Richard Falk, The Electronic Intifada, 22 September 2009
Richard Goldstone, former judge of South Africa's Constitutional Court, the first prosecutor at The Hague on behalf of the International Criminal Court for Former Yugoslavia, and anti-apartheid campaigner reports that he was most reluctant to take on the job of chairing the United Nations fact-finding mission charged with investigating allegations of war crimes committed by Israel and Hamas during the three week Gaza war of last winter. Goldstone explains that his reluctance was due to the issue being "deeply charged and politically loaded," and was overcome only because he and his fellow commissioners were "professionals committed to an objective, fact-based investigation," adding that "above all, I accepted because I believe deeply in the rule of law and the laws of war," as well as the duty to protect civilians to the extent possible in combat zones. The four-person fact-finding mission was composed of widely respected and highly qualified individuals, including the distinguished international law scholar Christine Chinkin, a professor at the London School of Economics. Undoubtedly adding complexity to Goldstone's decision is the fact that he is Jewish, with deep emotional and family ties to Israel and Zionism, bonds solidified by his long association with several organizations active in Israel.
Despite the impeccable credentials of the commission members, and the worldwide reputation of Richard Goldstone as a person of integrity and political balance, as well as of being an eminent jurist, Israel refused cooperation from the outset. It did not even allow the UN undertaking to enter Israel or the Palestinian territories, forcing reliance on the Egyptian government to allow the UN mission entry to Gaza at the Rafah Crossing. As Israeli peace activist Uri Avnery has observed, however much Israel may attack the commission report as one-sided and unfair, the only plausible explanation of its refusal to cooperate with a UN fact-finding mission of this sort and seizing the opportunity to tell its side of the story was that it had nothing to tell that could hope to overcome the overwhelming evidence of the Israeli failure to carry out its attacks on Gaza last winter in accordance with the international law of war. No credible international commission could reach any set of conclusions other than those reached by the Goldstone report on the central allegations.
In substantive respects the Goldstone report adds nothing new. Its main contribution is to confirm widely reported and analyzed Israeli military practices during the Gaza war. There had been several reliable reports already issued, condemning Israel's tactics as violations of the laws of war and international humanitarian law, including by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and a variety of respected Israeli and Palestinian human rights groups. Journalists and senior UN civil servants had reached similar conclusions. Perhaps, most damning of all the material available before the Goldstone report was the publication of a document entitled "Breaking the Silence," containing commentaries by 30 members of the Israeli army who had taken part in Operation Cast Lead (the Israeli official name for the Gaza war). These soldiers spoke movingly about the loose rules of engagement issued by their commanders that help explain why so little care was taken to avoid civilian casualties. The sense emerges from the testimony of these Israeli soldiers who were in no sense critical of Israel or even of the Gaza war as such, that Israeli policy emerged out of a combination of efforts "to teach the people of Gaza a lesson for their support of Hamas" and to keep Israeli military casualties as close to zero as possible even if meant massive death and destruction for innocent Palestinians.
Given this background of a prior international consensus on the unlawfulness of Operation Cast Lead, we must first wonder why this massive report of 575 pages has been greeted with such alarm by Israel and given so much attention in the world media. It added little to what was previously known. Arguably, it was more sensitive to Israel's contentions that Hamas was guilty of war crimes by firing rockets into its territory than earlier reports had been. And in many ways the Goldstone report endorses the misleading main line of the Israeli narrative by assuming that Israel was acting in self-defense against a terrorist adversary. The report does describe the success of the ceasefire with Hamas that had cut violence in southern Israel to very low levels, and attributes its disruption to Israel's attack on 4 November 2008, but nowhere does it make the inference that would seem to follow, that the Israeli attacks were an instance of the international crime of aggression. Instead, the report focuses its criticism on Israel's excessive and indiscriminate uses of force. It does this mainly by examining the evidence surrounding a series of incidents involving attacks on civilians and non-military targets. The report also draws attention to the unlawful blockade that has restricted the flow of food, fuel and medical supplies to subsistence levels in Gaza before, during and since Operation Cast Lead. Such a blockade is a flagrant instance of collective punishment, explicitly prohibited by Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention setting forth the legal duties of an occupying power.
All along Israel had rejected international criticism of its conduct of military operations in the Gaza war, claiming that the Israeli army was the most moral fighting force on the face of the earth. The Israeli army conducted some nominal investigations of alleged unlawful behavior that consistently vindicated the military tactics relied upon and the top Israeli political leaders steadfastly promised to protect any Israeli military officer or political leader internationally accused of war crimes. In view of this extensive background of confirmed allegation and angry Israeli rejection, why has the Goldstone report been treated in Tel Aviv as a bombshell that is deeply threatening to Israel's stature as a sovereign state? Israeli President Shimon Peres called the report "a mockery of history" that "fails to distinguish the aggressor and a state exercising the right of self-defense," insisting that it "legitimizes terrorist activity, the pursuit of murder and death." More commonly Israel's zealous defenders condemned the report as one-sided, biased, reaching foregone conclusions, and emanating from the supposed bastion of anti-Israeli attitudes at the UN's Human Rights Council. This line of response to any criticism of Israel's behavior in occupied Palestine, especially if it comes from the UN or human rights non-governmental organizations, is to cry "foul play!" and avoid any real look at the substance of the charges. It is an example of what I call "the politics of deflection," attempting to shift the attention of an audience away from the message to the messenger. The more damning the criticism, the more ferocious the response. From this perspective, the Goldstone report obviously hit the bull's eye! Being willing to level such a harsh attack against a person as deeply sympathetic to Israel as Judge Goldstone indicates that no truth-teller will be exempted from vilification.
Despite the impeccable credentials of the commission members, and the worldwide reputation of Richard Goldstone as a person of integrity and political balance, as well as of being an eminent jurist, Israel refused cooperation from the outset. It did not even allow the UN undertaking to enter Israel or the Palestinian territories, forcing reliance on the Egyptian government to allow the UN mission entry to Gaza at the Rafah Crossing. As Israeli peace activist Uri Avnery has observed, however much Israel may attack the commission report as one-sided and unfair, the only plausible explanation of its refusal to cooperate with a UN fact-finding mission of this sort and seizing the opportunity to tell its side of the story was that it had nothing to tell that could hope to overcome the overwhelming evidence of the Israeli failure to carry out its attacks on Gaza last winter in accordance with the international law of war. No credible international commission could reach any set of conclusions other than those reached by the Goldstone report on the central allegations.
In substantive respects the Goldstone report adds nothing new. Its main contribution is to confirm widely reported and analyzed Israeli military practices during the Gaza war. There had been several reliable reports already issued, condemning Israel's tactics as violations of the laws of war and international humanitarian law, including by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and a variety of respected Israeli and Palestinian human rights groups. Journalists and senior UN civil servants had reached similar conclusions. Perhaps, most damning of all the material available before the Goldstone report was the publication of a document entitled "Breaking the Silence," containing commentaries by 30 members of the Israeli army who had taken part in Operation Cast Lead (the Israeli official name for the Gaza war). These soldiers spoke movingly about the loose rules of engagement issued by their commanders that help explain why so little care was taken to avoid civilian casualties. The sense emerges from the testimony of these Israeli soldiers who were in no sense critical of Israel or even of the Gaza war as such, that Israeli policy emerged out of a combination of efforts "to teach the people of Gaza a lesson for their support of Hamas" and to keep Israeli military casualties as close to zero as possible even if meant massive death and destruction for innocent Palestinians.
Given this background of a prior international consensus on the unlawfulness of Operation Cast Lead, we must first wonder why this massive report of 575 pages has been greeted with such alarm by Israel and given so much attention in the world media. It added little to what was previously known. Arguably, it was more sensitive to Israel's contentions that Hamas was guilty of war crimes by firing rockets into its territory than earlier reports had been. And in many ways the Goldstone report endorses the misleading main line of the Israeli narrative by assuming that Israel was acting in self-defense against a terrorist adversary. The report does describe the success of the ceasefire with Hamas that had cut violence in southern Israel to very low levels, and attributes its disruption to Israel's attack on 4 November 2008, but nowhere does it make the inference that would seem to follow, that the Israeli attacks were an instance of the international crime of aggression. Instead, the report focuses its criticism on Israel's excessive and indiscriminate uses of force. It does this mainly by examining the evidence surrounding a series of incidents involving attacks on civilians and non-military targets. The report also draws attention to the unlawful blockade that has restricted the flow of food, fuel and medical supplies to subsistence levels in Gaza before, during and since Operation Cast Lead. Such a blockade is a flagrant instance of collective punishment, explicitly prohibited by Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention setting forth the legal duties of an occupying power.
All along Israel had rejected international criticism of its conduct of military operations in the Gaza war, claiming that the Israeli army was the most moral fighting force on the face of the earth. The Israeli army conducted some nominal investigations of alleged unlawful behavior that consistently vindicated the military tactics relied upon and the top Israeli political leaders steadfastly promised to protect any Israeli military officer or political leader internationally accused of war crimes. In view of this extensive background of confirmed allegation and angry Israeli rejection, why has the Goldstone report been treated in Tel Aviv as a bombshell that is deeply threatening to Israel's stature as a sovereign state? Israeli President Shimon Peres called the report "a mockery of history" that "fails to distinguish the aggressor and a state exercising the right of self-defense," insisting that it "legitimizes terrorist activity, the pursuit of murder and death." More commonly Israel's zealous defenders condemned the report as one-sided, biased, reaching foregone conclusions, and emanating from the supposed bastion of anti-Israeli attitudes at the UN's Human Rights Council. This line of response to any criticism of Israel's behavior in occupied Palestine, especially if it comes from the UN or human rights non-governmental organizations, is to cry "foul play!" and avoid any real look at the substance of the charges. It is an example of what I call "the politics of deflection," attempting to shift the attention of an audience away from the message to the messenger. The more damning the criticism, the more ferocious the response. From this perspective, the Goldstone report obviously hit the bull's eye! Being willing to level such a harsh attack against a person as deeply sympathetic to Israel as Judge Goldstone indicates that no truth-teller will be exempted from vilification.
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