In defense of Judge Goldstone, sort of

By Haviv Rettig Gur

Judge Richard Goldstone, the namesake of the report that convinced much of the world that Israel had indeed committed war crimes in Gaza, is getting a bad rap.

Not about the Goldstone Report, to be sure. That document, when you actually take the trouble to read it, is a collection of hearsay about Israeli brutality that fails to challenge the Palestinian witnesses but somehow still manages to conclude, unequivocally, that Israel violated the most sacred laws of human morality.

But, you know, that was last year. Water under the bridge.

Now, Judge Goldstone is facing a barrage of criticism in the Jewish world for his role as an enforcer of the law under the apartheid regime in South Africa.

Some details of his apartheid-era judicial rulings came to light last week in an expose published by Israel’s largest daily, Yediot Ahronot. The article blasted Goldstone for sentencing 28 blacks to death and enforcing – allegedly happily – the country’s racist laws, including jailing two young black men for possessing a video tape of a speech by an associate of Nelson Mandela and acquitting four police officers who had harassed a white woman believed to be sleeping with a non-white man.

For his part, Goldstone noted that he only sentenced two men to death, each time for a brutal murder, as was mandatory by South African law at the time, while the remaining 26 were failed appeals during his tenure on the Transvaal supreme court.

Reactions to the news came fast and furious. Jeffrey Goldberg commented that “this new report suggests not only that Goldstone is at best intermittently principled, but that he knew his old hanging-judge record would one day catch up with him.”

Alan Dershowitz declared that Goldstone’s defense that his death penalty convictions were in keeping with the law was not unlike that of the sadistic Auschwitz doctor Josef Mengele.

Elan Steinberg, vice president of the American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors and their Descendants, continued the Holocaust theme by calling Goldstone’s response “sadly reminiscent of the long discredited so-called ‘Nuremberg defense’ – ‘l was only obeying orders.’”

On the facts, Goldstone probably has a stronger case than his detractors. His acquittal of the policemen, for example, was explicitly made because of errors in the legal proceedings against them. And even at his most egregious Goldstone’s death sentences are not different from the norm of some of the world’s strongest democracies even today. Japan, for instance, or the United States.

As South Africa’s former chief justice Arthur Chaskalson told me last week, Goldstone “was regarded by everyone who knew him as a liberal judge.”

It was Goldstone, Chaskalson noted, who in the 1980s declawed the infamous Group Areas Act by giving the courts discretion over the forced evictions of people living in the wrong racial districts.

So which is it? Is Goldstone the guilt-ridden former enforcer of legislated racism or a hero who once held the line against the worst offenses of a bad regime?

My answer: neither. He’s something much simpler. He’s a joiner.

Once, at the start of his career, Goldstone had to choose how he would behave in an immoral system. He chose to join it, and then by most accounts worked to correct it from within.

At the end of his career, he had to make that choice again. Once again, he chose to join. This time it was the UN Human Rights Council, which since its inception four years ago has devoted 82% of its censures to Israel alone and this year went to the trouble of praising Sri Lanka for defeating the Tamil Tigers in a war that cost 20,000 civilian lives.

In order for law to be the impartial arbiter of disputes, it needs certain fundamental institutions: the unbiased judge, an independent judiciary, a clear hierarchy of appeal, an elected legislature that assures that law emanates from the society to which it is being applied.

But the UN has none of these, because it is not in any sense a legal body. It is a political one that operates by mob rule.

Yet the effect of Goldstone’s report has been to attach the prestige of “law” to a non-legal public lashing of Israel commissioned by and for a political body already irredeemably prejudiced against Israel.

Goldstone himself insists that his report is not admissible as evidence in a court of law. It was merely “fact-finding,” he says. But who cares about the legal niceties when Goldstone himself seems to violate them in his report’s spectacularly adamant conclusions about Israel’s heinous violations of human rights law?

And so the question remains. Is he naïve? Or, as with apartheid, is he happily wielding a racist stick in the service of a higher cause?

Or maybe he’s still, as in his youth, simply a joiner.

Related posts:

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The Palestinian National Authority has shut down Al-Mahed “Nativity” TV for operating without a licence. Samir Qumsieh, owner and general manager of the Christian broadcaster, slammed the decision. After 14 years on the air and despite a long list of “thank you letters” by grateful viewers, Palestinian police raided the broadcaster’s offices yesterday at 2 pm. Waving an order by the Interior Ministry, they put the station off the air.

Contacted by AsiaNews, Mr Qumsieh said he was baffled by the order, which for him was “unjustified”.

According to unconfirmed reports that reached AsiaNews, the closure appears to be financially motivated. Palestinian authorities demanded money, a “licence” that was not paid.

In a letter addressed to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, Mr Qumsieh slammed the unjustified closure of the Christian TV station because of the “lack of a licence”.

Hat tip: Elan Miller.

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Still, even for Ha’aretz, this is crazy. In an editorial titled: “Netanyahu, the US has given you a second chance. Use it.” the paper tries to argue that (a) the Americans are offering a “second chance” that, presumably, may not return, (b) “the US had demanded that Netanyahu … agree to deliberations on all the core issues,” and (c) that “Netanyahu will commit a grave error if he is tempted to continue the damaging clash with Obama, and if he uses the pro-Israel lobby, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), to enlist the president’s political enemies to advance the positions of the Israeli right wing.”

The degree of disinformation contained in this piece is staggering, and begs the question: Are Ha’aretz’s savvy editors so disconnected from reality, or are they knowingly lying to advance their politics?

First, the Americans aren’t offering a “second chance.” What happens if Netanyahu declines? Cancels his trip? Will the US start bombing Tel Aviv? What does “second chance” even mean? After all, the Palestinians have been getting second chances for 17 years, and have yet to compromise on a single issue.

Second, Ha’aretz knows but is obfuscating the fact that the Israeli government has agreed, again and again, to begin negotiations. It is the Palestinians who continue to refuse, on the apparently correct assumption that delay works in their favor, since Ha’aretz types will always urge the Israeli government to give in for the sake of getting the Palestinians to negotiate over, um, what we’ve just surrendered.

Would that this strategy worked. Unfortunately, it will most likely end up in disaster. The Israeli government has real limitations – especially on issues like Jerusalem and refugees, where the Palestinians have been unable to bend even over the Temple Mount, and the Israeli public unable to give ground on such fundamental questions. Pressuring the Israelis to acquiesce, at every turn no matter the cost, is a sure-fire way to bring real Israeli rejectionists to power, the kind unseen since the early 1990’s. If Ha’aretz is simply a cheerleader to every Palestinian demand, it enables their rejectionism – which, after all, remains the unsolved problem everyone likes to ignore.

Third, why would Netanyahu be “tempted to continue the damaging clash with Obama?” This whole time, he’s the one trying to dial it down, while Hillary and Obama worked feverishly to keep the flames burning. As Ha’aretz itself reported.

And as for enlisting the aid of the pro-Israel lobby “to advance the positions of the Israeli right wing,” Ha’aretz is consciously and inexcusably propagating the conspiratorial lies about AIPAC’s allegiances. AIPAC officially supports a two-state solution and negotiations to that end. But why would Ha’aretz care?

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Here’s an attempt to create some kind of ‘Palestinian Agency’:

The state of Palestine does not exist; the courts are still not working, local government has numerous problems, not to mention health care, education and infrastructure. Representatives of Palestinian communities abroad have come to Bethlehem to kick off the independent “Palestine Network.”

“Welcome to your second home,” announces Ramzi Khoury, executive director of the Palestine Network. “You are representatives from 23 countries who have chosen to be engaged in building this Palestinian state and not just talking about it. This is a do tank, rather than a talk tank. This is not a political club.”

…

“If you want to build a democratic state, you need to tackle all the sectors of that state,” Khoury says. “So doctors need to come down here and revamp our health system, engineers need to come here and help us build, lawyers and judges need to come and help us create an independent judiciary and a state of law, and we need educators.”

The Palestine Network is not just another charity or source of funding. The Palestinians have many economic backers. In 2008, global financial aid to the Palestinian Authority exceeded $2 billion, including about $526 million from Arab countries, $651m. from the European Union, $300m. from the US and about $238m. from the World Bank, according to the Arab League’s 2009 economic report.

The founding conference, sponsored by the governments of Germany and Belgium, was held in the opulent Convention Center on the outskirts of Bethlehem, hub of Palestinian culture and tourism.

The network’s goal is to use expertise from Palestine’s diaspora communities to develop the local economy, judiciary, education and health infrastructures in what will be the future state.

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And why is Ramallah doing it on the anniversary of the attack?! I know this blog has a handful of readers in Arab lands. Anyone care to explain?

From Palestinian Media Watch:

Not only does [the Ramallah municipality] still intend to name the square after the terrorist, but the date chosen for the inaugural ceremony is this Thursday, March 11, the 32nd anniversary of the terror attack.

…

Headline: “Preparations for inauguration of Shahida (Martyr) Dalal Mughrabi Square complete”
“The El-Bireh Municipality has completed construction work at the Shahida (Martyr) Dalal Mughrabi Square in the Um Al-Sharait region, and has commenced preparations for its inauguration this Thursday, the anniversary of Mughrabi’s Martyrdom. The mayor, Jamal Al-Tawil, said that… this year the municipality will celebrate the inauguration of the Shahida (Martyr) Dalal Mughrabi Square in order to commemorate her memory and her sacrifice as a Palestinian woman who resisted the occupation. City Council member Aida Abu-Ubeid said that the square is considered a symbol of the sacrifice of the Palestinian woman. She also noted that flowers and trees will be planted there, and that a picture of the Shahida Dalal Mughrabi will be placed at the center of the square.”
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, March 7, 2010]

There has been no public comment from the Obama administration about the PA’s honoring of the terrorist.

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Israel’s relentless drive to establish “facts on the ground” in the occupied West Bank, a drive that continues in violation of even the limited settlement freeze to which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu committed himself, seems finally to have succeeded in locking in the irreversibility of its colonial project. As a result of that “achievement,” one that successive Israeli governments have long sought in order to preclude the possibility of a two-state solution, Israel has crossed the threshold from “the only democracy in the Middle East” to the only apartheid regime in the Western world.

Don’t believe it. Siegman’s vision suffers from a disparity between the real Israel and the Israel he believes he knows.

For example, he argues that “it is now widely recognized in most Israeli circles–although denied by Israel’s government–that the settlements have become so widespread and so deeply implanted in the West Bank as to rule out the possibility of their removal (except for a few isolated and sparsely populated ones) by this or any future Israeli government unless compelled to do so by international intervention, an eventuality until now considered entirely unlikely.”

Really? When over 80% of settlers live on 5% of the West Bank, most of it adjacent to the Green Line, when the popular reaction to the Disengagement from Gaza was an overwhelming yawn – no Galilee bed-and-breakfast and no Tel Aviv beach was empty during those two ostensibly traumatic weeks in August 2005.

The settlements can be removed, and the vast centrist Israeli mainstream that has so far escaped the notice of an ignorant world media will implement this removal. But only when it knows that the Palestinians won’t use the withdrawal from the West Bank the way they used the one from Gaza.

In short, Siegman is not a serious observer of Israel.

In 2008, he wrote another piece in the Nation seeking to prove Israel’s dishonesty in peacemaking. His sole proof: the settlements. Always the settlements.

It would be one thing if Israeli governments had insisted on delaying a Palestinian state until certain security concerns had been dealt with. But no government serious about a two-state solution to the conflict would have pursued, without letup, the theft and fragmentation of Palestinian lands, which even a child understands makes Palestinian statehood impossible.

I’m a big fan of American Jews taking Israel to the cleaners. I am genuinely mystified at their failure to protest the corrupt Israeli rabbinate’s efforts to define who is Jewish, or the complete absence of education about the Diaspora in all 12 years of an Israeli’s schooling, or the lack of Israeli support for Diaspora education while Israel joyfully drinks up American Jewish love and money with barely an acknowledging nod.

But the criticism on the peace process is not serious, and is repeatedly disproven by events. To insist on punishing Israel at this stage, Siegman must ignore the simple glaring fact that the Palestinians are refusing to prove the Israelis’ intransigence through, um, negotiating.

Yes, there are settlements. And yes, the settlement movement is a serious constituency with a resonant narrative. So it would be excruciatingly difficult for Netanyahu to take on the entire far-right unless he can show the mainstream that there is a reason to do so.

But it is also true that the settlers have lost every time they were challenged – in Sinai, Gaza and the current extra-Jerusalemite freeze. The broader culture war within Israel over the past two decades has left them marginalized politically. It is only Palestinian brutality that has left the majority of the settlements intact.

To seriously suggest further punishment of Israel without giving even casual consideration to the simple fact that the Palestinians have yet to concede anything in 17 years of negotiations – not even simple rhetorical gestures such as recognition of the Jews’ right to self-determination – is either stupid or willfully disingenuous.

You don’t trust Netanyahu? Fine. But right now, it isn’t Netanyahu that has to prove his good faith and capacity for peacemaking.

Pressure Israel all you want. As Obama has discovered in recent months, the Palestinians will only up their demands and push off the inevitable compromise.

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That’s my take-away from a beautiful and heartbreaking description of war’s moral complexity published yesterday in the Wall Street Journal. Well worth the read:

Five years ago, a particularly gruesome image made its way to our television screens from the war in Iraq. Four U.S. civilian contractors working in Fallujah were ambushed and killed by al Qaeda. Their bodies were burned, then dragged through the streets. Two of the charred bodies were hung from the Euphrates Bridge and left dangling.

This barbaric act left an impression that our military did not forget: In a special operation earlier this year, Navy SEALs captured the mastermind of that attack, Ahmed Hashim Abed. But after he was taken into custody in September, Abed claimed he was punched by his captors. He showed a fat lip to prove it. Three of the SEALS are now awaiting a courts-martial on charges ranging from assault to dereliction of duty and making false statements.

…

Rules of war are important. They are something to strive for as they separate us from our distant ancestors. But when only one side follows these rules, they no longer elevate us. They create a very unlevel field and more than a little frustration. It is equally bizarre for any of us to judge someone’s behavior in war by the rules we follow in our very peaceful universe. We sit in homes that are air-conditioned in the summer and warmed in the winter. We have more than enough food in our bellies and we get enough sleep. The stress in our lives won’t ever match the stress of battle. Can we honestly begin to decide if a soldier acted in compliance with rules that work perfectly well on Main Street but not, say, in Malmedy or Fallujah?

The question is important and well-portrayed, but I don’t think it’s entirely relevant to Israel’s situation. For one thing, the IDF has succeeded in repeatedly defeating its nonconventional enemies without great civilian casualties on either side. (30,000 of some of the best-trained infantrymen on Earth were fighting in densely-populated Gaza for a whole month, and even Hamas says that fully a third of the Palestinian dead were its fighters, who were operating at the time from within populated neighborhoods. If civilians were the target, as Goldstone and Hamas claim, then the IDF is rather frighteningly incompetent.)

But there’s another reason to obey the laws of war, besides the simple demonstration that you can still win while obeying them: for Israel’s adversaries, civilian dead are a weapon of great strategic significance. In fact, Hamas has no other strategic lever over Israel than forcing it into killing Palestinian civilians by targeting Israel’s own civilians. Neither act is tolerable for Israel politically and internationally, so creating this catch-22 – utterly ignored by Goldstone, incidentally – is the essence of Hamas’ strategy.

You can only de-incentivize Hamas’ particularly vicious brand of warfare by exacting a price for aggression without “giving” them Israeli or Palestinian civilian deaths.

With this thinking, a scrupulous adherence to the laws of war is not just morally important, but strategically advantageous.

Maybe that’s why the IDF, for all the criticism it faces abroad, has actually done better in avoiding civilian deaths than similar armies fighting in places like Helmand or Fallujah.

Related posts:

1. In defense of Judge Goldstone, sort of
2. So we lied…one more Goldstone link
3. Landau: 'How Goldstone shut down debate within Israel'

But what more can Netanyahu do to overcome this distrust?

Isn't the surging Palestinian economy proof that Bibi wants peace? Pictured: A Palestinian man sells sandwiches in Gaza City during Eid al-Adha festivities. (Photo accompanying WSJ article quoted below)

Unlike Rabin [in 1995], Netanyahu now accepts the establishment of a demilitarized Palestinian state. Unlike Rabin, he is issuing orders prohibiting construction throughout the Jewish West Bank. Netanyahu has crossed the Rubicon, on both ideological and practical levels, and reinvented himself as a centrist.

All this just to bring the Palestinians to the negotiating table, which they still refuse to do.

In a must-read in today’s Wall Street Journal, British analyst Tom Gross explains the results of Netanyahu’s pro-peace policies, especially the recent dismantling of hundreds of roadblocks and other measures to jump-start the Palestinian economy.

(True, Keith Olbermann once called Tom “the worst person in the world” for basically supporting military action against Iran’s nuclear program – for what it’s worth, Olbermann misquoted him – but Tom is also a passionate supporter of Palestinian independence and democracy.)

The piece is worth reading in full. Here are some choice parts:

Wandering around downtown Nablus the shops and restaurants I saw were full. There were plenty of expensive cars on the streets…

And perhaps most importantly of all, we had driven from Jerusalem to Nablus without going through any Israeli checkpoints. The government of Benjamin Netanyahu has removed them all since the Israeli security services (with the encouragement and support of President George W. Bush) were allowed, over recent years, to crush the intifada, restore security to the West Bank and set up the conditions for the economic boom that is now occurring…

The shops and restaurants were also full when I visited Hebron recently…

Life is even better in Ramallah, where it is difficult to get a table in a good restaurant. New apartment buildings, banks, brokerage firms, luxury car dealerships and health clubs are to be seen. In Qalqilya, another West Bank city that was previously a hotbed of terrorists and bomb-makers, the first ever strawberry crop is being harvested in time to cash in on the lucrative Christmas markets in Europe…

Palestinian economic growth so far this year—in a year dominated by economic crisis elsewhere—has been an impressive 7% according to the IMF, though Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayad, himself a former World Bank and IMF employee, says it is in fact 11%, partly helped along by strong economic performances in neighboring Israel…

The truth is that an independent Palestine is now quietly being built, with Israeli assistance. So long as the Obama administration and European politicians don’t clumsily meddle as they have in the past and make unrealistic demands for the process to be completed more quickly than it can be, I am confident the outcome will be a positive one.

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Oscar Arias (Wikipedia)

In an interview with the Israeli news website YNet over the weekend (The English article is here, but the Hebrew one has the full quote I translated below), he says:

“In my conversations with the Palestinians, I’m trying to suggest a crazy idea – get rid of your army. In practical terms, this isn’t really a crazy idea, because we did it 61 years ago, and we have only benefited from it. In my opinion, a small state, a poor state like Palestine doesn’t need an army. Clearly not everyone will agree with me, but it takes a bit of courage to make such a decision and I hope the Palestinian Authority will have the courage to take this step.”

YNet’s Netanel Shlomovich adds:

The Costa Rican president’s position [on disarmament] will likely make the Netanyahu government happy, but not on all issues. During Arias’ term, Costa Rica established diplomatic relations with the Palestinian Authority and even recognized a Palestinian state. Yet President Arias doesn’t understand why these actions constitute a controversial decision.

“Over a hundred nations have recognized a Palestinian state. This was the vision of the United Nations from the partition agreement of 1947 that called for the establishment of two states. Very few people will disagree with the idea of two states,” [Arias said].

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Middle East expert Mordechai Kedar said Monday that Dr. Sari Nusaiba of Birzeit University, north of Ramallah, has had to go underground in the wake of an article that claims an historical connection between the Jews and the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Interviewed on Arutz Sheva’s Hebrew news journal, Dr. Kedar said that Nusaiba would not be the first prominent Arab to publicize the link.

Dr. Kedar said that Haj Amin El-Husseini, the mufti of Jerusalem, declared in 1929 that the site’s association with King Solomon’s Temple was beyond all doubt, even though he would become part of the Nazis’ efforts against the Jews.

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The Atlantic Wire, the blog section of the Atlantic magazine, juxtaposes my view on this with three other commentators extolling the idea. For the record, I wrote that unilateral statehood would give the Palestinians nothing while freeing Israel’s right-wing government from its standing obligations.

The other commentators, on the other hand, didn’t even try to deal with the question in strategic terms.

Yossi Sarid, as is his wont, is hopeful and optimistic to the point of irrelevance: “When he declares independence, Abbas should call upon the Jews living in the state of Palestine to preserve the peace and to do their part in building up the new country as full and equal citizens, enjoying fair representation in all of its institutions.”

Juan Cole is inexplicably paranoid: “Since the Netanyahu government is about the least likely government to negotiate a Palestinian state within 1967 borders you could imagine, the Palestinians are giving up any hopes that talks will lead anywhere. Moreover, since Netanyahu has secret plans to thousands of further Israeli houses on Palestinian land in the next few years, time is short.”

This is just plain weird. First of all, Netanyahu doesn’t need “secret plans.” There are perfectly non-secret construction plans available for public viewing in the Housing and Construction Ministry. Second, the non-negotiable Palestinian demands aren’t just about borders, but also about refugees, Jerusalem and other issues. Third, on Cole’s doubts about Netanyahu’s intentions, he would do well to remember that both Sinai and Gaza – two withdrawals that included dismantling settlements and resettling thousands of Jews – were carried out by right-wing governments.

Finally, Chris Hedges seals the debate by comparing Palestine to all sorts of non-comparable places: “It worked in Kosovo. It worked in Georgia. And it will work in Palestine.”

But it didn’t work in Chechnya or Kurdistan, and worked only partially in Scotland and the Basque country – because these are all completely different situations.

Consider: Unlike in Kosovo, Israelis have been willing to withdraw from Palestine for over a decade (according to Tel Aviv University’s annual Peace Index). Unlike in either Georgia or Kosovo, Palestine has Hamas waiting in the wings to take over. Unlike in either Georgia or Kosovo, Israel is neither Russian nor Serbian in its intentions or in its political capacity for brutality.

Besides, supporting unilateral independence implies a trust in the current Palestinian leadership to get it right – to build institutions, to construct a national economy. Does Hedges trust them to do this?

The occupation is bad, undemocratic and temporary – even according to Israel’s own laws. But should the PA, which has suffered for almost two decades mainly from its own corrupt and incompetent leadership, unceremoniously jettison the entire Oslo process in the hope that more UN pressure will give them independence and prosperity? Will the need to negotiate over Jerusalem, refugees and borders disappear because Cuba, Sweden and Russia recognize Ramallah and Nablus as a “state” rather than an autonomous “authority?”

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The demand was ridiculous – Obama wanted not just a geographic freeze to the size of settlements, which Bibi Netanyahu gave him, but a demographic freeze. Israel was not to build kindergartens for the 960 children born each year in settlements. And “settlements” included Jerusalem.

No Israeli leader, on Left or Right, could agree to this as a pre-negotiation concession. And once uttered by the Americans, no Palestinian leader could demand any less. By undermining the Palestinians, Obama has set back all of us.

Dr. Alex Yakobson

But now I’m starting to wonder if my thinking on this may have been premature. Yes, the Obama administration goofed as only self-righteous fools can. But maybe that’s not such a bad thing.

Dr. Alex Yakobson of Hebrew University, my teacher on these issues and a family friend, made some important points in Ha’aretz last week, suggesting that acceding to Obama’s demands now would leave Israel better off strategically even in the short term.

First, he notes, the American public’s support for Israel is strong and getting stronger:

…According to the poll, 64% of Americans continue to believe that Israel is serious about reaching a peace agreement with the Palestinians. By a 3:1 ratio, the American people express more sympathy with Israel than with the Palestinians: 45% to 15%.

This support, however, is based on the perception that Israel genuinely sought and continues to seek peace. The settlement debate, says Yakobson, is getting in the way:

The support of a majority of Americans is still a much more important factor than all the attacks on Israel and the calls for a boycott. The American people would never have awarded such support to a country they viewed as not pursuing peace.

This is an asset of enormous importance, and it should not be wasted on a dispute with the Obama administration over the expansion of the settlements. The settlements are the main cause for questioning Israel’s desire for peace and its willingness for a two-state solution. Even among our best friends in the United States and elsewhere, the great majority disagrees with Israel over this issue.

…

There is no real gap between the Obama administration’s positions on the settlements and those of the Bush administration. The only difference is that Obama has decided to focus public and diplomatic attention on this issue. From the moment this happened it became clear – beyond any ideological or political dispute – that it is an essential Israeli interest to find a way to reach an agreement with the Americans on a formula for a settlement freeze.

He concludes:

Such a prolonged and public dispute with the United States over the settlements harms Israel. It is a battle where even victory would be a serious defeat. Netanyahu understands America well enough to know that. The question is whether such a critical national interest is a good enough reason in his eyes to confront the extremists within his coalition and party.

Devil’s advocate for a moment: What can Bibi give Obama on settlements without paying an exorbitant political price? And is it worth the trouble just to make the Palestinians willing to talk?

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Aftonbladet's Donald Bostrom

Donald Bostrom cancelled a scheduled appearance at a conference in Beirut after a visit to Israel in which he participated in dialogue on the issue, according to Army Radio. Bostrom was in Israel last month for a media conference in Dimona.

The Beirut conference was set to be an anti-Israel hate fest, according to reports.

“The visit to Israel and the fact that I was part of a fair dialogue made me rethink the whole issue,” Bostrom reportedly told associates, according to Ha’aretz.

In an article published in August in the popular Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet, Bostrom reported that Israel seized young Palestinian men and returned them to their families with missing organs.

The story, which ran under the headline “They plunder the organs of our sons,” also cited the recent arrest of a New York rabbi accused of trafficking in human organs.

During the Dimona conference Bostrom admitted that his only proof of the organ stealing came from the allegations of the Palestinian families.

Check out what Ha’aretz military reporter Anshel Pfeffer recently did to Bostrom’s story.

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Donald Bostrom (Aftonbladet)

Asked at the conference why he had accused the IDF of killing Palestinians for their organs, he replied: “I never wrote that and didn’t claim that IDF soldiers killed Palestinians to harvest their organs. I wrote that Palestinian families are claiming that is the case.”

He accused the media of distorting his report and accusing him of antisemitism for political purposes.

“It is known that there is an international problem of organ trafficking and I mentioned many countries, including Israel. My report has one conclusion, that we should continue investigating the Palestinian allegations.”

But then Anshel, a smart left-leaning Ha’aretz military reporter and a friend, does something absolutely despicable. He quotes Bostrom’s original story:

Anshel Pfeffer

In Aftonbladet Bostrom wrote that while the Israeli government was running a campaign encouraging Israelis to sign organ donor cards, “young Palestinian men started to disappear from villages in the West Bank and Gaza. After five days, Israeli soldiers would bring them back dead, with their bodies ripped open. Talk of the bodies terrified the population of the occupied territories. There were rumours of a dramatic increase in young men disappearing, with ensuing nightly funerals of autopsied bodies. I was in the area at the time, working on a book. On several occasions I was approached by UN staff concerned about the developments. The persons contacting me said that organ theft definitely occurred but that they were prevented from doing anything about it.”

Bostrom wrote that he had interviewed “many” Palestinian families whose sons had been killed in this way but in the report he specifically mentions only one family.

Who me? Organ trafficking? I was just repeating what “the population of the occupied territories,” “UN staff,” “rumours of a dramatic increase in young men disappearing,” “many” Palestinian families, and “nightly funerals of autopsied bodies” were saying. I never claimed it was true!

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The UK’s Mail on Sunday reports:

The British government is sending police and intelligence officers to the West Bank to try to stop a wave of brutal torture by Palestinian security forces funded by UK taxpayers. Their mission is to set up and train a new “internal affairs” department with sweeping powers to investigate abuse and bring torturers to justice.

On Saturday a senior official from the Palestinian Authority, which runs the West Bank and its security agencies, admitted that torture, beatings and extra-judicial killings have been rife for the past two years, with hundreds of torture allegations and at least four murders in custody, the most recent in August. British detectives will also train the Palestinian police and Preventive Security forces in how to question suspects without torturing them. Britain spends £20 million a year funding the forces responsible for the abuse.

In the West Bank city of Nablus, Nasser al-Shaer, a former academic from Manchester University who was deputy prime minister in the short-lived Hamas Palestinian Authority government elected in 2006, said many of those released from detention in recent months were telling the same story – of torture, including beatings, being suspended from the ceiling, and electric shocks.

Tom adds:

Now none of this is new. In spite of what the paper says, it has been continuing not just for the past two years, but since Yasser Arafat was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and took over most of the West Bank in 1993. What is new is that a major newspaper (The Mail On Sunday is one of Britain’s highest-circulation respected newspapers) is reporting on it.

Related posts:

1. Report: PA shuts down only Christian TV broadcaster in West Bank
2. Is the Palestinian Diaspora part of the solution?
3. Go ahead, pressure Israel

Philip Weiss

Of all the events I’ve covered surrounding Jewish identity and Israel in the last year, none has given me so much pleasure as the lecture last night by Shlomo Sand at NYU on the Invention of the Jewish People.

Weiss’ joy surrounds Sand’s new history of the Jews – a history that rips away the old “Zionist” narratives and replaces them with a new story: the Jews are Khazars and Yemenites and Bergers. There’s no such thing as “Jewish peoplehood.” Israel is founded on a lie.

I’m all for intellectual stimulation, and I love new theories based on new historical evidence. Unfortunately, in Sand, I got neither. As Weiss points out:

Sand offered very little by way of evidence. You will find that in his “boring” book, he said. This was an aria not a chalktalk.

Will you? Or will you find more historical surmising based on partial records and incomplete theories? Elsewhere, Weiss reports Sand saying that:

…at the supposed time of the Exodus, the Egyptians also controlled Canaan. The kingdom of David and Solomon was not a kingdom at all, but a small settlement around Jerusalem.

I have a professor cousin who believes that King Solomon didn’t even exist. Sand isn’t radical in his historical reconstructions. In fact, his “discoveries” are really just run-of-the-mill and johnny-come-lately academic theories.

His error is not in the theories themselves, but in pretending to hold newly-obtained truths that spectacularly affirm his preexisting politics. It is this sleight-of-hand effort that transforms this project – like Weiss’ own pretense to scholarship – from honest critique to mere political hypocrisy.

How else to explain the confusion reflected in Weiss’ account. He quotes Sand:

“I don’t deny Jewish identity. I’m not fighting against someone’s identity. There is identity of homosexuals. They are not a people. We are composed of a lot of identities.”

Shlomo Sand

“I am anti-racist. And an anti-anti-semite,” he said. “But look at me, do you think I hate the Jewish?” More devil eyes flashing. “I don’t hate myself… I hate the Jewish people? But that doesn’t exist. How can I hate something that doesn’t exist?”

So the Jewish identity he is emphatically not fighting against – does not exist. Did you get that?

You can argue Jewish nationhood is antithetical to, oh, Jewish religiosity (as do some haredim) or universal liberal values (as do some on the radical left). But faced with millions of people that believe that they personally constitute a Jewish nation, does it make any kind of sense to say it doesn’t exist?

Identities are decided by the people who hold them, not by the politicized professors who oppose them.

Leaving identity behind, we then have another example of what I am beginning to call the anti-Israel “errors-by-labeling.” Here, Sand creates a definition of democracy which, well, removes much of the free world from the democratic camp.

When Sand said that Israel was not a democracy, and a Zionist called out, “It is a flawed democracy,” Sand bellowed. No: a democracy is founded on the idea that the people are the sovereign, that the people own the state. That is the first principle of a republic going back to Rousseau. Liberalism and civil rights are not the core. Yes, Israel is a liberal society. It tolerates Shlomo Sand’s heresy, for instance, and puts him on TV. But it is a liberal ethnocracy.

His theories on Ashkenazim carrying Khazar blood – interesting. His theories on Jewish roots of the Palestinians – fascinating. But this? This is just stupid.

Sand's book

Israel’s “ethnocracy” is the standard among democracies, not the exception. In fact, only two states share Sand’s view that the state belongs to the sum of its residents or citizens: the US and France.

A good example is in a survey of the “rights of return” of various democracies – a right granted to non-citizen “affinity Diasporas.” Such a “right of return” is not the province only of Zionists (or of the future Palestine). In fact, it is shared by these fine states:

There is Germany (link is PDF), whose constitution, in article 116, recognizes something called “German ethnic origin” as a grantor of automatic citizenship.

India allows “Indians by descent” easier access to full citizenship than other residents.

And Finland, which despite defining itself as a “state of all its citizens” still grants special naturalization rights to ethnic Finns who have lived for centuries in areas under Russian or Czarist sovereignty.

Lithuania’s constitution is explicit (article 32.4) that “Every Lithuanian person may settle in Lithuania” – a right granted not to absentee citizens (which would be obvious), but to non-citizen ethnic Lithuanians.

How about democratic Armenia? Article 14 of its Constitution states: “Individuals of Armenian origin shall acquire citizenship of the Republic of Armenia through a simplified procedure.”

Or Bulgaria, whose constitution (Article 25.2) states: “A person of Bulgarian origin shall acquire Bulgarian citizenship through a facilitated procedure.”

Or Greece, whose constitution (article 108) decrees that:

The State must take care for emigrant Greeks and for the maintenance of their ties with the Fatherland. The State shall also attend to the education, the social and professional advancement of Greeks working outside the State.

It was Greece that granted automatic citizenship to Ukrainians after the fall of the Iron Curtain merely because they belonged to the Greek Orthodox Church.

Even Israel’s national religion – something I have written against often – is not unusual among the democracies. Both Greece and Ireland place a single national religion above others and give it constitutional status that has made it synonymous with national identity. Thus Greece’s constitution assures us that:

The prevailing religion in Greece is that of the Eastern Orthodox Church of Christ. The Orthodox Church of Greece, acknowledging our Lord Jesus Christ as its head, is inseparably united in doctrine with the Great Church of Christ in Constantinople and with every other Church of Christ of the same doctrine, observing unwaveringly, as they do, the holy apostolic and synodal canons and sacred traditions.

Similarly, the Preamble to Ireland’s constitution:

In the Name of the Most Holy Trinity, from Whom is all authority and to Whom, as our final end, all actions both of men and States must be referred,
We, the people of Éire,
Humbly acknowledging all our obligations to our Divine Lord, Jesus Christ, Who sustained our fathers through centuries of trial,
…
Do hereby adopt, enact, and give to ourselves this Constitution.

And on and on. If Israel’s “ethnocracy” is not democratic, we need a whole new set of words. Because then neither is India, Japan, all of Eastern Europe, Ireland, Germany or Mexico.

What do we learn from this latest example of intellectual laziness? Beware unfounded labels, and call out those who use them.

Related posts:

1. Thank you Tony Judt
2. NYT politely calls Shlomo Sand a liar
3. On marriage and racism

David Makovsky

Could he be right?

Where does this optimism, which is apparently shared by the Obama administration, come from? Are the Americans impervious to the experiences of the past 16 years of peacemaking?

Don’t believe everything you read in the papers, says Makovsky. “Sometimes the news is what isn’t reported.”

What isn’t being reported is the quiet revolution taking place in the West Bank under Salam Fayyad, one that should impress even the more fatalist of cynics, he adds.

The Hamas takeover in Gaza in 2007 “was an unbelievable wakeup call that made the PA understand that Hamas is coming to the West Bank if they don’t get their act together.” For the Israelis, too, “the alternative to Salam Fayyad is not the Hadassah women of Brooklyn. It’s Hamas that will pick up the pieces.”

This has created a whole new willingness to work together that has not been seen since Oslo.

“Since 1996, [in the wake of the Hamas terror attacks of that year,] we’ve been hearing about the ‘revolving doors’ of the Palestinian security services – that the Palestinians arrest the Hamas guys and let them go. They’re not doing that anymore. There are 800 Hamas prisoners in [PA jails in] the West Bank.”

In the religious sphere, too, “they’re moving imams out of the mosques. There are 1,800 mosques [in the West Bank] and the PA is slowly changing their imams” from those sympathetic to Hamas’ message of destroying Israel to others more willing to compromise in order to end the conflict.

Related posts:

1. Report: PA shuts down only Christian TV broadcaster in West Bank
2. What more can Bibi do just to start negotiating?
3. Is Sari Nusseibeh in hiding for suggesting Jews belong in Jerusalem?

Photo borrowed from thecaseforisrael.com

He is also in many respects my intellectual grandfather, the teacher of my teachers.

So it is with pride that I share this: a translation of Amnon’s piece in the September 23 edition of the Israeli business daily Globes that encapsulates beautifully the near-unanimous Israeli perspective on Goldstone.

(Maybe, with The Economist, Ha’aretz’s Ari Shavit and Amir Oren, Irwin Cotler and even David Landau all fundamentally opposed to Goldstone, maybe there really is a problem with Goldstone…)

Goldstone’s Unconscious Humor
By Amnon Rubinstein

It is not true that the Goldstone report is exclusively anti-Israeli. After having established that Israel is guilty of crimes against international law and (possibly) humanity, after advocating punishing it with an arsenal of all conceivable sanctions, it also chides the Palestinians for some inappropriate measures taken by them.
First, there is Hamas. Goldstone does not let them go Scot free. Thus he blames the Hamas for a grievous offense:

“The mission remains unconvinced that any genuine and effective initiatives have been taken by the (Gaza) authorities to address the serious issues of violation of international human rights in the conduct of armed activities by militant groups in the Gaza strip.”

This refers to the shelling of southern Israel from Gaza in the eight years preceding Operation Cast Lead. But what does Goldstone have in mind when he chides the Hamas for not taking genuine and effective initiative against the militants who do not adhere to international human rights law? Does he refer to their failure to petition the local High Court of Justice to issue a writ of mandamus against the militants? Or does he have in mind the fact that the Hamas Solicitor General has failed to issue an indictment against the offending militants?

Judge Goldstone rebukes the Hamas again for their treatment of Fatah ‘affiliates.’ Goldstone finds that “such actions” – i.e. killing the Fatah detainees – “constitute serious violations of Human Rights or the Palestinian Basic Law.” Again, one may ask: what went wrong here? Did the Hamas Supreme Court of Justice ignore the Palestinian Basic Law? Where was the Hamas attorney-general? Goldstone is not content with slapping Hamas’ wrist, he also reprimands the Palestinian authority:

“The Palestinian Authority continues to discharge a large number of civil and military service employees, or suspend their salaries, under the pretext of “non-adherence to the legitimate authority” or “non-obtainment of security approval” on their appointments, which has become a pre-requirement for enrollment in public service”. In effect, this measure means the exclusion of Hamas supporters or affiliates from public sector appointment…. The Mission is of the view that the reported measures are inconsistent with the Palestinian Authority’s obligations deriving from the Universal Declaration on Human Rights and the Palestinian Basic Law.”

In other words, the PA is obliged, by international humanitarian law, to employ those who want to unseat them.

This surely is an uncontrollable outburst of surreal humor but it pales in comparison with another outburst.
Goldstone, after quoting heavily from Ha’aretz, Israeli jurists, B’tzelem and other Israeli human rights NGO’s, states:

“…the Mission received allegations that sources of criticism of actions by Israel during and following the military operations of December 2008-January 2009 from inside Israel were subjected to attempted or actual repression, and that the rights of freedom of association and expression for individuals and groups had been violated. In this regard, concerns were also raised about the denial of access to the media and to human rights monitors prior, during and after the military operations in Gaza.”

The humor stems from the fact that the evidence of this repression was given by Israelis – including those who addressed Goldstone’s committee. Israeli NGO’s who complained about this repression of dissent appear almost daily – loud and clear – in Israeli newspapers and state-owned radio and television.

For some obscure reason, there is no parallel finding about suppression of dissent by Hamas. Indeed, the report should have a sub-heading – Eyeless in Gaza – lifted from John Milton and Aldous Huxley.

* * *

The humor stops where the report alleges actions of wanton brutality and killings by Israeli soldiers; even if only partially true, these cases should be a reason for sleepless nights for every law-abiding, humane Israeli. The IDF authorities state that they have investigated these allegations and, except for one case of looting, found no evidence of such war crimes. However, it is the opinion of this author that due to the severity of the allegations and the number of Palestinian civilians killed in the operation, Israel should re-investigate these thirty-plus cases and that this reinvestigation should be conducted by an independent body headed by an acting or retired judge of the Supreme Court. Such a body should be empowered to see army documents and make recommendations. This step is vital not because of Goldstone’s ludicrous report, replete with its instances of unconscious humor, but because we, Israelis, must be doubly sure that no crimes were perpetrated by our soldiers. We should not be “eyeless in Gaza.”

Related posts:

1. Israelis have something against Goldstone
2. So we lied…one more Goldstone link
3. Landau: 'How Goldstone shut down debate within Israel'

United Nations Fact Finding Mission
on the Gaza Conflict

Statement by Richard Goldstone on behalf of the Members of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict before the Human Rights Council

Human Rights Council 12th Session – 29 September 2009

Check against delivery

Mr. President,
(Madame High Commissioner)
members of the Council,
ladies and gentlemen

My colleagues and I are here today to present to the Council the final report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict.

Since the release of the advance version of the report two weeks ago, we have witnessed many attestations of support, but also a barrage of criticism towards our findings as well as public attacks against the Members of the Mission.

We will not address these attacks as we believe that the answers to those who have criticised us are in the findings of the report.

I have, however, to strongly reject one major accusation levelled against the Mission; the one that portrays our efforts as being politically motivated.

Let me repeat before this Council what I have already stated on many occasions:

We accepted this Mission because we believe deeply in the rule of law, humanitarian law, human rights, and the principle that in armed conflict civilians should to the greatest extent possible be protected from harm.

We accepted with the conviction that pursuing justice is essential and that no state or armed group should be above the law. Failing to pursue justice for serious violations during any conflict will have a deeply corrosive effect on international justice.

We accepted out of a deep concern for the hundreds of civilians who needlessly died and those who suffered injury and dislocation of their lives.

We accepted because we believe that the perpetrators of serious violations must be held to account.

We do not claim to be immune from error. After the release of the report we have received a number of comments from people who are sincerely interested in the truth.

We have considered them and where relevant redressed inaccuracies in the final version of the report which is today before you.

We regret that the response to date of the Government of Israel avoids dealing with the substance of the report.

Mr. President

As you all know, the Mission was established in April of this year with the mandate to investigate “all violations of International Human Rights Law and International Humanitarian Law that might have been committed at any time in the context of the military operations that were conducted in Gaza from 27 December 2008 – 18 January 2009, whether before during or after”.

Ambassador Uhomoibhi and I announced the establishment of the team at a press conference in April and he brought the mandate of the Mission before this Council in June.

The mandate of the mission was to look at all parties: Israel; the Palestinian Authority; Hamas, which governs Gaza; and armed Palestinian groups.

Soon after its establishment the Mission was faced with one of its major challenges: the decision of the Government of Israel not to cooperate with it and its implicit refusal to give us access to Gaza, the West Bank and to southern Israel.

We decided not to allow this lack of cooperation to prevent the Mission from discharging its mandate.

The Mission is grateful to the Government of the Arab Republic of Egypt for having facilitated its entry into Gaza through the Rafah crossing.

The Mission also wishes to express its gratitude to many, without whose assistance its task would have been impossible to fulfil.

It would be difficult to name all of them here. We attempt to do so in the acknowledgement section of the report.

We wish, however, to pay our respect to the many civil society organisations, in Gaza, in the West Bank, in Israel and elsewhere, which – often under difficult and challenging circumstances – continue to play a crucial role in upholding the universal principles of human rights.

We would respectfully suggest that this Council should recognize and support these organizations.

The first field visit by the Mission Members was conducted in the Gaza Strip from 1-5 June 2009, during which we held meetings, conducted interviews with victims and witnesses and visited the sites of incidents.

The Members of the Mission were in Gaza again from 26 June to 1 July, during which time we continued our investigations and held the Mission’s first round of public hearings. Mission staff maintained a presence in Gaza until early July.

Members of the Mission also travelled to Amman, Jordan, from 1 to 4 July to interview witnesses and meet with people and organizations from Israel and the West Bank.

As part of its investigation process, the Mission held a second set of public hearings. In the two rounds of public hearings, 38 witnesses, victims and experts gave testimony.

The aim of holding the hearings publicly was to give a voice to those who had direct experiences and expertise that related to the mandate of the Mission.

The Mission reviewed reports produced by various organizations and institutions as well as submissions on matters of fact and law relevant to its inquiry.

The Mission consulted with a wide range of interlocutors. They included victims and witnesses, Palestinian, Israeli and international NGOs, United Nations and other international organizations, community organizations, human rights defenders, medical and other professionals, legal and military experts, authorities and other sources of reliable information relevant to the Mission’s mandate. These interlocutors were both within and outside Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory.

The Mission conducted 188 individual interviews, reviewed over 10 000 pages of documentation and viewed some 1200 photographs, including satellite imagery and video-tapes.

The Mission was supported by an outstanding Secretariat provided by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). We are grateful to the High Commissioner for providing this support, without which the Mission could not have carried out its mandate.

In making findings of fact, we relied primarily on our own evaluation of the people who spoke to us and from what we saw with our own eyes.

We relied on reports from others where they corroborated the views we had formed.

The exception to that approach was in respect of some facts relating to the West Bank and to Israel in light of the refusal by the Israeli Government to allow us into Israel or to visit the West Bank.

On 15 September the Mission released an advance version of its report.

Mr. President
Members of the Council

Our report is before this Council for its consideration. Allow us, however, to focus the Council’s attention on a number of points.

Let me immediately say that the report reflects the unanimous views of all four of its members.

For practical reasons, the Mission decided for the most part to restrict its fact finding to the period from 16 June 2008 to 31 July 2009. The 16th June 2008 was the date on which a cease fire between Israel and Hamas came into effect.

The Report contains an analysis of 36 specific incidents in Gaza as well as a number on the West Bank and in Israel.

In Chapter XI of the Report, for example we detail a number of specific incidents in which Israeli forces launched direct attacks against civilians with lethal consequences. These were, with only one exception, where the facts establish that there was no military objective or advantage that could justify the attacks.

You will find details of the other 35 incidents in the Report. Some of them relate to the use by the Israel Defense Forces of human shields in violation of an earlier ruling by the Israel Supreme Court outlawing such conduct.

The Mission investigated in some detail the effects on the civilian population in Southern Israel of the sustained rocket and mortar attacks from Palestinian armed groups in Gaza. We detail the suffering of victims and the highly prejudicial effects of these acts on the towns and cities that fall within the range of the rockets and mortars.

The Mission decided that in order to understand the effect of the Israeli military operations on the infrastructure and economy of Gaza, and especially its food supplies, it was necessary to have regard to the effects of the blockade that Israel has imposed on the Gaza Strip for some years and has been tightened since Hamas became the controlling authority of Gaza.

The Mission found that the attack on the only remaining flour producing factory, the destruction of a large part of the Gaza egg production, the bulldozing of huge tracts of agricultural land, and the bombing of some two hundred industrial facilities, could not on any basis be justified on military grounds. Those attacks had nothing whatever to do with the firing of rockets and mortars at Israel.

The Mission looked closely and sets out in the Report statements made by Israeli political and military leaders in which they stated in clear terms that they would hit at the “Hamas infrastructure”.

If “infrastructure” were to be understood in that way and become a justifiable military objective, it would completely subvert the whole purpose of IHL built up over the last 100 years and more. It would make civilians and civilian buildings justifiable targets.

These attacks amounted to reprisals and collective punishment and constitute war crimes.

The Government of Israel has a duty to protect its citizens. That in no way justifies a policy of collective punishment of a people under effective occupation, destroying their means to live a dignified life and the trauma caused by the kind of military intervention the Israeli Government called Operation Cast Lead. This contributes to a situation where young people grow up in a culture of hatred and violence, with little hope for change in the future.

Finally, the teaching of hate and dehumanization by each side against the other contributes to the destabilization of the whole region.

Mr. President
Members of the Council

Let me come to some of the recommendations.

The Mission debated long and hard on whether this was a case, like Darfur, where the Security Council should consider referring the situation both in Israel and Gaza to the International Criminal Court.

The Mission is highly critical of the pusillanimous efforts by Israel to investigate alleged violations of international law and the complete failure by the Gaza authorities to do so in respect of the armed groups. That notwithstanding the Mission came to the conclusion that both Israel and the Gaza Authorities have the ability to conduct open and transparent investigations and launch appropriate prosecutions if they decide to do so.

We therefore recommended that the Security Council should require Israel to report to it within six months, on the investigations and prosecutions it is carrying out with regard to the violations referred to in this Report and any others that may come to its attention.

The Mission recommends further that the Security Council should set up a body of independent experts to report to it on the progress of the Israeli investigations and prosecutions. The committee of experts should similarly report on investigations and prosecutions undertaken by the relevant authorities in Gaza with regard to crimes committed by the Palestinian armed groups.

In both cases, if within the six month period there are no good faith investigations conforming to international standards, the Security Council should refer the situation or situations to the ICC Prosecutor.

The Mission was concerned at the use made by the Israeli army of certain munitions and especially white phosphorous, flechettes and certain heavy metals such as tungsten. Their use is not presently banned by international law.

The Mission has recommended that the General Assembly should promote an urgent discussion on the future legality of the use of these munitions.
As appears from the Report the manner in which those munitions were used in Gaza caused unacceptable and unnecessary human suffering as well as environmental damage – not only in Gaza but probably also in southern Israel. The situations arising from the latter should be monitored by the United Nations.

Since the issue of the advance copy of the Report it has been rejected in vehement terms by the Government of Israel. The call for transparent investigations has been rejected. The Government of Israel wishes to restrict its investigations to secret inquiries by the Military investigating itself. That would clearly not satisfy the legitimate expectations of the many victims of the Israeli military operations.

A word about accountability. It has been my experience in many regions of the world, including my own country, South Africa, that peace and reconciliation depend, to a great extent, upon public acknowledgement of what victims suffer. That applies no less in the Middle East. It is a pre-requisite to the beginning of the healing and meaningful peace process.

The truth and accountability are also essential to prevent ascribing collective guilt to a people. Many people in Gaza deplore the firing of thousands of rockets at civilians in Southern Israel and the terror that it has caused to innocent children, women and men. And many in Israel, Jews and Palestinians, deplore the actions by the Israel Defense Force that caused unjustifiable civilian deaths and injuries on a very large scale. They do not approve of the damage to the food and commercial infrastructure of Gaza that will take many years to repair.

Support for many of the recommendations contained in the Report has come from Gaza, the West Bank and Israel.

People of the region should not be demonized. Rather their common humanity should be emphasized.

It is for this reason that the Mission came to the conclusion that it is accountability above all that is called for in the aftermath of the regrettable violence that has caused so much misery for so many.

The Mission calls upon the HRC to accept the Report and adopt its recommendations.

Mr. President

Now is the time for action.

A culture of impunity in the region has existed for too long.

The lack of accountability for war crimes and possible crimes against humanity has reached a crisis point; the ongoing lack of justice is undermining any hope for a successful peace process and reinforcing an environment that fosters violence. Time and again, experience has taught us that overlooking justice only leads to increased conflict and violence.

In conclusion, may I say that the Mission hopes that the substance of this report will be used to strengthen initiatives for peace in the region. The mission is convinced that the international community must confront the realities highlighted in this report and that by doing so find a meaningful basis for the pursuit of peace and security for all the people of the region. Only in that way will the human dignity and security of these people be realised.

By appointing this Fact Finding Mission, the Human Rights Council raised expectations for action and for justice: we call on the Council and on the international community as a whole to take up our recommendations so those expectations will not have been raised in vain.

Thank you.

Geneva, 29 September 2009

Related posts:

1. Amnon Rubinstein on the humor in Goldstone
2. Landau: 'How Goldstone shut down debate within Israel'
3. Reinventing war, but only for Israel

Judge Goldstone himself has weighed in on the debate in today’s Jerusalem Post. He concludes with this:

The recognition of the humanity of all people – the recognition of Israel by Hamas and the recognition of the Palestinian right to self-determination – are both pre-requisites for peace. And I still nurture the hope that the facts contained in the Report of the Fact-Finding Mission will assist, even in a small way, to finding a peaceful way forward in the Middle East.

The people of the region have waited all too long for that.

It’s enough to make you want to tear your hair out – the automatic psychological blindness to Palestinian rejection. Palestinian self-determination was at the center of a generation-long Israeli culture war, complete with a murdered prime minister. And all polls show that the Left won the argument about Palestinian rights.

What has prevented peace and compromise – and destroyed the Left even as its basic idea was becoming widely accepted – is the second half of Goldstone’s equation: “the recognition of Israel by Hamas,” or by the Palestinians generally. Even moderate Palestinians, buoyed in part by international documents such as Goldstone’s report, continue to believe Israel is an illegitimate bastard-child of colonialism. Compromise is thus automatically a kind of betrayal.

This is the wisdom behind Prime Minister Netanyahu’s demand for Palestinian recognition of the legitimacy of a Jewish state: The double-talk of negotiating and delegitimizing has undermined Palestinian peacemakers among their own people. How could it do otherwise? How can you negotiate while assuring your own people the other side is evil?

Perhaps, Judge Goldstone, you should take your own advice about judging the sides equally – not based on an artificial assumption of mutual fault, but on the merits of each side’s efforts at peacemaking and reconciliation.

Related posts:

1. In defense of Judge Goldstone, sort of
2. Israelis have something against Goldstone
3. Amnon Rubinstein on the humor in Goldstone

In the report’s wake, perhaps the most fascinating perspective yet comes from David Landau, former editor-in-chief of Ha’aretz, who sits on the far-left of the Israeli political spectrum and is convinced Israel did, indeed, step over the line in Gaza.

In the New York Times, he cuts right to the point, explaining why the left-wing Ha’aretz has been as troubled by Goldstone as the rest of Israeli media.

Here’s a hint: The Goldstone Report’s accusation that the Israeli government is stifling dissent in the country is based on the following proof: The vast majority of Israelis approved of the Gaza operation.

Landau’s piece is a good reminder of the damage that can be done by ignorance and by the human tendency to reinvent morality to suit one’s prejudices.

Here it is in full. It’s short:

ISRAEL intentionally went after civilians in Gaza — and wrapped its intention in lies.

That chilling — and misguided — accusation is the key conclusion of the United Nations investigation, led by Richard Goldstone, into the three-week war last winter. “While the Israeli government has sought to portray its operations as essentially a response to rocket attacks in the exercises of its right to self-defense,” the report said, “the mission considers the plan to have been directed, at least in part, at a different target: the people of Gaza as a whole.”

The report has produced a storm of outraged rejection in Israel. Politicians fulminate about double standards and anti-Semitism. Judge Goldstone, an eminent South African jurist and a Jew, is widely excoriated as an enemy of his people.

The report stunned even seasoned Israeli diplomats who expected no quarter from an inquiry set up by the United Nations Human Rights Council, which they believe to be deeply biased against Israel. They expected the military operation to be condemned as grossly disproportionate. They expected Israel to be lambasted for not taking sufficient care to avoid civilian casualties. But they never imagined that the report would accuse the Jewish state of intentionally aiming at civilians.

Israelis believe that their army did not deliberately kill the hundreds of Palestinian civilians, including children, who died during “Operation Cast Lead.” They believe, therefore, that Israel is not culpable, morally or criminally, for these civilian deaths, which were collateral to the true aim of the operation — killing Hamas gunmen.

It is, some would argue, a form of self-deception.

When does negligence become recklessness, and when does recklessness slip into wanton callousness, and then into deliberate disregard for innocent human life?

But that is the point — and it should have been the focus of the investigation. Judge Goldstone’s real mandate was, or should have been, to bring Israel to confront this fundamental question, a question inherent in the waging of war by all civilized societies against irregular armed groups. Are widespread civilian casualties inevitable when a modern army pounds terrorist targets in a heavily populated area with purportedly smart ordnance? Are they acceptable? Does the enemy’s deployment in the heart of the civilian area shift the line between right and wrong, in morality and in law?

These were precisely the questions that Israeli politicians and generals wrestled with in Gaza, as others do today in Afghanistan.

It is possible, and certainly arguable, that the Israeli policymakers, or individual Israeli field commanders in isolated instances, pushed the line out too far.

But Judge Goldstone has thwarted any such honest debate — within Israel or concerning Israel. His fundamental premise, that the Israelis went after civilians, shut down the argument before it began.

This is regrettable, for the report could have stirred the conscience of the nation. Many Israelis were dismayed at the war’s casualty figures, at the disparity between the dozen deaths on the Israeli side and the thousand-plus deaths, many of them of noncombatants, in Gaza.

Many Israelis were profoundly troubled by this arithmetic even though they supported Israel’s resort to arms in the face of incessant violation of their sovereign border by Hamas’s rain of rockets.

Judge Goldstone could have contended that just as Israeli leaders themselves have frequently called off pinpoint assassinations of terrorists because civilians were in the line of fire, so too they should have refrained from bombing and shelling Hamas targets in Gaza when that bombing and shelling was bound to exact a large civilian toll.

By approaching the Gaza war, and his report, from this perspective, Judge Goldstone could have opened debate and prompted reflection in Israel. Instead, by accusing Israel — its government, its army, its ethos — of deliberately seeking out civilians, he has achieved the opposite effect.

David Landau was the editor in chief of the Israeli newspaper Haaretz from 2004 to 2008.

Related posts:

1. In defense of Judge Goldstone, sort of
2. The trouble and promise of the rules of war
3. Amnon Rubinstein on the humor in Goldstone

This is a noble goal, and I think one shared by some of the noblest Jews who ever lived.

Here’s the problem, as pointed out repeatedly in the wake of Goldstone’s report: It’s only being done to Israel.

An Amnesty International blog complained yesterday of Israel’s “nasty habit of playing the man not the ball when it comes to fending off critics.” Why are we shooting the messenger rather than “engaging with the detailed findings” of the message?

But there’s the rub. There’s a reason the legal profession is obsessed with due process – because the law is due process. Law cannot be arbitrary. If it is not systematic and equally applied – it is not law.

Ari Shavit of Ha’aretz writes probably the best exposition of this problem:

Some two weeks ago American airplanes fired on two oil tankers in northern Afghanistan. It was a German officer who’d asked the U.S. air force to attack the tankers in the middle of the night, in a populated area. The attack was successful – the two tankers were hit, went up in flames and were destroyed. But the overwhelming American-German air attack killed some 70 people. Some of those brought to hospitals were severely injured – with mutilated faces, burned hands and charred bodies.

It is not clear to this day if most of those who burned to death were Taliban warriors, as NATO first claimed, or innocent civilians who wanted to bring home a bit of oil. One way or another, it’s clear that the United States and Germany are responsible for an extremely brutal attack.

If the international community is committed to international law and universal ethics – which do not discriminate between one sort of killing and another – then it should investigate this villainous assault. If the United States, Germany and NATO refuse to cooperate with investigators, the UN should consider transferring the case to the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

…

If there are is such a thing as an international community, international law and universal ethics, they must seriously consider putting Obama on trial for his responsibility for severe war crimes.

Absurd? Yes, it’s absurd. No sane person in the world believes that the United States, Russia or China could be subjected to purist international law. The United States has killed thousands of innocent civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan and in the last few months encouraged Pakistan to make an extremely brutal military move in its Swat Valley. The United States was not required to account for it because everyone understands that this is the price of the terrible War on Terror. Russia committed blood-curdling war crimes in Chechnya, while China deprives its citizens of basic rights and is conducting a wicked occupation in Tibet. They are not asked to pay for this because everyone understands that you don’t mess with superpowers.

But not only superpowers are immune. Saudi Arabia practices an open, declared policy of discrimination against women and the international community does not see. Sri Lanka is crushing the Tamil national movement, causing a ghastly humanitarian disaster, and the international community does not hear. Turkey is brutally oppressing the Kurdish minority, and the international community does not speak.

Only in matters involving Israel, do international law and justice suddenly discover that they have teeth. Only when Israel is involved is the judgment administered out of context. Only Israel is required to uphold a moral standard no superpower or Middle Eastern state is required to uphold.

Over the course of the military offensive in Gaza, Israel used excessive firepower and this must not recur. Severe incidents took place during the operation which must be investigated. But the inquiry must be carried out by us, and among ourselves. As long as Judge Richard Goldstone doesn’t probe the United States, Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka or Turkey, just as he probed Israel, he is not a moral figure. A law is a law only when it applies to everyone and does not discriminate, as Goldstone did.

And with that, dear friends, goodbye for the holiday. May you all have a productive, meaningful and even slightly redemptive New Year.

Related posts:

1. So we lied…one more Goldstone link
2. Landau: 'How Goldstone shut down debate within Israel'
3. Will Goldstone go to Afghanistan?

US troops over southern Afghanistan

The New York Times, which vociferously opposes the murder of noncombatants, was indirectly involved in the deaths of women, children and other civilians just a week ago. It happened near Kunduz, Afghanistan, when British and Afghani commandos liberated kidnapped Times journalist Stephen Farrell: Civilians were caught in the cross-fire and killed, as was Farrell’s Afghani interpreter.

Had the Times, a bastion of opposition to harming to civilians in war zones, known that civilians would be killed in the rescue, would it have preferred that the operation be called off, and that Farrell remain in the hands of his captors? What will it write if a similar operation is undertaken to release Gilad Schalit?

Unlike journalists, governments and field commanders deal with this dilemma every day. It is easy to decide when the target is a battalion of tanks in the desert. But it is more complex when the threat to a military unit comes from within a civilian environment – the very civilians the unit has been sent to protect. Ignoring the nature of military action is the height of hypocrisy.

Forget about investigating China, Somalia, etc. – which Israeli spokespeople are rightly noting is not on the agenda of the Human Rights Council – but where is the international investigation of American actions in Afghanistan? Oren notes:

In that same Afghan strip of land known as Kunduz, dozens of civilians were killed this month in an air strike carried out by American warplanes looking to provide cover fire for German forces on the ground. The incident is still being investigated, yet it is believed that the civilians did not die as a result of the actual bombing of fuel tankers hijacked by the Taliban and which could later be used as mobile bombs against the Germans. Rather, the deaths are believed to have occurred as a result of explosions which took place after the air strikes, when civilians are believed to have tried to extract fuel from the tankers.

What other conclusion is there except this one?

In the end, it is not about the law, but about power, military and political. Goldstone is now free to go to Kunduz, but American might means there is no chance that he will.

Related posts:

1. The trouble and promise of the rules of war
2. Israelis have something against Goldstone
3. Amnon Rubinstein on the humor in Goldstone

If you really enjoy torturing yourself, here’s the full 575-page Goldstone Report (in PDF).

Hey, I have to read through these, so why shouldn’t you?

Jerusalem, September 15th, 2009

Israel’s Analysis and Comments on the
GAZA FACT FINDING COMMISSION REPORT

General:

• Israel is appalled and disappointed by the Report published on 15 September 2009 by the Gaza Fact Finding Mission. The Report effectively ignores Israel’s right of self defense, makes unsubstantiated claims about its intent and challenges Israel’s democratic values and rule of law.

Judge Richard Goldstone during the fact-finding mission in Gaza

• At the same time the Report all but ignores the deliberate strategy of Hamas of operating within and behind the civilian population and turning densely populated areas into an arena of battle. By turning a blind eye to such tactics it effectively rewards them.

• The Report barely disguises its goal of instigating a political campaign against Israel, and in its recommendations seeks to involve the Security Council, the General Assembly the International Criminal Court, the Human Rights Council, and the entire international community in such a campaign.

The Mandate of the Mission:

• The one-sided mandate of the Gaza Fact Finding Mission, and the resolution established it, gave serious reasons for concern both to Israel and to the many states on the Council which refused to support it – including the member states of the European Union, Switzerland, Canada, Korea and Japan.

• It also troubled many distinguished individuals, including former High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson, who refused invitations to head the Mission and admitted that it was “guided not by human rights but by politics”.

The Conduct of the Mission:

• These concerns were exacerbated by the conduct of the Mission itself, including reports in the Palestinian media that, throughout its visits to Gaza, it was continuously accompanied by Hamas officials and its refusal to recuse members of the mission with clear political views on the issues under investigation. One mission member signed a letter to the Sunday Times saying that Israel’s actions against Hamas attacks were acts of “aggression not self-defense”, prejudging the investigation before it had even begun.

• The unprecedented holding of telecast hearings also gave cause for concern. The fact that all the witnesses were prescreened and selected, and none were asked questions relating to any Palestinian terrorist activity or the location of weaponry and terrorists in civilian areas only supports concerns that they were part of an orchestrated political campaign.

A “non-judicial” document

• Justice Goldstone as Head of the Mission repeatedly insisted that the Mission was not a judicial inquiry and so “could not reach judicial conclusions”. On this basis that he justified the inclusion of partisan mission members, admitting that their involvement “would not be appropriate for a judicial inquiry’. The Report however is highly judicial in nature, reaching conclusive judicial determinations of guilt, and including ‘detailed legal findings’ even in the absence of the sensitive intelligence information which Israel did not feel able to provide. These determinations are made notwithstanding the Report’s admission that it does “pretend to reach the standard of proof applicable in criminal trials”.

Elements Ignored by the Report:

• The Report all but ignores the deliberate terrorist strategy of operating in the heart of densely populated civilian areas which dictated the arena of battle. Even when the Hamas terrorists mixed among civilians, the Report rejects the notion that there was an intention to put the civilian population at risk.

• Astonishingly, despite the many widely reported instances in the international press of the abuse of civilian facilities by terrorist groups, and the statements of Hamas own leaders praising women and children who acted as human shields, the Report repeatedly stated that it could find no evidence of such activities. This, even despite its admission that those interviewed were “reluctant to speak about the presence or conduct of hostilities by the Palestinian armed groups”.

IDF reservists entering the Gaza Strip during Cast Lead

• The Report also ignores Israel’s extensive efforts, even in the midst of fighting, to maintain humanitarian standards. While it does, reluctantly, acknowledge Israel’s “significant efforts” to issue warnings before attacks, it does not find any of these efforts to be effective

• While the Report passes judgment against Israel in respect of almost any allegation, it seeks to absolve the Hamas of almost any wrongdoing. The word “terrorist” is almost entirely absent. Soldier Gilad Shalit, now held incommunicado in captivity for over three years, was “captured during an enemy incursion” and the Hamas members that the Mission met with in Gaza are thanked as the “Gaza authorities” for extending their full cooperation and support to the Mission.

• Even the thousands of rocket attacks against Israelis which necessitated the Gaza Operation are given the most cursory treatment, and indeed the Report indirectly blames Israel even for these by terming them “‘reprisals”.

Rejection of democratic values:

• In a Report which relies so heavily on Israeli human rights organizations and which also petitions on sensitive security issues to Israel’s Supreme Court the Report devotes considerable attention to “repression of dissent in Israel”. It bases this assertion in large part on the widespread support for the military operation in the Israeli public, assuming that Israel has “created a political climate in which dissent is not tolerated. The notion that the majority of Israelis genuinely supported action to bring years of continuous rocket and missile attacks against Israeli cvilains to an end does not appear to have occurred to the members of the Mission.

• The Report is also critical of Israel internal investigations even though these compare favorably to investigations of allegations in military matters in most western countries, and have regularly resulted in criminal investigations and convictions.

Recommendations:

• The Report’s recommendations are as one-sided as its findings. It seeks to harness the Human Rights Council, the Security Council the General Assembly, the Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights and the International Criminal Court and the international community as parts of its hostile political campaign.

• Despite token recommendations in respect of the Palestinian side, all the international pressure is directed solely against Israel.

• The true test of such a Report can only be whether in future conflicts it will have the effect of increasing or decreasing respect for the rule of law. Regrettably a one-sided report of this nature, claiming to represent international law, can only weaken the standing of law in future conflicts. At the same time, it will broadcast a deeply troubling message to terrorist groups wherever they are that the cynical tactics of seeking to exploit civilian suffering for political ends actually pays dividends.

Related posts:

1. Amnon Rubinstein on the humor in Goldstone
2. Advance copy of Goldstone's speech to the HRC
3. So we lied…one more Goldstone link

There are no facts except the occupation, in Carter’s worldview. Which is a shame, because the occupation would have been over 10 years ago if the major Palestinian political movements didn’t have this habit of murdering people with every Israeli concession.

Most interestingly, Carter writes:

Also, in a meeting last week with a large group of prominent Israeli business and professional leaders, their most vehement, and uncontradicted, statement was, “Israel’s worst mistake has been building settlements in the West Bank.”

I’m sure they said that, as would I. But Carter should have asked those businesspeople what they believed should be done going forward. Does their opposition to the occupation translate into withdrawal from the West Bank? Had he asked, he would have discovered that the only thing Israelis distrust more than the occupation is the Palestinians. Hundreds of bombings and shootings after 2000, over 1,000 of our dead, and launched at a time when there wasn’t a single IDF soldier in any Palestinian city and Barak was negotiating over Jerusalem. Is it so strange that we’re a bit cold on Palestinian intentions?

Carter’s selective hearing of Israelis is thus tragic. It is that Israeli mistrust, above all, that prevents the establishment of a Palestinian state. The solution is not to scare us. We know how to survive Carter’s dire warnings. And, to be blunt, neither Palestinians nor Israelis actually want to live together in a single state. So it’s unlikely to happen no matter how earnestly Carter fears that it might.

The solution, therefore, is to genuinely repair what is broken in Palestine, so that our withdrawal doesn’t end up shutting down our major cities and only international airport due to rocket attacks.

Here’s hoping.

Related posts:

1. Go ahead, pressure Israel
2. What more can Bibi do just to start negotiating?
3. Why Obama is optimistic about peace

I just thought you’d appreciate the warning.

Just when you thought you couldn’t take one more news report about talking about talking in the Middle East, there is now new talk about holding “serious” talks between the Israelis, the Palestinians and the Arab states.

It’s nobody’s fault really. The Obama administration, still untested in the gauntlet of geopolitical cynicism, wants to bring its celebrated talents – a more balanced perspective, the president’s personal charm, careful elocution, etc. – to this tangled conflict. Solve Israel/Palestine, Jimmy Carter keeps saying, and worldwide calm and contentment is sure to ensue.

Thus it was that in his recent tour of Europe, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu listened patiently as every single European leader he met made it a point to bring up the question of settlement construction. The White House, too, was reportedly upset by Netanyahu’s expected approval of the construction of some 500 apartments in already-existing neighborhoods in the already-populated towns of Maaleh Adumim and Ariel.

Having asked Arab leaders for steps toward normalization with Israel in exchange for the Israeli settlement freeze – and received an unceremonious “no” for an answer – the Obama administration seems to be falling back on complaining about Israel’s refusal to surrender a negotiating asset in exchange for earning the right to hold the negotiations.

Amr Moussa

The Arabs “cannot speak of normalization as long as Israel continues [settlement] construction,” he added for good measure.

And just in case you’re a lefty peacenik hippy like me who just wishes everyone could calm down and settle this already – and therefore you might be thinking that a settlement freeze is a reasonable demand on Moussa’s part – he made sure to check that empathic instinct quickly. In an interview with an Arab newspaper last Friday, he clarified that the Arab League’s demand includes the entire Old City of Jerusalem, even its Jewish Quarter – the area rebuilt by Israel after 1967 from the desecrated ruins left behind when the Jordanians tore down every last Jewish home and synagogue, leaving only a garbage heap as a message to the Jews. You know, the part of the city containing Judaism’s holiest spot.

So Moussa’s demand seems to be: Before we talk about normalization, even in theory, even with Obama, Israel must actually stop all construction and place its sovereignty over the Jewish Quarter and the Wailing Wall up for negotiations.

Some peace process Obama is bringing with him.

So why is every world leader worthy of the title taking the time to blast Israel, and Israel alone?

Hey, what else are they going to do? Complain about Palestinian self-ruination through kleptocratic corruption of historic proportions? “Speak truth to power” about ruthless Arab dictators that have no real national program except to remain in power by refusing to acknowledge the legitimacy of the very existence of the seven-million-member civilization next door, while by the way refusing to teach their own populations literacy and science?

The tragedy, of course, is that it doesn’t matter how much the world criticizes Israel, because the ball hasn’t been in Israel’s court for almost a decade. There is little my country can do to Gaza – good or bad – that would give it real freedom from war and suffering, since it is ruled by men (and only men) who are moved to spiritual ecstasy by the thought of sacrificing a thousand Palestinian lives for the satisfaction of terrorizing Israelis.

There may be even less Israel can do – good or bad – to transform the West Bank’s Fatah leaders from a Somali street gang managing an entire nation primarily through extortion to the savvy, moderate leadership Palestinians deserve and desperately need.

After all these years of back-and-forth, do I really still need to state for the record that I’m opposed to expanding settlements, support a viable Palestinian state and sincerely yearn for Palestinian happiness and independence?

It’s just that – and forgive me for repeating once again – we showed in Sinai and Gaza that we can withdraw, dismantle settlements and keep our side of any bargain.

In refusing to set its gaze firmly on Palestinians and Arab intransigence, the international community, with Obama currently in the lead, has committed two possibly irreparable mistakes: it has told the Israeli people that they can do no right, and the Palestinians that they can do no wrong.

Related posts:

1. Ha’aretz: Stupid or dishonest?
2. Go ahead, pressure Israel
3. Are Obama's settlement demands good for Israel?