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| Richard Goldstone...Oooopsies....If only Israel had cooperated with the Report? Bend over Richard....Make sure you cooperate with the camera I'm going to shove up your ass. |
Judge Richard Goldstone said that if Israel had cooperated with his UN-sanctioned fact-finding mission into Operation Cast Lead and if he had known then what he knows today, "the Goldstone Report would have been a different document," especially its allegations of "possible war crimes" directed at Israel.
In a Washington Post op-ed on Friday, Goldstone wrote that while Hamas clearly indiscriminately targeted civilians, subsequent Israeli investigations indicated that civilians "were not intentionally targeted as a matter of policy" by Israel. He lamented that Israel did not cooperate with his mission, as it would likely have influenced the Goldstone Report's findings.
The former judge wrote that due to a lack of Israeli cooperation, his investigation was unable to corroborate how many of those killed during Cast Lead were civilians and how many were in fact combatants, numbers which he says are now clearer. Goldstone also slammed the United Nations Human Rights Council, which commissioned the report, saying that the original mandate given to him 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," he wrote. Saying that he changed the original mandate handed to him in order to investigate Hamas as well as Israel, he noted, "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." He added that he had hoped his inquiry would usher in an era of even-handedness in the UNHRC, whose bias against Israel "cannot be doubted." In a new condemnation of Hamas and its continued "heinous acts," Goldstone regrets that Hamas did not investigate or curtail attacks by its members, who his inquiry found "were committing serious war crimes." Noting that Hamas continues to target southern Israel's civilian population, he wrote, "that comparatively few Israelis have been killed by the unlawful rocket and mortar attacks from Gaza in no way minimizes the criminality." He added, "the UN Human Rights Council should condemn these heinous acts in the strongest terms." He also called on the UN body to condemn the "cold-blooded" Itamar attack, in which five members of one family, including three children, were slaughtered "in their beds." While praising the IDF for following up on his report with "'lessons learned' and policy changes," he laments that "there has been no effort by Hamas in Gaza to investigate the allegations of its war crimes and possible crimes against humanity." Clearly stating that the laws of armed conflict apply to non-state actors such as Hamas just as they do to state armies, he says that only if all parties are held to these standards, "will we be able to protect civilians."
In an exceptional act of contrition couched in words of considered reflection, Richard Goldstone, author of the much-cited report bearing his name on the 2008-09 Gaza war between Hamas and Israel, "reconsiders" his own findings:Goldstone writes:
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. 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 [...]Reuters has yet to report on Goldstone's remarkable reversal. We eagerly await the agency's spin.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.
That the crimes allegedly committed by Hamas were intentional goes without saying — its rockets were purposefully and indiscriminately aimed at civilian targets.What an odd thing to say--because in fact the Goldstone Report did in fact let the actions of Hamas go without saying.
At the time, Elder of Ziyon analyzed the conclusions of the Goldstone Report and found that Hamas was barely mentioned at all--and made a wordle to illustrate his point:
As you can see, words like Israel and Israeli are easy to spot, but can you spot the word Hamas?
If you look at the right, I've placed an arrow where the word Hamas is.
You'll have to click on the image in order to actually see the word Hamas--and even then, in comparison with the words Israel and Israeli, it is clear that Hamas was barely mentioned.
Indeed, Goldstone was not exaggerating when he wrote that the rockets fired by Hamas at Israeli civilians went without saying. ...As Elder of Ziyon points out
