofar as UN demonization of Israel and UN-driven antisemitism are central pillars of its activities, the new site does an admirable job. In only five easy steps, the user is presented with ten categories for all meeting summaries and press releases of the entire General Assembly since they went online in 1995. One such category is "Palestinian Rights." All the other choices list nothing but generalities.
The UN site is accessed by educational institutions, advocates, parliamentarians, non-governmental organizations and individuals around the world in six languages. Sooner or later, almost every schoolchild in America is bound to log on to www.un.org. The American taxpayer pays 22% of the cost of building and maintaining the UN website (along with all other regular budget costs). And in only five steps your child too can listen to Iranian President Ahmadinejad deny the Holocaust and talk about those Zionists' "ugly faces." (These were his words at the UN Durban II "anti-racism" conference in April, which the UN has chosen to archive and place permanently on its website.)
Here are the directions to the world of UN-driven hatred for the Jewish people:
STEP 1: Go to www.un.org
STEP 2: Click "welcome" and you are greeted with "United Nations - It's your world!" [Well, with a few exceptions]
STEP 3: Here we are at the UN English-language home page, headlined "United Nations: We the peoples.A stronger UN for a better world." [Depending on who you are and where you live, mind you] Now click on "Stories from the UN News Center."
STEP 4: Click on "What, when at the UN."
STEP 5: And here we are at the gateway to everything happening at the UN. Under "At a Glance: Recent Action," you can "browse meeting summaries & press releases" by just choosing "select body and date." What body and date, you ask? A handy drop-down menu makes it very easy to understand the programs and priorities for anyone who isn't quite sure what the UN does. There are ten choices: "All venues, General Assembly President, 1st Committee (Disarmament), 2nd Committee (Economic & Social), 3rd Committee (Social, Humanitarian), 4th Committee (Special Political), 5th Committee (Administrative & Budgetary), 6th Committee (Legal), Palestinian Rights, and Committee on Information."
Of course, one thing that can be said in favor of the latest UN outrage is that it makes the double-standards applied to Israel even more obvious. The UN undoubtedly needed to expand the index because the mammoth number of resolutions, documents, press releases, meetings and conferences devoted to condemning Israel had become so large that the hatemongers needed assistance organizing all their Israel-bashing campaign material.
The amount of UN webspace dedicated only to Palestinian claims - including pre-Israel maps - is huge. There is the "United Nations Information System on the Question of Palestine " or UNISPAL, and the anti-Israel non-governmental organization networking scheme called the "NGO network on the Question of Palestine." Added to that is the constant material churned out by the only UN Division focused on a single people - the UN Division on Palestinian Rights. And then there is the UN Human Rights Council, which President Obama has now embraced. It has adopted more resolutions and decisions condemning Israel than all other 191 UN states combined. Along with fellow human rights enthusiasts China, Cuba and Saudi Arabia, American representatives will be taking their place as new Council members in just one week time.
Way back in the pre-internet days of 1945, the UN Charter proclaimed the "equality of nations large and small." Modernity for the UN has brought an end to such lofty commitments
The Goldstone report graphically shows why the zionist entity must be eliminated before it further embarassses us. We should not be sanctioning Iran, but instead helping it obtain nuclear weapons so as to enforce UN resolutions. Iran could do the dirty work of enforcing the right of return so we dont have to do it ourselves
What is a War Crime? A 'war crime' is a term defined by international law. Since the foundation of the United Nations, its charter is regarded as the constitutional foundation of 'international law', along with the Geneva Conventions that determine the rules of 'international humanitarian law'. The U.N. Charter rules in Article 2/4: "All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations." Has Israel ever violated this prohibition? Has it ever attacked or threatened another country with the object of eliminating it? Or perhaps all 22 members of the Arab League, plus other states and organizations, have declared openly that their goal is to destroy the sovereign State of Israel? Before we go on to discuss the methods of war, let us agree that anyone who calls for the destruction of a U.N. member state is a criminal according to international law and that the legal status of the aggressor is inferior to that of a law-abiding state. Any person or entity that objects to Israel's very existence is guilty of incitement to commit genocide and of breaching the constitution of international law. By ignoring this hard fact, Judge Goldstone has divorced his report from the law itself. Many people quote the Fourth Geneva Convention, which demands that all states avoid harming any civilian population. Whenever enemy civilians are hit by IDF fire, we hear that Israel is guilty of crimes against these rules. Yet these quotations are blatantly partial and prejudiced. I wholeheartedly agree that any deliberate attack on defenseless civilians is an outrageous crime against humanity. If there were deviations from the official IDF policy, I totally support taking severe measures against the offenders. The additional protocol to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 that entered into force on 7 December 1979, stated that "the civilian population and individual civilians shall enjoy general protection against dangers arising from military operations" (Article 51/1) and that "Acts or threats of violence the primary purpose of which is to spread terror among the civilian population are prohibited" (Article 51/2). Furthermore, Article 51/4 states that "Indiscriminate attacks are prohibited. Indiscriminate attacks are: (a) Those which are not directed at a specific military objective; (b) Those which employ a method or means of combat which cannot be directed at a specific military objective; or (c) Those which employ a method or means of combat the effects of which cannot be limited as required by this Protocol; and consequently, in each such case, are of a nature to strike military objectives and civilians or civilian objects without distinction." Sounds familiar? Do these definitions describe accurately the IDF's mode of operation, or perhaps the terror attacks and rocket bombardments by the Fatah, Hamas and Hezbollah? These terrorists do not even try to hide that their targets are almost always civilian and not military! Their operations against civilians are not only indiscriminate, but also openly deliberate. Even one of Israel's sharpest critics, Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, said: "Lobbing rockets blindly into civilian areas is without doubt a war crime. Nothing can justify this assault on the most fundamental standards for sparing civilians the hazards of war." Can we agree at this point that these terrorists are certainly war criminals? The IDF, on the other hand, obeys the Geneva Convention! The clause that is more applicable to IDF operations states clearly: "Civilians shall enjoy the protection afforded by this Section, unless and for such time as they take a direct part in hostilities" (Article 51/3). When an Israeli warplane drops a bomb on a building that houses a terror base, can you claim that the civilians that supply food and shelter to the terrorists are not involved in the hostilities? Will you also claim that the cook and the quartermaster in your reserves' unit are entitled to be protected by the Geneva Convention as uninvolved civilians because they were not carrying guns at the time of the attack? Do you think that I'm inventing this interpretation? Let's read clause 51/7 of the same protocol: "The presence or movements of the civilian population or individual civilians shall not be used to render certain points or areas immune from military operations, in particular in attempts to shield military objectives from attacks or to shield, favour or impede military operations. The Parties to the conflict shall not direct the movement of the civilian population or individual civilians in order to attempt to shield military objectives from attacks or to shield military operations." The protocol's Article 58 rules clearly that the "Parties to the conflict shall, to the maximum extent feasible: (a) ... endeavour to remove the civilian population, individual civilians and civilian objects under their control from the vicinity of military objectives; (b) Avoid locating military objectives within or near densely populated areas; (c) Take the other necessary precautions to protect the civilian population, individual civilians and civilian objects under their control against the dangers resulting from military operations." The protocol contains detailed rules, derived from Article 28 of the Fourth Geneva Convention: "The presence of a protected person may not be used to render certain points or areas immune from military operations." Is it not clear who is responsible for the regrettable deaths of Arab civilians, who are deliberately used by the terrorists as human shields? Not only the terror attacks constitute crimes against humanity, but also the very presence of armed combatants among civilian population is a gross violation of the Geneva Convention. Therefore, in plain legal terms, the terror organizations are undoubtedly guilty of crimes against international humanitarian law and are exclusively responsible for the casualties on both sides - Israelis and Arabs alike! What do humanitarian organizations do against these criminals? Not only they refrain from any legal action against the terrorist criminals, they also try to obstruct any attempt of self-defense by law-abiding states. Moreover, International Law obligates Israel to strike against the terrorists! The actions of the IDF against the terrorists are based primarily on Israel's legal right to defend itself. Any nation, in any point of history, has acted more fiercely than Israel against ruthless enemies who attacked its population. Moreover, Israel is not only exercising its legal right, but in fact, fulfilling its legal obligation! Israel is one of the very few states that follow the letter and the spirit of binding U.N. resolutions against international terrorism. International law demands that all states combat terrorism. U.N. General Assembly Resolution of 17 February 1995 urged all U.N. member states "in accordance with the provisions of the Declaration, to take all appropriate measures at the national and international levels to eliminate terrorism;" The annex to this resolution stated (clause 1): "The States Members of the United Nations solemnly reaffirm their unequivocal condemnation of all acts, methods and practices of terrorism, as criminal and unjustifiable, wherever and by whomever committed, including those which jeopardize the friendly relations among States and peoples and threaten the territorial integrity and security of States;" and clause 5 stated that "States must also fulfil their obligations Under the Charter of the United Nations and other relevant rules of International Law with respect to combating international terrorism and are urged to take effective and resolute measures in accordance with the relevant provisions of international law and international standards of human rights for the speedy and final elimination of international terrorism..." Hence, we are looking at an amazing situation, where one side is undoubtedly guilty of war crimes, yet the 'enlightened' circles support it legally, morally and politically, while they accuse the other side, which obeys the letter and the spirit of the law. Judge Goldstone seems to have given the enemies of the civilised world one of their most important achievements since V-Day, 1945.
Thank you, Anne Bayefsky, for a well-presented argument that should make all discussions around UN procedures and communications wasteful and invalid. I believe that we as US citizens should be equally concerned how much of our hard-earned tax money is spent on this organization headquartered in NYC. It aplies to most NGOs - all the NG personnel is laughing at us, mocking us in a way. Only in this country they can say or o watever pleases them at any moment. They would think twice about sying disparaging things about their own counrtis, or criticize their policies. What good have they ever done to the world? Where did they ever succeed? Why can't we vote to abolish them altogether? Wasn't the League of Nations dismissed as a useless, wastefull effort?
Very nice site!
First of all, the report was pre-fabricated by UNHRC and Goldstone team: Goldstone, Hina Jilani and Desmond Travers signed a March 2009 letter initiated by Amnesty International, stating that “events in Gaza have shocked us to the core.” Similarly, in a letter to the Times (UK), member Christine Chinkin expressed her predetermined conclusion that “Israel’s bombardment of Gaza is not self-defence – it’s a war crime”. Moreover, before the Goldstone team started working, UNHRC Chair Navi Pillay said, that if Goldstone does not find evidences of Israel’s war crimes, we will send those who will. It was clear warning that Goldstone career with UN will be over. Secondly, no doubt that Richard Goldstone investigation was under Hamas close supervision and tight control. There are mounting evidences from credible sources that must be anonymous due to death threat from Hamas as they are living in Gaza. No doubt that Richard Goldstone and his team perfectly understood the situation, but decided to go on with fake and Hamas-staged and controlled investigation. His report contradicts to previous complaints from Gaza residents on Hamas using civilians as human shield and civilian infrastructure for military purposes reported by Italian and other newspapers and UN officials. The report was pre-fabricated by UNHRC staff, including UNHRC Chair Navi Pillay, who are notorious pro-islamofascist orientation. This report is pre-meditated crime and these people must be treated as criminals.
Very nice site!
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