Richard Goldstone spoke at the New York Bar Association last week and made an important point, according to Peter Weiss (of the National Lawyers Guild and Americans for Peace Now) who attended.
Netanyahu has said that international law has to be amended to take into account the ways that terrorists operate in heavily-populated areas.
Netanyahu has said that Israeli soldiers did not violate the law in the Gaza onslaught.
Well, which is it?
Netanyahu is trying to have it both ways in the expansion of West Bank and East Jerusalem settlements.
A settlement freeze and a settlement expansion in the same breath.
While that’s nice that you are actually acknowledging reality in that case, one notes — as usual — you are sidestepping the point of the article. That being, that Israel has grossly violated international law.
Headlines.
How do you know that Israel isn’t doing what Goldstone recommended? (Internal investigation), wiht some subsequent publicly accountable report.
Is Hamas?
How do I know? Maybe all the press releases from the Israeli government saying that they’ve decided there is nothing to investigate was the tip-off.
I think right now Hamas has more pressing things to worry about. Like what to do the next time Israeli F-16s fly over the hospitals and schools of Gaza. Or what to do with all the starving people. There’s also the water treatment plant that Israel demolished. Israel got any of that on its plate to worry about?
Time for you to wake up Witty and face reality. The Palestinians have no interest in any peace deal where Israel continues to exist. More information on Olmert’s very generous offer has come out. Once again the Palestinians could have had a state on virtually all of the pre 1967 borders and rejected it. link to theaustralian.com.au
I don’t think that you can conclude that rationally.
There certainly is confusion and power posturing among different Palestinian factions that intentionally disrupt peace.
I think it is also very convincing that likud doesn’t really want peace.
I believe that peace is possible, even likely, IF there is a will to on Israel’s side. The outlines of what a peace would tentatively be constructed of is clear, and securable for Israel if they also got past their internal partisanship.
You mean like this?
link to vanityfair.com
Funny… the dominant faction involved doesn’t look Palestinian to me…
Julian – Are you really as dense as you seem? You claim: “More information on Olmert’s very generous offer has come out. Once again the Palestinians could have had a state on virtually all of the pre 1967 borders and rejected it.” More information has come out? That implies that some investigative journalism has uncovered evidence heretofore unknown. But then you link to an article in which Olmert explains to a nauseatingly fawning interviewer how he made a very generous offer that was rejected. Olmert’s self-serving version of history is not “more information.” Do you think he was strategically holding back these critical facts until now for effect? I generally try not to be outright insulting to other commenters, but you make it awfully difficult.
Your problem, Julian, is that you are predisposed to credit any published material that is on your side. You should critically examine such statements the same way you would those in opposition. Not only do you fail to scrutinize Olmert, you misrepresent his transparent effort to burnish his legacy as objective information.
Once again, Julian – tell us the details of this offer. Should be easy, since you always bring it up.
I recall when this news first surfaced as part of israel’s response to the goldstone report.
“take into account the ways that terrorists operate in heavily-populated areas” i assume is referencing the Dahiya Doctrine which stipulates that civilian neighborhoods essentially are or become military bases if they are used to launch offense and therefore become legitimate targets and the citizens become complicit and become legitimate targets . the gov of israel seeks to change international law to conform/ approve disproportionate force if certain conditions
apply. from wiki’s Dahlya Doctrine quote of IDF Northern Command chief Gabi Eisenkot:
“What happened in the Dahiya quarter of Beirut in 2006 will happen in every village from which Israel is fired on. [...] We will
apply disproportionate force on it and cause great damage and destruction there. From our standpoint, these are not civilian
villages, they are military bases. [...] This is not a recommendation. This is a plan. And it has been approved.[2] There would
be no mercy shown “when it comes to hitting the national infrastructure of a state that, in practice, is controlled by
Hizbullah… In practical terms, the Palestinians in Gaza are all Khaled Mashaal, the Lebanese are all Nasrallah, and the Iranians are all Ahmadinejad
it is a policy of disproportionate force (collective punishment) that is presently against international law . during israel’s critique of goldstone i encountered pro israel bloggers arguing goldstone was unfair because they did not cite the hamas war crime of launching attacks from civilian areas. (actually i recall goldstone did address this, he just did not find evidence of intent wrt human shields nor call it a war crime). right now as far as i know the location of launching attacks from civilian areas is not a war crime in itself, but i presume the intent to incorporate the principles of the doctrine into international law would change the definition of war crime to retroactively cleanse Israel of its crimes in gaza and lebanon.
the International Law Observer commented in oct 08:
Regional scholars working in the field of military strategy and national security have confirmed that the IDF is putting together a new programme for facing up to possible upcoming wars, whether with Lebanon, Syria or the Gaza Stip. The solution, as it appears, has come in the form of a “disproportionate eruption” through a newly acquired emphasis on air bombardment, where Israel plans “to act fast and with disproportionate force…in order to punish in a scope that would oblige long and costly reconstruction processes.”
I would say that anything Nutty Yahoo proposes should be filed under the category of “suspicious.” There instead, is three things which the Nut wishes to do:
1). Primarily he wishes to dismiss the Israeli governments barbarism toward the Palestinians in Gaza, which are rife with crimes;
2). He wishes to connect Palestinian resistance to the occupation with mere terrorism, that is, to equate Israel’s activity with what has been embraced by the international community as the so-called “war on terrorism” (which in reality is about as valid as the Israeli occupation);
3). He wishes to go further into the abyss of what is considered valid self-defense, that is, to broaden Israel’s atrocities into a commonplace response to “terrorism.”
A case example of the latter (point 3) can be seen in trying to get a consensus of these indiscriminate war techniques by Israel’s sending “military legal advisers” to American university campuses to try to legitimize and make their illegal atrocities become “common place,” to try to “normalize the unthinkable.” People like Colonel Sharvit-Baruch, who was sent under the purpose of “… to bring “objective” discussion to the principle of distinction in international humanitarian law…,” perhaps like – “…green-lighting the bombing of a police graduation ceremony in Gaza that killed dozens of civil policemen…using “…heavy artillery and white phosphorus munitions in densely populated areas of Gaza, against the UNRWA’s headquarters and a UN school in Beit Lahiya [I might add in the absence of Israeli troops, so they were not used as a "cover" for activity, but merely to burn the flesh off of Palestinians!]…generally failing to take all feasible precautions to minimize civilian harm…making civilians flee and than not advising them…”as to which places were safe, and the roads by which they fled were bombed and turned into death traps…,” etc.
Or perhaps with the goal of the previous office holder to Colonel Sharvit-Baruch, Daniel Reisner who said -”What is being done today is a revision of international law,” Reisner has said, “and if you do something long enough, the world will accept it. All of international law is built on that an act which is forbidden today can become permissible, if enough states do it.” Or like some of his other statements like – “In expressing how the ILD moves forward by turning back the pages of legal jurisdiction, Reisner says, “We invented the doctrine of the preemptive pinpoint strike, we had to promote it, and in the beginning there were protrusions which made it difficult to fit it easily into the mold of legality. Eight years later, it’s in the middle of the realm of legitimacy.” [re-inventing Nazi atrocities]
One thing is glaringly clear, rather than reconsidering anything and halting the process of illegal atrocities, war crimes, and serial breaking of international law, Nutty Yahoo wants to re-brand it and make it the common practice to excuse Israel’s culpability. It is sheer madness
Oh, sorry, here is a link for you –
ISRAELI OFFICER PROMOTES WAR CRIMES AT HARVARD
ah, billed as a lecturer in the Law Faculty at Tel Aviv University
TAU is knee deep in this. Institute for National Security Studies is there, big advocates of the doctrine. electric intifada offers a pdf entitled “Commissioning War Crimes: TAU and the Doctrine of Disproportionality” but i don’t know how to link to it. check out this link. lots of gruesome info. here’s Militarization of Tel Aviv University Prepared By SOAS Palestine Society, February 2009
Here you go Annie –
TAU AND THE DOCTRINE OF DISPROPORTIONALITY
Not to mention, Gaza is occupied land. That means, Israel is legally the civil authority. If someone in Gaza commits an illegal act, Israel has the duty to attempt an arrest. Imagine if some, say a gang robbed a bank and then took shelter in Watts. Imagine also they had some help from a few members of the community. Suppose the LAPD response was to build a fence around Watts and then bomb businesses, factories, homes, hospitals in Watts. That’s the parallel.
RE: “Netanyahu is trying to have it both ways…”
MY COMMENT: Perhaps Bibi is ‘bi’. Not that there is anything wrong with that!
Dickerson………………..:-)
It’s interesting to see the Zionist response to Goldstone and Gaza. Two responses of note:
1) Kill Arab prisoners until Shalit is released
link to thesanhedrin.org
2) “Formal” response to Goldstone report
link to camera.org
Anybody have any responses to this “response”?
bsdnow, i can’t take anything camera says seriously. have you checked out the supporting link to their ‘study’ at the end of the letter? (and what makes it formal???) they introduce their evidence as ‘fact’, however their ‘Falsehood Details’ section is quite revealing as it relies almost exclusively on quotes from AP and other msm articles (‘some of the world’s largest media organizations’) w/stellar characters often either anonymous ‘ [Hamas figher Muhammed] ‘” or document by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs or military spokespersons . their ‘facts’ are backed up by witnesses as rock solid as ‘Two residents who spoke to an AP reporter by phone’ or ‘Local residents in the street ‘….. they rely regularity on such fabulous propaganda framing techniques such as they ‘admitted’ or they ‘acknowledged’ . their video ‘evidence’ is a joke.
why should a man of such distinction as goldstone be responding to a hack partisan pr group w/ the orwellian claim of ‘accuracy in middle east reporting’ ? he shouldn’t.
You’d be right, Ms. Robbins, but what you should be worrying about is who does take CAMERA seriously.