The liveliest debate over the Goldstone report on Israel's conduct in Gaza is not taking place within the United Nations or in the United States, but among Israelis themselves -- especially journalists, intellectuals and human rights groups.
For many Arabs and visceral anti-Zionists, the report in September by Judge Richard Goldstone is a "gotcha moment" -- Palestinians good, Israelis bad. For many friends of Israel, the Jewish state can do no wrong. Goldstone, the South African jurist whose history of investigating war crimes around the world is legion, is vilified beyond recognition. Up to 1400 Palestinians died in the Gaza war compared to 13 Israelis.
But while the report was widely attacked in Israel, many are reviewing it seriously without necessarily accepting it as gospel. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon late on Thursday released a report for the 192-member General Assembly on written submissions from Israel and the Palestinian Authority, saying it was too early to determine whether their investigations were independent, credible and conformed to international standards..
Said Uri Avnery, the former Knesset member and veteran peace activist, over the initial Israeli government response:
The instinctive reaction in such a situation is denial. It's just not true. It never happened. It's all a pack of lies. By itself, that is a natural reaction. When a human being is faced with a situation which he cannot handle, denial is the first refuge. If things did not happen, there is no need to cope... From this point of view, it can be said that denial is almost 'normal.' But with us it has been developed into an art form.
The 575-page Goldstone report, a UN fact-finding mission, investigated the three-week war in Gaza that began on Dec. 24, 2008, saying that both Israel and Palestinian militants engaged in actions that amounted to war crimes and crimes against humanity.
It condemned rocket attacks by Hamas, but reserved its sharpest criticism of Israel's treatment of the population, saying it was deliberate and disproportionate and destroyed its economic ability to support itself. The report analyzed 36 cases, and said in all but one there was no justifiable military objective. The Palestinians, it said, fired rockets that were aimed at Israeli civilians or risked hitting civilians and caused widespread trauma, a war crime.
Goldstone recommended both sides initiate credible investigations within six months. Otherwise he suggested, the war crimes issue be referred to the UN Security Council which could pass it on to the International Criminal Court (which in reality the Council won't do).
Hamas gave UN officials in Gaza its response, which as expected, rejected all allegations and said its killing of Israeli civilians in rocket attacks was accidental. The Palestinian Authority, which does not control Gaza, said its report would include the creation of a commission of five judges and experts for a "very independent and credible investigation," according to its UN representative, Riyad Mansour.
The government of Benjamin Netanyahu, which refused to cooperate with the Goldstone commission, has castigated the report as biased and distorted, in light of Palestinian militants firing thousands of rockets into Israel over several years. But it now delivered what the Israeli press calls a well-argued response. Amos Harel, a correspondent of the Haaretz newspaper, said the rebuttal showed "the country can, in fact respond to accusations with more than complaints of anti-Semitism."
Israel also for the first time disclosed that disciplinary measures were taken against senior commanders in the Gaza offensive, known as Operation Cast Lead, for firing at a United Nations compound. (Israel last month paid the United Nations $10.5 million for damage to its property).
The 45-page Israeli report defended military investigations, explained the country's judicial system and listed some 150 incidents it said the army was investigating. The Netanyahu government also is considering forming a committee that would evaluate the war, depending on the UN deliberations. (Advocates of an inquiry include a former Supreme Court president and a deputy prime minister.)
Much of the criticism of the Israeli army is by Haaretz correspondents. The newspaper also quoted soldiers who fought in Gaza, saying that Israeli forces killed Palestinian civilians under permissive rules of engagement and intentionally destroyed property.
But the conservative Jerusalem Post, which editorially blasted the Goldstone commission, also ran dissenting views, including a defense by Goldstone himself. And blogs and websites have joined the debate since the September release of the report.
Writing in The Jerusalem Post, columnist Larry Derfner said of Israel's reaction to the report:
This is the Israeli notion of a fair deal: We're entitled to do whatever the hell we want to the Palestinians because, by definition, whatever we do to them is self-defense. They, however, are not entitled to lift a finger against us because, by definition, whatever they do to us is terrorism.
Editorially, The Jerusalem Post said, "No army engaged on multiple fronts against irregular force, embedded among a supportive enemy population is more ethnical or takes greater care to avoid harming innocents than the IDF."
But the questions for many Israelis are: Will Israel set up any kind of inquiry rather than let the army investigate itself? And would such an independent inquiry leave it open to more criticism or judicial threats than the Goldstone report?
Alan Dershowitz: Legitimating Bigotry: The Legacy of Richard Goldstone
Richard Goldstone is an ambitious opportunist who lacks the courage of his convictions -- if he ever had any. He has always put personal advancement over principle. He is a master of rationalization and self-justification.
The only time it is ever mentioned is in the same sentence as the words anti-Semitism.
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-israel-feels-under-siege-like-a-victim-an-underdog-1886332.ht
But your quick dismissal of the Hamas response to the Goldstone report ignores the conundrum it places Israel and its supporters in. They have basically adopted the same position that Israel takes, that they are in fact aiming at military targets, and that the reason for the civilians being killed is a result of the other side hiding amongst them.
Israel and its supporters can (and do) reject this for Hamas, but accept it for Israel, but it is unlikely that many who are not blindly willing to accept such blatant double standards to excuse Israel's behaviour will.
BTW, if you ever want to find out was Israel has been doing to Palestinians, check out the Palestinian Center for Human Rights website. Not only do they track what Palestinians are doing to each other (with a lot more detail and nuance than you'll findjust about everywhere else), but they have a weekly report on what Israel has done to Palestinians, going back to 2000. It makes for interesting reading (especially those weeks before any rockets flew, which make the Israeli justifications offered for Cast Lead ring very hollow)
http://pchrgaza.org/
You can even find a detailed list of the Palestinian casualties of Cast Lead, which includes a rating of whether they were civilians or combatants (and is the only list I've seen that puts some police officers in one category, and some in the other)
"This is the Israeli notion of a fair deal: We're entitled to do whatever the hell we want to the Palestinians because, by definition, whatever we do to them is self-defense. They, however, are not entitled to lift a finger against us because, by definition, whatever they do to us is terrorism."
Precisely. But one can go further: Israel's "jews only" roads, its roadblocks and checkpoints are all part of the "self defense" mission, but they are in "defence" of a network of illegal settlements. No settlements, no need for the "defensive" military occupation, and a major source of the resentment and violence coming from palestinians.
No settlements, no need for the "defensive" military occupation, and a major source of the resentment
Oh, the irony.
The behavior of the zionists during 1948 when they massacred Palestinians in their homes and drove them from their villages only confirms this. Many of these massacres (such as the one at Deir Yassin) occurred before Egypt or any other country in the middle east declared War on Israel in response to Israel's declaration of statehood.
Land theft, terrorism and massacre of the native population is no way to start a country. If modern day supporters of Israel were to acknowledge some of these sins of the past then we might be able to get somewhere with the peace process.
They LIE - misrepresenting the truth; they CHEAT - by changing the rules to their advantage and they STEAL - property, education, medical treatment, land, a complete cultural wayof life.
IT'S DISGUSTING BEYOND WORDS.
The behavior of the zionists during 1948 when they massacred Palestinians in their homes
today the above is hard to find as Israel rewrites history on a daily basis. The deliberate attempt to sink the USS Liberty is all but forgotten because the hundreds of links that had info were disbanded and removed from circulation on threat of law suit.
To Woodshoe, Agree, Israel can do its own dissecting; To StCuthbert and Rozgony – The Gaza offensive was almost like shooting fish in a barrel.. Those close to Sharon believe he would not have invaded. And I doubt the pizza parlor murderers will be dissuaded. The question is whether it made Israeli any safer and wiser?
And the point of my story is that Israelis are debating this, including some of the soldiers involved. http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1072475.html. Gray shades are always more enlightening than black and white. (Sadly Oslo did not work, the Palestinians were inflexible and Rabin was murdered)
The question of whether the Gaza offensive makes Israel any safer is a good one that is very much debatable.
In Israel's history or indeed world history in general, lasting peace has most often come after a decisive military victory. The peace treaty with Egypt came a few years after Israel's decisive victory in the 1973 war, and the Lebanon border has been relatively quiet ever since Israel's 2008 invasion (as flawed as that was). Today in Gaza, over a year later, rocket attacks have all but ceased, and Hamas is steadily losing support (of course, this may be also because of the blockade).
So to answer your question, look at Gaza today. The borders are quiet and Hamas has taken to sending bombs through beaches, presumably because they are too scared to send rockets. So violence has stopped. Does that make Israel safer in the long run? I think yes. The sooner Hamas either realizes Israel cannot be destroyed or is destroyed themselves, the sooner the Palestinians can be represented by a group that actually wants peace and we can get somewhere.
What do you think?
I suppose you consider yourself a "moderate" in these matters Ms. Leopold? That's pretty funny if you do.
Ha'aretz reports: “The next attempt to appoint an intelligence aide, in this case, former Republican senator Chuck Hagel, also resulted in vast criticism over his not having a pro-Israel record.†The Israel Lobby has blocked Hagel’s appointment by President Obama. Hagel doesn’t want to start a war with Iran for Israel’s benefit and was blackballed by Morton A. Klein, the president of the Zionist Organization of America. Hagel, it seems, “refused to sign a letter calling on then-president George Bush to speak about Iran’s nuclear program at the G8 summit that year.â€
Now it is a Jewish daughter of a Holocaust survivor, Hannah Rosenthal, whose appointment to head the US Office to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism, an office that is another indication of America’s puppet state status, is under attack. Rosenthal was the head of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs during 2000-2005. Her black mark came from serving on the advisory board of the J Street Lobby, a recently-formed American Jewish organization formed in opposition to AIPAC’s murderous militarism.
The Israel Lobby’s opposition to Hannah Rosenthal shows that no moral person can survive the Israel Lobby’s blackball.
The US, “the world’s only superpower,†has no independent voice in Middle Eastern affairs. The real power rests in the hands of the settler thug, Avigdor Lieberman, Deputy Prime Minister of Israel and
In the Israeli-controlled American media, we hear endlessly that Palestinians are terrorists who strap on explosives in order to kill innocent Israelis and who terrorize Israeli towns by firing rockets into them. One look at the maps above is enough to make clear who the real terrorist is.
The Israeli newspaper, Ha'aretz, which also has a moral conscience and is intelligent to boot, wrote on December 4, 2009: “Every appointee to the American government must endure a thorough background check by the American Jewish community.â€
Ha'aretz notes that any American that the President of the United States proposes for an appointment to his government is subject to the approval of the Israel Lobby, which can blackball appointees at will.
Ha'aretz gives the example of Charles Freeman, whom President Obama intended to appoint as head of the National Intelligence Council. The Israel Lobby proved, again, that it was more powerful than a mere American President and prevented the appointment, citing Freeman’s “anti-israel leaning.†In other words, because Freeman was not an overboard apologist for Israel’s crimes he was unacceptable to the Israel Lobby
These attacks, together with the demolition of Palestinian homes, the uprooting of Palestinians’ olive groves, the innumerable checkpoints that prevent Palestinians from accessing schools, work, and medical care, the Israeli Wall that denies Palestinians access to the land stolen from them, and the isolation and blockade of the Gaza Ghetto, are part of the Israeli government’s policy of genocide for the Palestinians.
The Israel Lobby has such power over America that even former President Jimmy Carter, a good friend of Israel, is demonized for using the polite term--apartheid--for the genocide that has occurred over the decades during which American “Christian†preachers, together with bought-and-paid-for politicians, justified Israel’s policy of slow genocide for Palestine.
Israelis who still have a moral conscience--a small part of the population--endeavor to use moral protests against the inhumanity of the Israeli government. Israelis Jeff Halper and Angela Godfrey-Goldstein lead the Israeli Committee Against House Demolition (ICAHD), a non-violent, direct-action group established to oppose and resist Israeli demolition of Palestinian homes in the Occupied Territories.
Under international law an occupier by military force is forbidden to steal the occupied land. The US, however, has protected Israel’s violation of international law for decades by vetoing UN resolutions. Israel has been able to steal Palestine from the Palestinians, because the US government used its power to prevent Israel from being held accountable
Your narrative only works if you ignore substantial parts of the story as usual.
The Syrian occupation part was at least funny.
Why are YOU ignoring Hamas' culpability?
I could point out that were the Palestinians to build bomb shelters the IDF would utilize bunker busters against them and that the Israeli State stop the entry of building supplies into Gaza but what would be the point in asking reality to intrude on your world.
I could also ask why if the wall was so vital it couldn't be built on Israeli land? You may also wish to look into the differing availability of shelters in Israel dependent on the sectarian make up of the resident population.
The years prior to this were not filled with warnings, the I.D.F. never stopped attacks in either the West Bank or Gaza during that period or the abduction of hundreds of Palestinians. The operation was just an escalation of the I.D.F. actions in the occupied territories.
I believe you are talking about the entire Democratically elected legislators that were kidnapped and now in Israeli jails. I find this ironic that the USA constantly speaks of Democracy by the people and then when they do it and it does not come out as planned it is OK to abduct them.
[One of Israel's most prolific American defenders is attorney Alan Dershowitz, who has written a meticulous analysis of Goldstone's methodology, which he says "documents the distortions, misuse of evidence and bias of the report." Of Goldstone, he says, "his credibility has suffered a fatal blow as the result of his association with such bigotry. It is not surprising, therefore, that critics are questioning his motives."]
dershowitz has been long exposed as a flak propagandist in this regard, who develops his own 'theories' and then dissects the data selectively in order to buttress his own assertions.
a great fleshing out of all of this (for those with the patience to endure an extremely wonky discussion/debate.) can be found on the youtube in the form of a debate between the aforementioned dershowitz and dissident noam chomsky.. no detail is spared,.. and chomsky ultimately deftly cuts through the dershiganda;
here is the youtube playlist for the debate;
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=676068E512AEA685
"Chomsky and Dershowitz debate Israel and Palestine"