I see lots of debate on TV and in people's homes about the question of whether the Israeli government treats Palestinians ethically. And the Israel defenders pretty much as a rule call anyone who questions the government or the army antisemitic, self-hating as Jews, or blinded by leftist propaganda. And rather than get into the silliness of all that obvious defensivenss, I prefer to do what people tend to do when in a stalemate with another party. Take it court.
Enter Richard Goldstone. He is a very distinguished South African judge who led war tribunals on Rwanda and Yugoslavia . If you listen to him talk, he's quite intelligent, level-headed, and fair in his manner. He's also Jewish and a self-proclaimed Zionist who sits on the board of Hebrew University. The UN asked him to lead the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict.
So if he is going to criticize Israel, you can't call him an antisemite or a self-hating Jew. You can't say he doesn't understand what a war crime really is. He has seen the worst of it. You can't say that he's the type to rush to judgement or fail to consider all sides of an argument.
The three other appointed members of the commission were "Christine Chinkin, Professor of International Law at the London School of Economics and Political Science, who took part in a fact-finding mission to Beit Hanoun in 2008; Hina Jilani, Advocate of the Supreme Court of Pakistan and a member of the International Commission of Inquiry on Darfur in 2004; and Desmond Travers, a former colonel in the Irish Defence Forces and member of the Board of Directors of the Institute for International Criminal Investigations." (Wikipedia) So that's a whole team of people with experience in either law, military matters, or both.
He and his team did a thorough report. "The report accused both the Israel Defense Forces and the Palestinian militants of war crimes and possible crimes against humanity. It recommended that each side openly investigate its own conduct, and to bring the allegations to the International Criminal Court if they failed to do so" (Wikipedia)
The report also says that Israel's military assault was designed to "humiliate and terrorize a civilian population, radically diminish its local economic capacity both to work and to provide for itself, and to force upon it an ever increasing sense of dependency and vulnerability"
"The report focused on 36 cases that it said constituted a representative sample. In 11 of these episodes, it said the Israeli military carried out direct attacks against civilians, including some in which civilians were shot "while they were trying to leave their homes to walk to a safer place, waving white flags". Talking to Bill Moyers Journal, Goldstone said that the committee chose 36 incidents that represented the highest death toll, where there seemed to be little or no military justification for what happened. According to the report, another alleged war crime committed by IDF include "wanton" destruction of food production, water and sewerage facilities; the report also asserts that some attacks, which were supposedly aimed to kill small number of combatants amidst significant numbers of civilians, were disproportionate." (Wikipedia)
What else? From Wikipedia:
"The report also accused Israel of using Palestinians as "human shields" and torturing detainees."
"The report says that Israeli forces were "systematically reckless" in determining the use of white phosphorus in built-up areas. The writers highlighted the Israeli attack on the UN Relief and Works Agency compound in Gaza City on 15 January, the attack on the Al Quds hospital, and the attack on the Al Wafa hospital, each of which involved using white phosphorus. They described its use as disproportionate or excessive under international law. More generally, the UN report recommended that "serious consideration should be given to banning the use of white phosphorus in built-up areas"."
"The report says that IDF's mortar shelling near a United Nations-run Al-Fakhura school in the Jabaliya refugee camp, which was sheltering some 1,300 people, killed 35 and wounded up to 40 people. The investigation did not exclude the possibility that Israeli forces were responding to fire from an armed Palestinian group, as Israel said, but said that this and similar attacks "cannot meet the test of what a reasonable commander would have determined to be an acceptable loss of civilian life for the military advantage sought". The mission criticized IDF for the choice of the weapons for the supposed counterstrike and concluded that the IDF fire at the Al-Fakhura street violated the law of proportionality. In 2012 Israeli officials acknowledged that contrary to earlier claims, no rockets were fired from schools operated by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) during the Gaza war."
I could go on. Hopefully, you get the point. Why people sit around the dinner table passing plates full of ignorance and self-pity, we have here a report from very capable people who very carefully looked into the matter. Israel was guilty of war crimes. It does not in fact have the most moral army in the world. If we don't admit it, we become culpable in its crimes. Remember what we all said about the Germans, that they had to know what was going on during WWII and they are all culpable for saying later we didn't know. You don't think the German government brainwashed them to believe their actions were justified. Every nation does that. The question is, who is honest enough to see through it?
Next time you get into a conversation with an Israel defender, just say Goldstone report.
Now Israelis always have an answer and they'll tell you he retracted the report. Actually, he retracted one statement, that Israel intentionally tried to kill civilians as a matter of policy. Civilians were intentionally targeted in the course of the conflict but not as a matter of government policy. Everything else stands. While some will try to stretch this retraction to the whole report, I say it strengthens the report because it shows his honesty. Note, the other appointed members of the commission stand by the charge. We'll note also that Goldstone was subject to outlandish amounts of attack by the usual pit bills such as Alan Dershowitz who called him worse than Mengele and was even prevented from attending his grandchild's bar mitzvah.
Enter Richard Goldstone. He is a very distinguished South African judge who led war tribunals on Rwanda and Yugoslavia . If you listen to him talk, he's quite intelligent, level-headed, and fair in his manner. He's also Jewish and a self-proclaimed Zionist who sits on the board of Hebrew University. The UN asked him to lead the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict.
So if he is going to criticize Israel, you can't call him an antisemite or a self-hating Jew. You can't say he doesn't understand what a war crime really is. He has seen the worst of it. You can't say that he's the type to rush to judgement or fail to consider all sides of an argument.
The three other appointed members of the commission were "Christine Chinkin, Professor of International Law at the London School of Economics and Political Science, who took part in a fact-finding mission to Beit Hanoun in 2008; Hina Jilani, Advocate of the Supreme Court of Pakistan and a member of the International Commission of Inquiry on Darfur in 2004; and Desmond Travers, a former colonel in the Irish Defence Forces and member of the Board of Directors of the Institute for International Criminal Investigations." (Wikipedia) So that's a whole team of people with experience in either law, military matters, or both.
He and his team did a thorough report. "The report accused both the Israel Defense Forces and the Palestinian militants of war crimes and possible crimes against humanity. It recommended that each side openly investigate its own conduct, and to bring the allegations to the International Criminal Court if they failed to do so" (Wikipedia)
The report also says that Israel's military assault was designed to "humiliate and terrorize a civilian population, radically diminish its local economic capacity both to work and to provide for itself, and to force upon it an ever increasing sense of dependency and vulnerability"
"The report focused on 36 cases that it said constituted a representative sample. In 11 of these episodes, it said the Israeli military carried out direct attacks against civilians, including some in which civilians were shot "while they were trying to leave their homes to walk to a safer place, waving white flags". Talking to Bill Moyers Journal, Goldstone said that the committee chose 36 incidents that represented the highest death toll, where there seemed to be little or no military justification for what happened. According to the report, another alleged war crime committed by IDF include "wanton" destruction of food production, water and sewerage facilities; the report also asserts that some attacks, which were supposedly aimed to kill small number of combatants amidst significant numbers of civilians, were disproportionate." (Wikipedia)
What else? From Wikipedia:
"The report also accused Israel of using Palestinians as "human shields" and torturing detainees."
"The report says that Israeli forces were "systematically reckless" in determining the use of white phosphorus in built-up areas. The writers highlighted the Israeli attack on the UN Relief and Works Agency compound in Gaza City on 15 January, the attack on the Al Quds hospital, and the attack on the Al Wafa hospital, each of which involved using white phosphorus. They described its use as disproportionate or excessive under international law. More generally, the UN report recommended that "serious consideration should be given to banning the use of white phosphorus in built-up areas"."
"The report says that IDF's mortar shelling near a United Nations-run Al-Fakhura school in the Jabaliya refugee camp, which was sheltering some 1,300 people, killed 35 and wounded up to 40 people. The investigation did not exclude the possibility that Israeli forces were responding to fire from an armed Palestinian group, as Israel said, but said that this and similar attacks "cannot meet the test of what a reasonable commander would have determined to be an acceptable loss of civilian life for the military advantage sought". The mission criticized IDF for the choice of the weapons for the supposed counterstrike and concluded that the IDF fire at the Al-Fakhura street violated the law of proportionality. In 2012 Israeli officials acknowledged that contrary to earlier claims, no rockets were fired from schools operated by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) during the Gaza war."
I could go on. Hopefully, you get the point. Why people sit around the dinner table passing plates full of ignorance and self-pity, we have here a report from very capable people who very carefully looked into the matter. Israel was guilty of war crimes. It does not in fact have the most moral army in the world. If we don't admit it, we become culpable in its crimes. Remember what we all said about the Germans, that they had to know what was going on during WWII and they are all culpable for saying later we didn't know. You don't think the German government brainwashed them to believe their actions were justified. Every nation does that. The question is, who is honest enough to see through it?
Next time you get into a conversation with an Israel defender, just say Goldstone report.
Now Israelis always have an answer and they'll tell you he retracted the report. Actually, he retracted one statement, that Israel intentionally tried to kill civilians as a matter of policy. Civilians were intentionally targeted in the course of the conflict but not as a matter of government policy. Everything else stands. While some will try to stretch this retraction to the whole report, I say it strengthens the report because it shows his honesty. Note, the other appointed members of the commission stand by the charge. We'll note also that Goldstone was subject to outlandish amounts of attack by the usual pit bills such as Alan Dershowitz who called him worse than Mengele and was even prevented from attending his grandchild's bar mitzvah.
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