Tag: Goldstone Report

Ireland PSC: Goldstone’s ‘reconsideration’ does not invalidate UN report on Israeli crimes in Gaza

06 April 2011 | Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign

Israeli diplomats and pro-Israel lobbyists in the West have seized eagerly upon an article published in the Washington Post on April 1st by Richard Goldstone, the South African judge who chaired the UN Fact-Finding Mission that investigated the Israeli military offensive in Gaza two years ago, codenamed ‘Operation Cast Lead’. Israeli prime minister Benyamin Netanyahu has claimed that “everything we said has been proven true, Israel did not intentionally harm civilians, its investigating bodies are worthy and the fact that Goldstone has retracted should bring the report to be shelved once and for all”, while the Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman maintained that “the truth has come to light”.

These comments are a transparently dishonest spin on the part of the Israeli government. In fact, nothing that has been said by Richard Goldstone constitutes a “retraction” of the fact-finding mission’s report, or brings into question its conclusions that Israeli forces were responsible for major crimes against the civilian population of Gaza. Those crimes are likely to be repeated if the Israeli spin machine is allowed to whitewash the record of “Operation Cast Lead”.

1) No individual can “retract” the findings of the report

Although Richard Goldstone was the chair of the UN’s fact-finding mission, he was part of a team of four international experts (among them Ireland’s Col Desmond Travers). The report was subsequently endorsed by an overwhelming majority of states – including Ireland – at the UN General Assembly. It is not within the authority of any individual member of the fact-finding mission to “retract” its findings. A brief opinion article in the Washington Post certainly cannot be considered an adequate rebuttal of a five-hundred page report that was exhaustively documented by the UN mission.

2) Richard Goldstone has not retracted any of the central findings contained in the report

In his Washington Post article, Richard Goldstone wrote that “investigations published by the Israeli military … have established the validity of some incidents that we investigated in cases involving individual soldiers, they also indicate that civilians were not intentionally targeted as a matter of policy”.

Yet the original report did not claim that civilians were “intentionally targeted as a matter of policy”. Rather, it described a “repeated failure to distinguish between combatants and civilians [which] appears to the Mission to have been the result of deliberate guidance issued to soldiers, as described by some of them, and not the result of occasional lapses”, and noted that “the instructions given to the Israeli armed forces moving into Gaza provided for a low threshold for the use of lethal fire against the civilian population”. A callous disregard for civilian life is not the same as a policy of “intentionally” killing civilians. It remains a war crime nonetheless. Nothing that was said by Goldstone’s newspaper article brings this finding into question.

This was not the only crime documented by the report. It also described “ a deliberate and systematic policy on the part of the Israeli armed forces to target industrial sites and water installations”, and found evidence that “Israeli troops used Palestinian men as human shields whilst conducting house searches”. It also drew attention to the broader context, describing the illegal occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip as “the fundamental factor underlying violations of international humanitarian and human rights law against the protected population and undermining prospects for development and peace”. Goldstone’s article does not challenge any of these conclusions.

Cedric Sapey, a spokesperson for the UN Human Rights Council (the body that commissioned the report) gave the UN’s official view: “The UN will not revoke a report on the basis of an article in a newspaper. The views Mr Goldstone expressed are his own personal views.” Similarly, Ireland’s Col. Desmond Travers, an expert on international criminal investigations and member of the investigative team continues to endorse the findings saying “the tenor of the report in its entirety, in my opinion, stands”. Hina Jilani, another member of the team, has also said that “ultimately, the UN Report would not have been any different to what it was … no process or acceptable procedure would invalidate the UN Report; if it does happen, it would be seen as a suspect move … The UN cannot allow impunity to remain, and will have to act if it wants to remain a credible international governing body”.

3) Richard Goldstone has been the victim of a hate campaign without parallel

A person reading Richard Goldstone’s article without having read the initial report of the fact-finding mission would still gather the impression that his remarks constitute a significant change of heart: “ If I had known then what I know now, the Goldstone Report would have been a different document.” What has changed since the original report was published? Goldstone refers to internal inquiries carried out by the Israeli army. Common sense and experience in every corner of the globe dictate that no army should be given carte blanche to investigate allegations against itself – unless its investigative procedures have been given a clean bill of health by independent authorities.

Has any such authority endorsed the judicial practices of the Israeli army? Goldstone refers to another UN report chaired by retired US judge Mary McGowan Davis, noting its conclusion that “ Israel has dedicated significant resources to investigate over 400 allegations of operational misconduct in Gaza”. Yet the same report goes on to state that “there is no indication that Israel has opened investigations into the actions of those who designed, planned, ordered and oversaw Operation Cast Lead”. The conclusions of the fact-finding mission did not relate solely to the conduct of individual soldiers on the battlefield: they addressed matters of policy decided at the highest levels of political and military command. Any investigation which neglects those who “designed, planned, ordered and oversaw Operation Cast Lead” is clearly incapable of refuting the allegations made by the UN report. It is impossible to believe that such investigations can have prompted any change of heart by Richard Goldstone.

The real cause of his apparent volte-face must be sought elsewhere. Since the fact-finding mission report was published, Richard Goldstone has been targeted by a campaign of vilification that no person should have to endure. He has been described as an “evil man”, a “despicable human being”, a “traitor to the Jewish people”, and compared to Joseph Mengele – the infamous Nazi doctor who conducted experiments on live human beings at Auschwitz. As can be inferred from such remarks, Goldstone is a South African Jew and has been singled out precisely for that reason. Although the other members of the fact-finding mission have also been attacked, none has been subjected to the same kind of vilification that Goldstone has experienced. It reached a peak in 2010 when the South African Zionist Federation threatened to “demonstrate” against Goldstone’s presence at the Sandton Synagogue if he dared to attend his grandson’s bar-mitzvah.

The thinking behind this campaign was overtly anti-Semitic – even though many of its agents consider themselves to be proud Jews. It was based on the premise that any Jew, anywhere in the world, is obliged to give uncritical support to the Israeli state, no matter what it does. This nonsensical doctrine simply turns the old fantasies of European anti-Semitism on its head. The anti-Semitic gangsters and demagogues of twentieth-century Europe claimed that every Jewish person, whatever their nationality, social class or political outlook, was part of a monstrous conspiracy. The modern-day Israel lobby tries to erase the individuality of Jews and force them to adopt a monolithic position of support for “ Israel, right or wrong”. In each case, we find a style of politics that believes ethnicity must dictate behaviour – “we are what we were born to be”. No wonder so many Jewish people have found the pro-Israel lobby repulsive and denied its claim to speak on their behalf.

Richard Goldstone’s Washington Post article is surely best seen as an attempt to protect himself and his family from the unconscionable abuse they have suffered over the past two years. It should not cause us to direct our attention for one second from the crimes committed by the Israeli army against the Palestinian people. The assault on Gaza in January 2009 was merely one episode in a litany of atrocities that spans several decades. If those atrocities are not to continue indefinitely, it is imperative that we study the findings of the UN fact-finding mission – and other sources such as Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and B’Tselem – and act to protect the victims of wanton violence.

Samouni family responds to Goldstone backtrack on Israeli war crimes

6 April 2011 | Ken O’Keefe

During Operation Cast Lead Israel committed massive war crimes for all the world to see. Among these crimes the use of White Phosphorus in densely populated areas, use of Depleted Uranium, bombing civilian targets of all sorts without military necessity, destroying civilian infrastructure with no military justification and the infamous massacre of the Samouni family… among many other crimes.

In the aftermath of Cast Lead, Justice Richard Goldstone, a Zionist Jew, was commissioned by the United Nations to write a report on the alleged war crimes. Although the report did not go nearly far enough in exposing the brutality of all the crimes committed, crimes committed by the fourth largest military in the world against a essentially defenceless and captive population, it did allege that Israel (and Hamas) was almost undoubtedly guilty of war crimes and possibly, crimes against humanity.

PCHR highlights key issues relating to report of UN fact-finding mission on Gaza conflict (the ‘Goldstone Report’)

4 April 2011 | Palestinian Centre for Human Rights

In light of the media debate and confusion triggered by Justice Richard Goldstone’s 1 April opinion piece in the Washington Post, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) wishes to highlight a few key issues regarding the current status of the UN Fact-Finding Mission’s Report, and the search for accountability in the aftermath of Israel’s 27 December 2008 – 18 January 2009 offensive on the Gaza Strip.

PCHR represent 1,046 victims of the offensive, and have submitted 490 criminal complaints to the Israeli authorities on behalf of these individuals.

As noted by Justice Goldstone, the UN Fact-Finding Mission was not a judicial body. Rather, it was a fact-finding mission mandated to conduct initial investigations on the ground, and to make recommendations on this basis. The Mission found sufficient evidence to indicate the widespread commission of war crimes, and possible crimes against humanity. This finding was consistent with the result of investigations conducted by other organisations, including PCHR, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the UN Board of Inquiry, and the Fact-Finding Mission of the Arab League.

Appropriately, and consistent with the requirements of international law, the Fact-Finding Mission recommended that these allegations be investigated. The Mission noted that if domestic authorities failed to conduct effective investigations, the International Criminal Court became the most appropriate forum to investigate these serious charges. Responsibility would thus fall on the Security Council to activate the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court, in accordance with Article 13(b) of the Court’s statute. According to the timeline established by the Mission, this referral should have taken place approximately one year ago. The Security Council took such action most recently with respect to the current situation in Libya.

The most serious allegations regarding Israel’s conduct of hostilities during the offensive relate to the direct targeting of civilians, widespread indiscriminate attacks, the choice of targets and methods of combat, and the extensive destruction of public and private infrastructure, including the total or partial (rendered uninhabitable) destruction of 7,872 civilian housing units. A few significant cases in this regard include the attack on UNRWA headquarters, the attack on Fakhoura school, the Abdul Dayem case, the Al-Daia case, the Abu Halima case, and the attack on Arafat Police compound. Policies including those related the conduct of hostilities, the choice of targets, the use of white phosphorous, and the artillery bombardment of civilian areas may also give rise to individual criminal responsibility. None of these cases have been effectively addressed, and have not been ‘reconsidered’ by Justice Goldstone.

International law clearly requires that allegations of international crimes, as detailed in the Fact-Finding Mission’s Report and elsewhere, must be subject to genuine investigation, and if appropriate, those responsible prosecuted.

International jurisprudence has consistently identified four components essential to conducting a genuine investigation.[1] An investigation must be: effective (capable of leading “to the identification and punishment of those responsible”[2], and “undertaken in a serious manner and not as a mere formality preordained to be ineffective”[3]); independent (based on, inter alia, “the existence of guarantees against outside pressures”,[4] specifically “the persons responsible for the injuries and those conducting the investigations should be independent of anyone implicated in the events”[5]); prompt;[6] and involve an element of public scrutiny.[7] Significantly, the whole operation must also be analysed, and not merely the immediate specifics of any one incident; the overall plan and its implementation must be analysed.[8]

In the over two years that have passed since the offensive, all parties have failed to conduct investigations complying with these standards. Most recently, the UN Committee of Independent Experts mandated to monitor Israel and the Palestinians’ domestic investigations found that “there is no indication that Israel has opened investigations into those who designed, planned, ordered and oversaw ‘Operation Cast Lead’.” The Committee also noted significant problems with respect to the role of the Military Advocate General.

The overwhelming majority of investigative procedures initiated by Israel have been closed on reaching the IDF’s apparently preordained conclusion that: “[t]hroughout the fighting in Gaza, the IDF operated in accordance with international law.”

In the over two years since Operation Cast Lead one Israeli soldier has served 7.5 months in jail for the theft of a credit card and two others received three month suspended sentences for using a child as a human shield. These three convictions, and the ongoing trial of a fourth soldier, have been the only concrete judicial outcomes from Israeli investigations. It is noted that these indictments fail to reflect the gravity of the actual crimes committed, as does the exceptionally lenient sentence in the human shields case.

PCHR have concluded that the Israeli investigative system as a whole, including as this relates to civilian supervision, is flawed, either in law, in practice, or both.

In light of the domestic systems now proven inability and unwillingness to conduct genuine investigations, it is imperative and appropriate that these allegations be investigated by the International Criminal Court. On 25 March 2011, the Human Rights Council made precisely this recommendation, recommending that the General Assembly submit the UN Fact-Finding Mission’s Report to the Security Council, to consider referring the situation in the occupied Palestinian territory to the International Criminal Court

The current debate must focus on the relevant core issues. Significant evidence indicates that widespread war crimes were committed in the context of Operation Cast Lead. These have not been subject to genuine judicial scrutiny. This situation must be remedied by a referral to the International Criminal Court.

All political considerations must be put aside, and the rule of international law upheld. There is no basis to retract or reconsider the Report of the UN Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict. The equal application of the law is the very least that victims on all sides deserve. Justice Goldstone will hopefully join the call of the Human Rights Council, supported by human rights NGOs globally, in asking the Security Council to refer the situation in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory to the International Criminal Court.

All parties to the events in the region must be held to universal standards so that the law proves capable of protecting civilians from future atrocities, and so that those victims of past crimes can finally achieve accountability and justice.

Towards Ending our Ongoing Nakba: Statement by the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC)

International Solidarity Movement

20 May 2010

17 May 2010 — For sixty-two years, Palestinians have been denied their dignity and fundamental human rights. The creation and “international” acceptance of Israel in 1948 marked the culmination of a new kind of politics in the region that continues to have devastating consequences. The acceptance of an ethnic Jewish state over the ruins of Palestinian society in a historically pluralistic region meant that indigenous Palestinians were automatically considered superfluous in the land they had inhabited for many generations. Emboldened by external support, Israel carried out its well planned campaign of mass scale ethnic cleansing, dispossessing and uprooting at least 750,000 Palestinians from their homeland. Zionist militias, and later the Israeli army, destroyed 500 Palestinian villages and forcibly emptied 11 urban neighborhoods in this process. The newly formed State of Israel encompassed 78% of Historic Palestine.1

With their lands confiscated, the refugees have been denied their legally guaranteed and UN-sanctioned right of return to their homes of origin. Palestinians remember this massive wave of dispossession as the Nakba (catastrophe).
Israel’s continued occupation, colonization and apartheid represents an ongoing Nakba. It could not have continued without international complicity, particularly by the US and the EU. The decision to allow, unhindered, Israeli accession to the OECD – cynically announced just a few days before the Nakba Commemoration Day – painfully underlines the failure of the international community to hold Israel accountable to international law and human rights principles. The fact that the UN itself condemned in its Goldstone report Israel’s atrocities in Gaza — in its operation “Cast Lead” — as constituting war crimes and possible crimes against humanity had no bearing, it seems, on the OECD states that voted unanimously to accept Israel’s membership.

It is this failure of the “international community” to uphold international law and the pattern of treating Israel as a state above the law that makes civil resistance and solidarity through the global BDS movement all that much more relevant and crucial. As in the boycott campaign against apartheid South Africa, the fast spreading BDS campaigns by international civil society are the most effective form of solidarity with Palestinian rights that promise to end Israel’s impunity and compel it to respect its obligations under international law.

For the past 62 years, Israel has consistently violated international law, including the Fourth Geneva Convention and the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid, with little fear of accountability. With the growing BDS movement, however, Israel is increasingly being perceived as a pariah state at the grassroots level. World public opinion clearly indicates a sharp drop in tolerance of Israel’s continued multi-faceted colonial and racist oppression; many governments that unconditionally support Israel are facing unprecedented stiff opposition from their respective publics.

The massive scope of the Nakba 62 commemoration, both in historic Palestine and internationally, is reflective of the pace at which popular resistance and protest against the ongoing Israeli colonisation is growing. Rallies and other commemoration events in Jerusalem, the Galilee, Hebron, Ramallah and Nablus have been matched with events across the world. Activists across the UK held protests inside supermarkets that called for the banning of the sale of produce from illegal Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian Territory and a boycott of all Israeli produce. In Rome, over 50 activists gave out information about the BDS movement and displayed items barred entry to Gaza by the Israeli siege including chocolate, toys and fishing poles in order to demonstrate the callousness of the siege. Similar actions took place in towns and cities all over the world.

The 2005 Palestinian civil society call for BDS includes all three constituencies of the Palestinian people – those living in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, those living inside Israel, and the millions of Palestinian refugees who form the great majority of the Palestinian people. Nakba awareness and the call for the right to return are a key part of the BDS movement; both the National Committee for the Commemoration of the Nakba and the Right of Return, Global ROR Coalition are important members of the BNC.

The BNC fully endorses the 15 May call of the National Committee for the Commemoration of the Nakba, which included:

For the Palestinian leadership to:

– Adopt a coherent strategy towards a just and permanent solution for the Palestinian refugees and IDPs, based on their right to return and in accordance with international law, universal principles of justice and UN resolutions 194 (1948) and 237 (1967);
– Halt all negotiations, whether direct or indirect, until Israel completely halts settlement expansion, population transfer (“Judaization”), and construction of the Wall and other infrastructure of colonization and apartheid, such as roads and the so-called Jerusalem Light Rail connecting illegal Jewish colonies to West Jerusalem;
– Ensure national reconciliation and unity as a matter of urgency, and rebuild the PLO as a legitimate and credible platform representing the entire Palestinian people and its political organizations;
– Support and activate popular resistance in all forms permitted under international law;
– Establish a consultative mechanism with professional civil society organizations to support the efforts of the PLO in international forums.

To the public in Palestine and abroad to:

– Build and expand the civil society-led movement for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel until it complies with international law, and exert stronger pressure on states to implement sanctions and adopt decisions and resolutions which support the global BDS Campaign;
– Redouble efforts for investigation of Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity and prosecution and punishment of those responsible, as well as efforts to prevent Israel’s accession and integration into international and regional organizations.
– Only through effective, sustainable and persistent efforts to hold Israel accountable to international law can there be hope to establish a just peace and end Israel’s ongoing Nakba against the entire Palestinian people.

1 Survey of Palestinian Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons 2008-9, BADIL Resource Center