Released terrorist Marwan Barghouti claimed Judge Richard Goldstone's retraction regarding his report on Israel and war crimes during the 2008 conflict in the Gaza Strip "serves the Israeli occupation."Barghouti said he is certain Goldstone stands behind his report: "He's sure of what he wrote in the report. I believe he doesn't regret it."
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| Lieberman: Truth finally sinking in Photo: Noam Moscowitz
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Lieberman also responds to judge's regret over report on Gaza war, says two years of work undermining it paid off. 'Now it is clear that IDF is moral army,' he says, adding that UN Human Rights Council's decisions on Israel are no longer valid
via ynetnews.com
Israeli officials expressed satisfaction Saturday with Judge Richard Goldstone's regret for his report on Operation Cast Lead in Gaza.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on the UN to retract the Goldstone report. "Everything we said was proven to be true. Israel did not willfully harm civilians," Netanyahu explained, adding, "Israel's investigating authorities are worthy, while Hamas investigated nothing. The fact that Goldstone withdrew his conclusions must lead to the retraction of the report once and for all."
Netanyahu added that "the biggest absurdity is that the United Nation's Human Rights Council initiated the report, and one of its members was Gaddafi's Libya. Therefore we must toss this report into the trash can of history ."
Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told Ynet that "the truth is clear, and cannot be questioned".
via ynetnews.com
No foregone conclusion? Of the three other panelists besides Goldstone, one had already accused Israel of war crimes before the investigation and (verdict first, trial later), and another is so wildly anti-Israel that he holds an acknowledged grudge against Israel for purportedly murdering Irish U.N. peacekeepers (an event that never happened), and who also disclaimed his willingness to give any credence to photographic evidence of Hamas crimes presented by Israel. Goldstone himself was serving at the time as a board member of Human Rights Watch, which has hardly shown itself to be a neutral observer of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And indeed, NGO Monitor has shown that big chunks of the Report’s accusations were lifted from unsubstantiated HRW material.
Goldstone apparently is starting to regret his role in the whole fiasco, and it’s certainly amusing to read various anti-Israel blogs that formerly lauded Goldstone as a hero for speaking truth to power now worrying about the “damage” he is doing to their cause. The key lines in his op-ed: while “the crimes allegedly committed by Hamas were intentional,” “civilians were not intentionally targeted [by Israel] as a matter of policy.”
But Goldstone agreed to lead a kangaroo court appointed by the U.N. Human Rights Council, which includes such human rights stalwarts as China, Cuba, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. Penance is always welcome, but Goldstone will go down in history as the head kangaroo.
via volokh.com
"The price of dealing (with the report) over the past few years was worth it," Lieberman said, adding that Goldstone's backtracking renders all decisions by UN Human Rights Council about Israel null and void.
"If I had known then what I know now, the Goldstone Report would have been a different document," the South African judge, who had accused Israel of committing war crimes in Gaza, wrote in an article carried by the Washington Post.
Lieberman took credit for the change of heart, explaining that his ministry had been hard at work attempting to undermine the report's conclusions. "We sent letters and documents about it, and I think it is finally sinking in," he said.
"Today it is clear to everyone that the IDF is the most moral army. I think there will be a dramatic change. Everyone understands that there is no place here for any intervention."
Israel refused to cooperate with the UN probe headed by Goldstone in 2009, and the judge expressed his dismay at the fact that this altered the results. "Israel’s lack of cooperation with our investigation meant that we were not able to corroborate how many Gazans killed were civilians and how many were combatants," he wrote.
Lieberman recounted the debates that led to Israel's decision at the time. "There were many arguments," he said. "Finally I managed to convince everyone that if we reveal to Goldstone our operational and political considerations, and how the army and defense and intelligence services work, everyone will begin demanding such information. We preferred to deal with the report without taking them into our confidence."
The foreign minister added that the report still has repercussions today. "People are unaware of this, but after the Goldstone report there were another two reports, all of them considering the effects of Goldstone," he said.
"All of them reached the same conclusion: There was no intentional fire on civilians and the justice system in Israel is reliable and serious, and investigates itself. Goldstone mentions 400 cases that Israel reviewed, while Hamas did not review a single case. Intentional fire on civilians is a war crime," Lieberman added.
'Council says nothing on Iran, Sudan'
"The third conclusion that Goldstone reaches in the article is that in actuality the Human Rights Council has become an anti-Israel body whose whole agenda is to degrade the State of Israel."
In his own opinion, the foreign minister said, the council deals in "attempts to persecute and libel Israel."
"This organization is busy with Israel as it is never busy with Iran, Sudan, or North Korea. As of this day, there is no longer any validity to any conclusion or debate about Israel in the Human Rights Council," he said.
"The State of Israel is not Syria, it's not the Ivory Coast, it is a state in which all of the systems work and everyone makes decisions according to the norms accepted around the world, and according to international law."
Defense Minister Ehud Barak was also pleased with Goldstone's admission. "We have always said that the IDF is a moral army that operates according international law, with extraordinary standards in the fight against terror activated by Hamas in Gaza against the citizens of Israel," he said.
Barak added that in addition to his article, Goldstone should also make sure to make his conclusions known to international bodies affected by "his false and distorted" report. "Only in this manner will there truly be partial reparation for the damage caused," he said.
IDF: Judge's Jewish morals kicked in
The IDF's top brass was also pleased with Goldstone's change of heart. IDF Spokesman Brigadier-General Avi Benayahu told Ynet that "apparently his Jewish morals and professional honor eventually prompted him to tell the world the truth about what happened during the operation, a truth we have long known".
"We have always felt total faith that the operational inquiries within the army are reliable and truthful. We are open to all criticism and claims and know how to probe ourselves, and we rejected the baseless criticism that appeared in the Goldstone report."
A number of inquiries led to punishment. In one case, two Givati soldiers were convicted of using a boy as a human shield in Gaza, and were sentenced to three months in prison. But the report accused many innocent soldiers of wrongdoing as well, another army official explained.
"This is an important seal of legitimacy for many whom the report slandered, through no wrongdoing of their own, some of whom were shamed by it," he said. "It's too bad most of them have already been discharged and did not receive this authorization while still serving."
But Colonel Liron Libman, who heads the International Law Division at the Military Advocate General's Office, believes there is still difficult work ahead. He cites the 2010 annual report, which says that "there has been an increase in attempts to initiate criminal proceedings against Israeli officials" during the year.
The report adds that "intensive dealings with legal consequences" of the Gaza war are expected to continue throughout 2011.
via ynetnews.com
Livni Responds to Goldstone's Admission
Member of Knesset Tzipi Livni (Kadima) responded to Judge Richard Goldstone's regrets over his report criticizing Israel during Operation Cast Lead, saying: "The operation was important and justified, with or without Goldstone."
"Better late than never," she added. "But the rectification must be stronger than a newspaper article. The report was based on a fundamental failure and not a factual one."
Livni served as Israel's foreign minister during Operation Cast Lead
We know a lot more today about what happened in the Gaza war of 2008-09 than we did when I chaired the fact-finding mission appointed by the U.N. Human Rights Council that produced what has come to be known as the Goldstone Report. If I had known then what I know now, the Goldstone Report would have been a different document.
The final report by the U.N. committee of independent experts — chaired by former New York judge Mary McGowan Davis — that followed up on the recommendations of the Goldstone Report has found that “Israel has dedicated significant resources to investigate over 400 allegations of operational misconduct in Gaza” while “the de facto authorities (i.e., Hamas) have not conducted any investigations into the launching of rocket and mortar attacks against Israel.”Our report found evidence of potential war crimes and “possibly crimes against humanity” by both Israel and Hamas. That the crimes allegedly committed by Hamas were intentional goes without saying — its rockets were purposefully and indiscriminately aimed at civilian targets.
For example, the most serious attack the Goldstone Report focused on was the killing of some 29 members of the al-Simouni family in their home. The shelling of the home was apparently the consequence of an Israeli commander’s erroneous interpretation of a drone image, and an Israeli officer is under investigation for having ordered the attack. While the length of this investigation is frustrating, it appears that an appropriate process is underway, and I am confident that if the officer is found to have been negligent, Israel will respond accordingly. The purpose of these investigations, as I have always said, is to ensure accountability for improper actions, not to second-guess, with the benefit of hindsight, commanders making difficult battlefield decisions.
The allegations of intentionality by Israel were based on the deaths of and injuries to civilians in situations where our fact-finding mission had no evidence on which to draw any other reasonable conclusion. While the investigations published by the Israeli military and recognized in the U.N. committee’s report have established the validity of some incidents that we investigated in cases involving individual soldiers, they also indicate that civilians were not intentionally targeted as a matter of policy.
While I welcome Israel’s investigations into allegations, I share the concerns reflected in the McGowan Davis report that few of Israel’s inquiries have been concluded and believe that the proceedings should have been held in a public forum. Although the Israeli evidence that has emerged since publication of our report doesn’t negate the tragic loss of civilian life, I regret that our fact-finding mission did not have such evidence explaining the circumstances in which we said civilians in Gaza were targeted, because it probably would have influenced our findings about intentionality and war crimes.
Israel’s lack of cooperation with our investigation meant that we were not able to corroborate how many Gazans killed were civilians and how many were combatants. The Israeli military’s numbers have turned out to be similar to those recently furnished by Hamas (although Hamas may have reason to inflate the number of its combatants).
As I indicated from the very beginning, I would have welcomed Israel’s cooperation. The purpose of the Goldstone Report was never to prove a foregone conclusion against Israel. I insisted on changing the original mandate adopted by the Human Rights Council, which was skewed against Israel. I have always been clear that Israel, like any other sovereign nation, has the right and obligation to defend itself and its citizens against attacks from abroad and within. Something that has not been recognized often enough is the fact that our report marked the first time illegal acts of terrorism from Hamas were being investigated and condemned by the United Nations. I had hoped that our inquiry into all aspects of the Gaza conflict would begin a new era of evenhandedness at the U.N. Human Rights Council, whose history of bias against Israel cannot be doubted.
Some have charged that the process we followed did not live up to judicial standards. To be clear: Our mission was in no way a judicial or even quasi-judicial proceeding. We did not investigate criminal conduct on the part of any individual in Israel, Gaza or the West Bank. We made our recommendations based on the record before us, which unfortunately did not include any evidence provided by the Israeli government. Indeed, our main recommendation was for each party to investigate, transparently and in good faith, the incidents referred to in our report. McGowan Davis has found that Israel has done this to a significant degree; Hamas has done nothing.
Some have suggested that it was absurd to expect Hamas, an organization that has a policy to destroy the state of Israel, to investigate what we said were serious war crimes. It was my hope, even if unrealistic, that Hamas would do so, especially if Israel conducted its own investigations. At minimum I hoped that in the face of a clear finding that its members were committing serious war crimes, Hamas would curtail its attacks. Sadly, that has not been the case. Hundreds more rockets and mortar rounds have been directed at civilian targets in southern Israel. That comparatively few Israelis have been killed by the unlawful rocket and mortar attacks from Gaza in no way minimizes the criminality. The U.N. Human Rights Council should condemn these heinous acts in the strongest terms.
In the end, asking Hamas to investigate may have been a mistaken enterprise. So, too, the Human Rights Council should condemn the inexcusable and cold-blooded recent slaughter of a young Israeli couple and three of their small children in their beds.
I continue to believe in the cause of establishing and applying international law to protracted and deadly conflicts. Our report has led to numerous “lessons learned” and policy changes, including the adoption of new Israel Defense Forces procedures for protecting civilians in cases of urban warfare and limiting the use of white phosphorus in civilian areas. The Palestinian Authority established an independent inquiry into our allegations of human rights abuses — assassinations, torture and illegal detentions — perpetrated by Fatah in the West Bank, especially against members of Hamas. Most of those allegations were confirmed by this inquiry. Regrettably, there has been no effort by Hamas in Gaza to investigate the allegations of its war crimes and possible crimes against humanity.
Simply put, the laws of armed conflict apply no less to non-state actors such as Hamas than they do to national armies. Ensuring that non-state actors respect these principles, and are investigated when they fail to do so, is one of the most significant challenges facing the law of armed conflict. Only if all parties to armed conflicts are held to these standards will we be able to protect civilians who, through no choice of their own, are caught up in war.
The writer, a retired justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa and former chief prosecutor of the U.N. International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, chaired the U.N. fact-finding mission on the Gaza conflict.
