Defenders of Israel's Gaza onslaught of 2008-9 can barely contain their joy. In a Washington Post op-ed on Friday, Judge Richard Goldstone -- the famed South African jurist who headed that country's Truth and Reconciliation Commission -- offers some second thoughts about the Gaza war and softens his earlier criticism of Israel's actions in Gaza, which his U.N.-backed report described as "war crimes."
In fact, Goldstone alters only one of his original findings. He now says that he has concluded that the Israeli Defense Forces did not intentionally target civilians during attacks in which 1,400 Palestinians died, of whom half were civilians and more than 300 were children. Goldstone concludes they were collateral damage -- not the intended targets, but people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
This "exoneration" of Israel's behavior has Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, and their defenders in Israel and the United States crazily dancing in the end zone. You see, they shout, Goldstone lied all along. We didn't kill all these people on purpose. Hooray for us.
These celebrations tell us infinitely more about the Israeli government and its cutouts here than Goldstone's column does about what happened in Gaza.
Imagine if the United States government were forced to admit that it killed hundreds of innocent people in a few days and that hundreds of that number were kids. Does anyone imagine that our government would pat itself on the back because the killings were deemed unintentional?
No doubt, many innocent people have been killed at American hands just as at Israel's in Gaza. But it is hard to recall American officials saying that the discovery that the deaths were unintentional exonerated us. As for victory laps such as those being taken by Netanyahu and Barak, they would be inconceivable here, especially by prominent officials in the government.
The only way Goldstone could really exonerate Israel would be to prove that the hundreds of non-combatant dead, including all those kids, were, in fact, not civilians at all. He would have to prove that they were fighters who were killed while engaging in battle with Israel. Not even the Israelis claim that.
The civilian dead were indeed civilians, and they are still dead. They are dead because the Israeli government decided that taking care not to kill innocents would put more Israeli soldiers in harm's way.
Elections were coming and the Israeli government felt that their public would not tolerate a war that took more than a few soldiers' lives. So the army would bombard targets from afar; if civilians were killed, so what?
The strategy worked. 1,400 Palestinians were killed, compared to about a dozen Israelis. That was a ratio -- almost unprecedented in the history of warfare -- that would not hurt any politican's political standing. (Actually, it suggests that Gaza was not a war at all, but rather an attack by a powerful army against powerless militants and unarmed civilians.)
The jubilation over Goldstone's minor edit is also misplaced because the strong opposition felt in most quarters to the Gaza onslaught had nothing whatsoever to do with whether or not the killings of civilians were intentional, but rather was over the fact that they took place at all.
Even if it could be proven that the United Nations school was destroyed by accident, what difference would it make? It was destroyed. Would Israel exonerate Hamas if it, by accident, hit an Israeli hospital when its target was a nearby army base? It is a distinction without a difference and only the morally bankrupt would point to it with pride.
Furthermore, opponents of the Gaza war were outraged by Israel's actions in Gaza right from the start, not following publication of the Goldstone report. The outrage came when it became clear that Israel was not exercising its legitimate right to defend itself against rocket fire from Gaza by targeting the people launching the missiles but by targeting everyone who lived in Gaza.
Additionally, the whole war was unnecessary. A cease-fire between Hamas and Israel had been in effect for the six months leading up to Israel's decision to invade. Why did it end?
The answer comes from U.S. News, a newsweekly owned by Mortimer Zuckerman, one of the Israeli government's leading defenders in the United States and the former president of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.
Why now? Two reasons: the expiration of the Israeli-Gazan cease-fire on December 19 and the Israeli national election coming up on February 10. The six-month cease-fire started coming apart at the beginning of November after Israeli commandos killed a team of Hamas fighters during a raid on a tunnel they suspected was being dug for the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers. That raid set off more Palestinian rocketing which prompted further Israeli attacks. All this prompted Hamas to declare that it wouldn't extend the cease-fire unless Israel lifted its punishing siege of the Gaza Strip, which was imposed after the militant group Hamas was elected to power nearly three years ago.
U.S. News has it exactly right. The cease-fire ended because Israel decided to end it. And then when the rockets started falling, Israel had the pretext it wanted to attack. None of this is surprising; Israeli leaders have never been shy about saying that their goal is not merely ending mortar attacks from Gaza but eliminating the Hamas government (elected, incidentally, in a democratic election forced on the Palestinians by the United States). If that could only be accomplished by mass slaughter in one of the most crowded spots on earth, so be it. The Israeli government is indifferent to the fate of Palestinians and its backers here share that indifference. And it does not matter whether a Palestinian is a terrorist or just a kid.
The bottom line is that Goldstone's edit doesn't matter except to those who defended and still defend this indefensible war. The damage done to Israel's reputation cannot be eradicated. But that is insignificant compared to the pain felt by all those still mourning loved ones killed in the monstrous and illegal Gaza war. So long as the concept of war crime exists, it will apply to the Gaza war of 2008-9, and nothing can change that.
Follow MJ Rosenberg on Twitter: www.twitter.com/mjayrosenberg
Hasbara celebrations seem premature.
"[Ms. Rosenberg] pointed out that there were other important standards in international law for assessing war crimes, including negilgence, disregard for the safety of civilians, and indiscriminate use of force."
See: http://www.counterpunch.org/cook04052011.html
This highlights why its unlikely that Judge Goldstone's comments (which it now seems were twisted beyond what he meant by Zionist apologists) will not significantly change the findings or recommendations regarding war crimes committed by the IDF in Gaza.
JUST AS? Or lots more?
MJ, why can you NOT put a number on the civilians "killed at American hands"?
You always throw the numbers Hamas has given, why not post the number of those "killed at American hands", is it because it's not "just as at Israel's"?
They ignore the rocket and mortar attacks on civilian areas in Israel.
When they don't ignore them, they say the rockets are ineffectual - killing only 14 peopl, wounding only 400.
Beyond that, they blame Israel for hamas firing rockets on Israel.
They believe that everyone in the wrold has a right to migrate, except Jews.
Israel shouldn't exist therefore Israel should not defend itself in any way. Any attacks on them are deserved.
Unfortunately for the Israel-Haters, most Israelis are beyond caring what you think and they will continue to defend themselves.
Evidence?
What Goldstone did do was damage Israel and the israel-haters love that. Truth is not relevant.
Additionally, the difference between "recognizing one's right to exist" and "not recognizing one's right to exist" is probably another "minor edit" as far as you're concerned. Not?
The difference is not between "intentional" and "unintentional." The difference is between "intentionally" and "knowingly" and/or "recklessly."
There is nothing "accidental" or "unintentional" about the deaths caused by Israeli conduct in Gaza. That's why most people believe that Judge Goldstone's statement about "intentionality" will not change the main findings/recommendations of the report.
But it is understandable that people are confused, given the concerted and disingenuous efforts of Zionist apologists here and elsewhere trying to morph "knowingly/recklessly" into accidentally or "unintentionally."
From Ma'an:
The vast majority of Palestinians own their homes, living with an average of 1.6 people per room, while those who rent pay an average of 115 Jordanian Dinar ($162) per month, a housing survey found.
Only 0.9 percent of households lived in large manor homes, while 48 percent said they lived in a house, with 50 percent in apartment buildings. Home ownership in the West Bank was at 82 percent, and at 87 in Gaza.
Ninty-seven percent of homes had refrigerators, 94 percent had satellite dishes, and 47 percent have computers.
This would make the PA #2 in the world in the category of home ownership, and Gaza would be tied for #1 with Singapore.
Israel's home ownership rate is 71%. The US is at 68%.
I think we need to give them a few billion more dollars. After all, only 0.9% live in "large manor homes."
I also wonder how they define "large manor homes." Because from a drive through Judea and Samaria, one can see many large Arab houses. Do those qualify?
http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2011/04/palestinian-arabs-among-worlds-highest.html
That's one brutal occupation
There are 4-star hotels along the beach.
There are many new cars in Gaza as well.
What you can't find are pictures of fly-covered starving babies, almost naked with distended stomachs like you see in starving regions of Africa. However, we keep hearing that the people of Gaza are starving, dying without medical help, no electricity, no water, sewage flowing down the streets.
Mr. Rosenberg ought to be ashamed at himself for trying to foist that one off on his readers.
'Goldstone says he'll work to nullify report in UN'
http://www.jpost.com/DiplomacyAndPolitics/Article.aspx?ID=215275&R=R1
It is time for your retraction Mr. Rosenberg.
Is their love in your heart for the State of Israel too?
After all, anyone who accepts without question a claim that amounts to nothing more than "Yishai says that Goldstone said that he'll work to nullify the report....." is gullible in the extreme.
Excuse me for wanting to hear it from Goldstone himself because, in all honesty, I trust Yishai about as far as I can throw the dude....
I've come to this conclusion based on the fact that he can be presented with any amount of unbiased evidence, and he simply ignores it.
He feels better when his information is biased (a attribute of most ideologues).
I'm going to send him a checkered Khafeya to make him feel better about what is clearly devastating news about Goldstone's recantation.
You have no argument.
FAIL
I notice you a lot on I/P threads. You must be devastated as well, mainly to find out that Hamas can't use Goldstone's original study as a reason to harm innocent women and children.
After all, Hamas is well known for their compliance to International law when it comes to armed engagement, right?
Sorry for your disappointment.
Clearly
There was supposed to be an Arab Nation, which became Jordan, and Israel, which was to include the Golan, the Sinai, and extend from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean.
That fell by the wayside. Even then, in 1948, when the new state was created on a tiny fraction of the original land proposed, Israel said yes, the ARABS (not Palestinians) said no, and declared war.
It was not until the 1960's that there was any mention of "Palestinian" and that was only as a result of the Black September massacre committed by King Hussein on his Sunni majority to protect the Hashemite supremacy in Jordan.
Even more, there was NEVER any agitating for the West Bank and Gaza when those lands were under Egyptian and Jordanian occupation (that was occupation since they were governed by, had military authority, etc, as opposed to today with Israel).
http://www.mapsorama.com/palestine-in-11th-century/
Map of Palestine 1530 CE:
http://www.mapsorama.com/map-of-palestine-in-16th-century/
Reportage of Palestinian agriculture during the 1800s:
As far back as 1615, the English poet George Sandys found Palestine to be "a land that flowed with milk and honey; in the midst as it were of the habitable world, and under a temperate clime; adorned with beautiful mountains and luxurious valleys; the rocks producing excellent waters; and no part empty of delight or profit."
Englishwoman Lady Hester Stanhope who was in Palestine in 1810: "The luxuriance of vegetation is not to be described....Fruits of all sorts from the banana to the blackberry are abundant. The banks of the rivers are clothed naturally with oleander and flowering shrubs.... [The Arab orchards near Jaffa] contained lemon, orange, almond, peach, apple, pomegranate and other trees."
In 1859, a British missionary described the southern coast of Palestine as "a very ocean of wheat...the fields would do credit to British farming."
While visiting Palestine in 1883, Englishman Laurence Oliphant described the Plain of Esdraelon at Acre as being "...in a high state of cultivation. It looks today like a huge green lake of waving wheat, with its village-crowned mounds rising from it like islands and it presents one of the most striking pictures of luxurious fertility which it is possible to conceive."
They are no more secure, their international reputation is in shambles, they are no closer to peace.
I find that Hamas and Israeli Israeli leadership to be equally idiotic.
Note that I believe Hamas is equally idiotic, regardless of their argument that Israel started this or that. Their rockets only brings out the ugliness of the IDF and everyone knows that IDF has no mercy. Their rockets will not make Israel change her inhumane policies towards the people of Gaza
They APPEALED. They're morally bankrupt.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4333982.stm
A mother won a seat in the Gaza parliament with the aid of video showing how she sent 3 sons out in suicide vests telling them "Good bye. Don't come home".
Samouni Family Responds to Justice Goldstone Backtrack on Israeli War Crimes:
http://www.gilad.co.uk/writings/ken-okeefe-samouni-family-responds-to-justice-goldstone-back.html