It is dizzying to watch the Israeli government and its supporters spin the substance of Judge Richard Goldstone’s column in the Washington Post yesterday. A closer look at the column, and the Goldstone report itself, shows that the propaganda being churned out by the Netanyahu government is self-serving, misleading and patently false.
Ehud Barak, the Israeli defense minister, thinks that Goldstone should retract the entire report. Likewise, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pledged to launch an “international campaign to persuade the United Nations to retract the Goldstone Commission’s damning report,” according to Haaretz. Noah Pollak, the executive director of the neoconservative Emergency Committee for Israel, writes on Twitter that Goldstone has “retracted much of his report.” Jonathan Tobin at Commentary claims that “the former judge admitted that his report was wrong.”
These claims don’t come anywhere close to what Judge Goldstone actually wrote in his column. The main point of recantation occurs when Goldstone writes (my emphasis):
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.
The Israeli military investigations have led Goldstone to say that “if I had known then what I know now, the Goldstone Report would have been a different document.”
So yes, Goldstone’s Op-Ed in the Post recants a central, and damning, claim that his report made: that “Israeli armed forces had carried out direct intentional strikes against civilians” in incidents examined in detail by his team. But nowhere in his column does he imply that his entire report should be refuted–exactly the claim Israel’s propagandists are now making.
The full scope of his report is no less damning then the “intentionality” allegation Goldstone is now backtracking on. The parts of the report that deal with Israel's alleged "intentional" policy of killing civilians is a portion of the report. Here are some of the most important findings in the comprehensive U.N. report that Goldstone did not recant:
-The aim of the destruction of the el-Bader flour mill was to “destroy the local capacity to produce flour…From the facts ascertained by it, the Mission finds that the destruction of the mill was carried out for the purpose of denying sustenance to the civilian population, which is a violation of customary international law as reflected in article 54 (2) of Additional Protocol I and may constitute a war crime” (page 199).
-The “Israeli armed forces launched direct attacks against residential houses, destroying them,” and “the conduct of the Israeli armed forces in these cases amounted to the grave breach of ‘extensive destruction… of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly’ under article 147 of the Fourth Geneva Convention” (pages 212, 214).
-”The systematic destruction of food production, water services and construction industries was related to the overall policy of disproportionate destruction of a significant part of Gaza’s infrastructure” (page 218).
-”The Mission finds that Messrs. Majdi Abd Rabbo, Abbas Ahmad Ibrahim Halawa, Mahmoud Abd Rabbo al-Ajrami and AD/03 were captured by the Israeli armed forces while they were in their homes, in some cases together with their families, and were then forced at gunpoint to search houses together with the Israeli armed forces. The Mission also finds on the basis of those facts that they were all subject to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment during their captivity…The Mission also finds that the intentional use as human shields of those whose accounts are presented above qualifies as inhuman treatment of and wilfully causing great suffering to protected persons under the Fourth Geneva Convention. As such, the Mission considers the conduct of the Israeli armed forces in relation to such persons to amount to grave breaches of the said Convention. The use of human shields is also a war crime under article 8 (2) (b) (xxiii) of the Rome Statute” (pages 229, 232).
-”The Mission considers that the severe beatings, constant humiliating and degrading treatment and detention in foul conditions allegedly suffered by individuals in the Gaza Strip under the control of the Israelis and in detention in Israel, would constitute torture, and a grave breach under article 147 of the Fourth Geneva Convention and a violation of the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. Such violations also constitute war crimes” (page 249).
-”The restrictions imposed by Israel on the imports to and exports from the Gaza Strip through the border crossings as well as the naval and airspace blockade have had a severe impact on the availability and accessibility of a whole range of goods and services necessary for the people of Gaza to enjoy their human rights. Their already eroded ability to access and buy basic goods was compounded by the effects of the four-week Israeli military campaign, which further restricted access to those essential items and destroyed goods, land, facilities and infrastructure vital for the enjoyment of their fundamental rights. In conjunction, the blockade and the military hostilities have created a situation in which most people are destitute. Women and children have been particularly affected. The current situation has been described as a crisis of human dignity…
The facts ascertained by the Mission, the conditions resulting from the deliberate actions of the Israeli armed forces and the declared policies of the Israeli Government – as they were presented by its authorized representatives – with regard to the Gaza Strip before, during and after the military operation, cumulatively indicate the intention to inflict collective punishment on the people of the Gaza Strip. The Mission, therefore, finds a violation of the provisions of article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention” (pages 259, 283).
Goldstone’s entire report matters deeply, and represents a thorough documentation of Israeli, and Palestinian, war crimes and the context in which they occurred. That is why there is a desperate attempt to use Goldstone’s article as an full exoneration of the Israeli military’s conduct during the war.
For those crowing about a “refutation” of the entire report and the need for the judge to retract it, a full reading of the document is in order.
I think Goldstone still leaves this issue oen to interpretation. The quiafier “as a matter of policy” may exonerate the Israeli leadership with regards to targettting civlians, but not the IDF. It could well be that the IDF did target civlians, but unoficially.
“It could well be that the IDF did target civlians, but unoficially.”
That’s weak. I hope you mean that Goldstone might have meant that, but if so, that’s still pretty pathetic.
Do you really think that the IDF took matters into its own hands for weeks? Do you think the Israelis as a whole didn’t know that they were doing what they had done in Lebanon in 2006?
It is a mistake on the part of the author of this post (Alex Kane), to state that the “Goldstone’s Op-Ed in the Post recants [the] claim that Israeli armed forces had carried out direct intentional strikes against civilians”
But in fact, Goldstone’s Op-Ed recants nothing of the kind, it merely states that the Israeli military has reached opposite conclusions: “the investigations published by the Israeli military [...] indicate that civilians were not intentionally targeted as a matter of policy”.
The question remaining is to compare the reliability and validity of the investigations of Israeli military against those of the Goldstone report.
No, more questions remain:
- Why does Goldstone write “indicate” and not “show” or “prove”?
- If intentionally targeting civilians was not a policy, then what was it?
Huh?????
..sounds to me like a defense of Goldstone’s abominable lies. The hundreds of Palestinian police cadets targeted for murder in the opening minutes of Cast Lead ALONE leave no doubt that the Israelis engaged in a premeditated massacre.
42 cadets, not “hundreds”.
Btselem — Palestinian police officers who were killed inside police stations: 248
The UN Report — Page 11:
Where did you get that information?
Since you are new to Mondoweiss, I suggest that at the very least, you cite your sources.
The op-ed was a qualification, not a disavowal.
But, he did state that his opinion was that there were was not the intent to harm, which does imply that he regards that the scope of the operation was not irrational (even if he remains personal critical of the decision of scope).
Once the scope of the assault is accepted, many of the actions that previously were regarded as crimes, are no longer regarded as crimes.
I worry that the impetus to reform that the Goldstone report compelled will be ignored.
Some of the comments by Israeli officials have gone so far as to say that ‘Goldstone’s comments supportsthe assertion that the way that Israel addressed Hamas shelling was the right way’. That is scary.
This editorial totally misses the point.
There was no disagreement between Goldstone and the Israelis that large numbers of Palestinian civilians were shot, bombed, and burnt to death.
The fundamental BASIS of the disagreement and the reason Israel went ballistic and the world community responded with shock and revulsion was the (well substantiated) claim in the report that Israel killed civilians intentionally. This goes to the very heart of Israel’s incessant mantra: “unlike the ‘terrorists’ WE only kill innocent people through regrettable accident. ”
Goldstone’s recantation turns a well orchestrated massacre of civilians and destruction of civilian infrastructure into an unfortunate but necessary byproduct of Israel’s justified use of force.
The disgusting fact is that the Israelis are RIGHT to say that Goldstone’s recantation renders the Goldstone report, as a condemnation of Israel’s actions, null and void.
The glee with which Israel has jumped on this report is a clear indication that they see it as a green light to repeat the Cast Lead massacre.
WTF!!! What could have possessed him to write the op-ed??
The world watched in horror as Cast Lead unfolded. The damage to Israelis international reputation was complete well before the Goldstone report. What should be put in perspective is the significance of the initial report itself.
Basically, it represented an important development for the discussion within the Jewish community. This was major. Here was a Zionist that had broken Party Unity. Here was a Zionist that seemed to have openly broken with the tribe. However, I doubt that many people beyond that internal discussion really paid much attention to the report.
I certainly didn’t read the report nor have I made many if any comments here on the many Goldstone discussions. The report summaries I read seemed to be consistent with my first impressions so why bother. The fact that the Zionist primary author of the report has gotten cold feet is not going to change international perceptions of Israel. However, it will have an impact on the internal Jewish discussion. I can see why Mondoweiss must find this very disconcerting, it has to to be a setback to advance the discussion about the Palestinians in the American Jewish community.
All I can say is for Phil and Adam to keep up the good cause. I can cheer from the sidelines but it is still a worthy cause. In a few weeks this will seem no more than a minor step back.
Let me add a possible answer to why Goldstone did what he did here.
First he probably had no idea what the impact of this report would have, especially in the Jewish world. He simply put in his reports the facts that were widely available, not fully realizing what their impact might be.
Then this was followed by a full length book called “The Goldstone Report” that contained, horror of horrors, essays by non-Zionist as well as anti-Zionist. His friends and fellow Zionists must have leaned hard on him to try to control the damage. What a terrible dilemma in which he must have found himself. Stick with the facts as revealed by their investigation or stop the bleeding to the Zionist cause. We see the answer. This is just conjecture, but it would not be surprising if it was Phil Weiss himself that provoked this crisis within the poor judge.
“… This is just conjecture, but it would not be surprising if it was Phil Weiss himself that provoked this crisis within the poor judge.”
Probably what Witty was thinking but too embarrassed to say.
According to Ha’aretz, it might have been a recent debate at Stanford.
link to haaretz.com
Potsherd, that is a good link, at least in the sense it supports my hypothesis for why he turned against his own report. Sad really. This report unleashed forces that he had no idea how they would develop.
I love watching the contradictions play out. Facts versus the ideology of “progressive Zionism”. Poor Goldstone has walked into that buzz saw big time.
RE: “Ehud Barak, the Israeli defense minister, thinks that Goldstone should retract the entire report.” – Alex Kane
MY SNARK: Not even this would be sufficient penance for Judge Goldstone. He should allow himself to be “hoisted up on his own petard” only to then be impaled upon it with “extreme prejudice” for what he has done to poor, sweet, little, innocent Israel.
In my humble opinion, Professor Alan Dershowitz is “honor/duty bound” to file an ethics complaint with the S.A. Bar Association over Judge Goldstone’s admission of both his incompetence in this matter and his unmitigated malevolence in attempting to “delegitimize” über-righteous Israel. As with The Winslow Boy, “Let Right Be Done!”
The Winslow Boy – link to en.wikipedia.org
There is a very simple question that frames this all:
Israel targets Palestinian civilians for blockade, for destruction of crops, house demolitions, detention without due process, theft of land and resources. How likely is it — given the broad array of Israeli attacks upon Palestinians — that Israel manages to exclude murder? In every way it can think up, the Israeli government and military demean, humiliate, harm, destroy Palestinians and Palestinian lives. Any decent criminal psychologist will report that such systematic dehumanization of another escalates to greater horrors until the criminal is stopped.
“Israel targets Palestinian civilians for blockade, for destruction of crops, house demolitions, detention without due process, theft of land and resources. How likely is it — given the broad array of Israeli attacks upon Palestinians — that Israel manages to exclude murder? ”
Good point, as is the rest of your post.
Sadism commingled with paranoid schizophrenia. Not a very wholesome combination.
Tonight I heard the great abolitionist, William Lloyd Garrison, quoted as follows:
“That which is not just is not law.”
As we contemplate the shameful fate of the Palestinians, here are a couple more Garrison aphorisms to keep in mind:
“Enslave the liberty of but one human being and the liberties of the world are put in peril.”
“I will be as harsh as truth, and uncompromising as justice… I am in earnest, I will not equivocate, I will not excuse, I will not retreat a single inch, and I will be heard.”
Well said. The biggest problem is how to steer the zealots, the racists, extremists and lunatics in international politics to reason and common sense. It is them who make the murdering possible.
Word to the wise: don’t mention the common sense approach of imposing a no-fly zone on the Israelis to protect the Palestinians from predation.
Your post will be removed.
Welcome to my world.
I wonder what Judge Goldstone is now thinking of the response to his op-ed piece, especially that coming from Israel. If he himself was not capable of predicting it in advance, Fred Hiatt and Jackson Diehl at WaPo certainly could have done it for him.
As if he wasn’t told what the response would be. The notion that Goldstone did this unbidden years after the fact — and just before Palestine gets full state membership in the UN — is improbable at best.
Frankly who cares about Mr Goldstone’s column in the Washington Post ?
The International Hasbara Corporation, The Israel Hasbara Ministry and … ?
And that’s it. People around me don’t care whether what they saw in December 2008 is to be called a “war crime”, a “crime against humanity” and al. It’s all deliberate mass murder in cold blood. We have seen the images, we know what happened (in Gaza, in Lebanon, on the Mavi Marmara) and there is no forgiving.
Hasbara is dead.
PS : sure, from a legal standpoint “war crime” and/or “crime against humanity” is important. Not when your heart is crying.