Goldstone Sampler 04/03/2011

From an email from DG:

1) Goldstone's regrets

The big news item so far is that over the weekend Richard Goldstone wrote a mea culpa of sorts in the Washington Post.

I suppose that these paragraphs towards the end are key:

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.

I suppose that it's nice that Alice has returned from Wonderland and that he acknowledges that Israel investigated itself and that Hamas didn't. (But recall Elder of Ziyon's Wordle demonstrating how little effort Goldstone put into investigating Hamas.)

There is much here that is disingenuous. Did Israel really change its procedures due to his investigation? I think he's giving himself too much credit.

But we also know a lot more than at the time Goldstone did his investigation.

We know for example that CAMERA wrote a detailed rebuttal of a number of points of Goldstone's investigation.

And we know that Goldstone didn't bother to respond.

We know that even as he claimed that the UN should take action based on his report, he knew that what he found would not stand up in a court of law.

And while he righteously claims that Israel didn't provide him with a defense, when he heard about the Israeli side, he ignored it.

And David Bernstein (h/t Gerald Steinberg) I think has a key point.

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.

I know that Goldstone claims that he changed the mandate, but didn't the makeup of the commission clue him into its purpose?

Among Goldstone's claims is that he only served to investigate war crimes. But at one point his commission investigated whether the IDF gave sufficient advance warning of upcoming attacks. The commission concluded that the IDF did not. Really, how could the commission members substitute their own knowledge for the IDF commanders on the ground? And wasn't the advance warning unique enough - forfeiting the element of surprise - in the first place that the IDF didn't need to be second guessed?

The reconsideration is welcome, but it is in no way honest.

Why would Goldstone adopt such a reversal at this late date?

2) The NYT reports on Goldstone's mea culpa

 The New York Times reported: Head of U.N. Panel Regrets Saying Israel Intentionally Killed Gazans

Israel carried out its military campaign after years of rocket fire by Palestinian militants in Gaza against southern Israel. As many as 1,400 Gazans were killed during the three-week offensive in December 2008 and January 2009, including hundreds of civilians. Thirteen Israelis were also killed.  

During the invasion, graphic images of human suffering were broadcast around the world, and after the fighting ended, the United Nations Human Rights Council asked Mr. Goldstone, who is Jewish, to head an investigation into Israel’s actions. He said he would do so on the condition that he could broaden his mandate to include Hamas’s conduct as well.  

Israel considers the Human Rights Council to be deeply hostile to its interests and refused to cooperate with Mr. Goldstone or allow him into Israel to carry out his work. 

The Times is, of course, scrupulous in reminding readers of a number of specific charges and how horrible the Israeli attack on Gaza was. Not once does the word "Sderot" show up in the news report. The single mention of the word "rockets" is in a quote from PM Netanyahu. In other words the New York Times never once specifically mentions the cause of the war - thousands of rockets fired by Hamas against Israeli civilians. 

Late last year a spokesman for Hamas acknowledged that Israel killed 600 - 700 of its fighters in Cast Lead.

Hamas’ military wing had previously claimed that only 49 of its militants were killed during the three-week operation that the IDF launched in December 2008. Israel had put the figure at 709. 

In an interview with the London-based Al-Hayat daily last Monday, however, Hamas Interior Minister Fathi Hamad detailed the heavy price his group had paid during the war. 

"They say that it was the people who were harmed in the last war," said Hamad. "Are we not part of the people nation? On the first day of the war, Israel attacked the police command and killed 250 martyrs, from Hamas and other factions." 

"This was in addition to the 200-300 members of the Al-Qassam Brigade [Hamas' military wing] and 150 security personnel," Hamad added. "The rest of the fatalities were from among the civilian population." 

Now I realize that still means that hundreds of civilians were killed in Cast Lead as the New York Times helpfully tells us.

Based on estimates that means that about as many civilians were killed as combatants. Yes, it's terrible when innocents die but is the proportion of civilians killed in Cast Lead really so high as to warrant an investigation - especially one that assumed Israeli guilt?

It would be nice if the Times had reported that Goldstone's imperfect admission called into question the methodology and bias of his investigation instead of trying to repair the damage Goldstone just did to his own investigation.

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