De Israelische Terreur 982

Goldstone: Israel's missed opportunity

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/oct/21/goldstone-report-israel-gaza-war-crimes-un


Israel's missed opportunity

My mission was determined to investigate war crimes in Gaza fairly.
The Israeli government was wrong to shut us out

o Richard Goldstone
o guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 21 October 2009 10.30 BST


Five weeks after the release of the report of the fact-finding
mission on Gaza, there has been no attempt by any of its critics to
come to grips with its substance. It has been fulsomely approved by
those whose interests it is thought to serve and rejected by those of
the opposite view. Those who attack it do so too often by making
personal attacks on its authors' motives and those who approve it
rely on its authors' reputations.

Israeli government spokesmen and those who support them have attacked
it in the harshest terms and, in particular my participation, in a
most personal and hurtful way. The time has now come for more sober
reflection on what the report means and appropriate Israeli reactions
to it.

I begin with my own motivation, as a Jew who has supported Israel and
its people all my life, for having agreed to head the Gaza mission.
Over the past 20 years, I have investigated serious violations of
international law in my own country, South Africa, in the former
Yugoslavia, in Rwanda and the alleged fraud and theft by governments
and political leaders in a number of countries in connection with the
United Nations Iraq oil-for-food programme.

In all of these, allegations reached the highest political echelons.
In every instance, I spoke out strongly in favour of full
investigations and, where appropriate, criminal prosecutions. I have
spoken out over the years on behalf of the International Bar
Association against human rights violations in many countries,
including Sri Lanka, China, Russia, Iran, Zimbabwe and Pakistan.

I would have been acting against those principles and my own
convictions and conscience if I had refused a request from the United
Nations to investigate serious allegations of war crimes against both
Israel and Hamas in the context of Operation Cast Lead.

As a Jew, I felt a greater and not a lesser obligation to do so. It
is well documented that as a condition of my participation I insisted
upon and received an even-handed mandate to investigate all sides,
and that is what we sought to do.

I sincerely believed that because of my own record and the terms of
the mission's mandate we would receive the co-operation of the
Israeli government. Its refusal to co-operate was a grave error. My
plea for co-operation was repeated before and during the
investigation, and it sits, plain as day, in the appendices of the
Gaza report for those who actually bother to read it.

Our mission obviously could only consider and report on what it saw,
heard and read. If the government of Israel failed to bring facts and
analyses to our attention, we cannot fairly be blamed for the
consequences. Those who feel that our report failed to give adequate
attention to specific incidents or issues should be asking the
Israeli government why it failed to argue its cause.

Israel missed a golden opportunity to actually have a fair hearing
from a UN-sponsored inquiry. Of course, I was aware of and have
frequently spoken out against the unfair and exceptional treatment of
Israel by the UN and especially by the human rights council.

I did so again last week. Israel could have seized the opportunity
provided by the even-handed mandate of our mission and used it as a
precedent for a new direction by the United Nations in the Middle
East. Instead, we were shut out.

As I stated in response to a recent letter from the mayor of Sderot,
I believed strongly that our mission should have been allowed to
visit Sderot and other parts of southern Israel that have been at the
receiving end of unlawful attacks by many thousands of rockets and
mortars fired at civilian targets by Hamas and other armed groups in
Gaza. We were prevented from doing so by, what I believe, was a
misguided decision by the Israeli government.

In Gaza, I was surprised and shocked by the destruction and misery
there. I had not expected it. I did not anticipate that the IDF would
have targeted civilians and civilian objects. I did not anticipate
seeing the vast destruction of the economic infrastructure of Gaza
including its agricultural lands, industrial factories, water supply
and sanitation works. These are not military targets. I have not
heard or read any government justification for this destruction.

Of course the children of Sderot and the children of Gaza have the
same rights to protection under international law, and that is why,
notwithstanding the decision of the government of Israel, we took
whatever steps were open to us to obtain information from victims and
experts in southern Israel about the effects on their lives of
sustained rocket and mortar attacks over a period of years. It was on
the strength of those investigations that we held those attacks to
constitute serious war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity.

The refusal of co-operation by the government of Israel did not
prevent us from reacting positively to a request from Gilad Shalit's
father to speak personally to our mission at its public session in
Geneva. No one who heard his evidence could fail to have been moved
by the unspeakable pain of a parent whose young son was being held
for over three years in unlawful circumstances without any contact
with the outside world and not even allowed visits from the
International Committee of the Red Cross. The mission called for his
release.

Israel and its courts have always recognised that they are bound by
norms of international law that it has formally ratified or that have
become binding as customary international law upon all nations. The
fact that the United Nations and too many members of the
international community have unfairly singled out Israel for
condemnation and failed to investigate horrible human rights
violations in other countries cannot make Israel immune from the very
standards it has accepted as binding upon it.

Israel has a strong history of investigating allegations made against
its own officials reaching to the highest levels of government: the
inquiries into the Yom Kippur war, Sabra and Shatila, Bus 300 and the
second Lebanon war.

Israel has an internationally renowned and respected judiciary that
should be envy of many other countries in the region. It has the
means and ability to investigate itself. Has it the will?