Now Both Kofi Annan AND Hamas Are Exonerated

Today's Daily Alert has a translation of an Arabic article:

Hamas: Goldstone Report Exonerates Us from War Crimes Against Israel


Hamas second-in-command Musa Abu Marzouq said in an interview: "All paragraphs in the Goldstone report convict Israel and totally exonerate Hamas from any misconduct. For instance, the report exonerates Hamas from the accusation of using civilians as human shields and attributes this accusation to Israeli forces. Likewise, the report exonerated Hamas from all other accusations mentioned by Israel, and even when the report is dealing with the rockets which were launched from Gaza, it speaks about military groups without naming Hamas." Translated by Jonathan D. Halevi (Al-Mashahid Al-Siyasi-UK, Arabic, 5Dec09)

The only real question is: What took them so long to figure it out?!


Back in September, Elder of Ziyon went into great detail illustrating the reports, articles and videos the Goldstone Commission had to ignore in order to deny the obvious fact that Hamas used human shields and committed other war crimes.

Then, Elder of Ziyon illustrated with a wordle just how little Hamas was referred to in the conclusion of the report.

In October, Jonathan Dahoah Halevi wrote an article--No wonder Hamas isn’t scared:
Despite his claims, Goldstone didn’t hold Hamas accountable for terror, where he notes:

The Hamas de-facto administration and its leaders are never accused of responsibility for terrorism and firing rockets. Rather, nebulous "Palestinian armed groups" are responsible. The theme is repeated in the report's few references to Palestinian terrorism . . . .


The issue of Hamas' invisible responsibility for war crimes, like many other claims made by the report, shows that it is a masterpiece of deception and manipulation whose only intention is to frame Israel for war crimes and exonerate Hamas.

Likewise, in an interview, Dore Gold also stated the obvious:

I believe that, because the report did not single out Hamas for its involvement in war crimes but instead used the innocuous expression 'armed groups,' Hamas feels exonerated by the U.N. Gaza report, and that leads us to a situation where the resolution of differences between Israel and the Palestinians will be much more difficult.

The last time we saw someone claim so loudly that they had been exonerated by a report was back in April 2005, when the Volcker report that investigated Kofi Annan in the 'Oil-For-Food Scandal' released its results:

Volcker’s committee has released two reports so far on abuses in oil-for-food. The latest faulted Annan’s management of the program, but cleared him of interfering in the awarding of a $10 million-a-year U.N. contract to the Swiss employer of his son, Kojo Annan.

Kofi Annan later said he accepted the criticism but claimed the report exonerated him — though Volcker had made clear when he unveiled the report that the findings against the secretary-general were “adverse.”

Volcker repeated to Fox that Annan was not exonerated.

It remains to be seen whether Judge Richard Goldstone will follow in Volcker's footsteps and deign to acknowledge that Hamas actually is actually responsible for any 'adverse' activity towards Israel from Gaza.
After all, Judge Richard Goldstone was appointed--by Kofi Annan--to Volcker's Independent International Committee too.
Just as he was appointed to head the Arab-funded Goldstone Commission.

Note: For the record, I am saying nothing more than that both investigations were sloppy.

Technorati Tag: Goldston and Kofi Annan and Hamas and Goldstone Report.