Justice Richard Goldstone and the three other members of a panel commissioned by the United Nations Human Rights Council want Israel to investigate all the war crimes they attribute to its military operation in Gaza last winter. Otherwise, Goldstone threatens, a global court that tries such cases should judge Israel for war crimes and possible crimes against humanity. Goldstone acknowledges that the Israeli military has been looking at a number of allegations of war crimes by its personnel in Gaza. But he belittles these proceedings as grossly inadequate because the Israeli armed forces are not incriminating themselves in accordance with his standards.
The problem is that Goldstone is judging Israel on the basis of totally different rules than those Israel applies to its warfare against terrorist enemies like Hezbollah and Hamas. Customary international humanitarian law was written for wars between the armies of sovereign states. These days, in both Gaza and Lebanon, Israel is confronting terrorist mini-states, each of whose territory is a sovereign black hole left behind by a failed governing authority. The Goldstone commission applies laws of war that ignore the necessities of fighting a terrorist enemy that attacks civilians from bases in non-sovereign territory, hides behind its own civilian population, then displays its own civilian casualties in order to appeal for international support.
Here are two paragraphs from the Goldstone commission report that, juxtaposed, show this disconnect in its starkest terms:
Para. 1208. A statement of objectives that explicitly admits the intentional targeting of civilian objects as part of the Israeli strategy is attributed to the Deputy Chief of Staff, Maj. Gen. Dan Harel…. “This operation is different…. We are hitting not only terrorists and launchers, but also the whole Hamas government and all its wings…. We are hitting government buildings, production factories, security wings and more. We are demanding governmental responsibility from Hamas….”
Para. 1725. The Mission finds that the attacks against the Palestinian Legislative Council building and the main prison in Gaza constituted deliberate attacks on civilian objects in violation of the rule of customary international humanitarian law….
By Goldstone’s standards, virtually all Gazans are civilians, and all structures in Gaza are civilian structures. By Israel’s standards, the Palestinian Legislative Council building, the main prison and many other facilities had been thoroughly corrupted by Hamas’s takeover. Goldstone’s rules of war forbid attacking mosques, schools and hospitals; Israel encountered mosques used as arms depots, schools as forward command posts and the main Gaza hospital as Hamas’s central command post.
My initial reaction upon publication of the Goldstone report was to lament that — as in the case of the decision handed down by the International Court of Justice in the Hague against the Israeli security barrier a few years ago — Israel boycotted the deliberations. Its active participation might have righted a host of misinformation and misunderstandings to which such one-sided investigations fall victim. But upon reflection, I prefer the logic invoked by the Israeli government in refusing to testify before Goldstone and his colleagues. The fact that the Israeli military posted a lawyer in the command headquarters of every combat unit in Gaza to ensure that civilian casualties were kept to an absolute minimum would have made no impression on Goldstone whatsoever. Israeli military lawyers and commanders were enforcing a different set of rules — the ones used by the American military at Fallujah in Iraq, by NATO in Kosovo and by the Sri Lankans in Jaffna; in Israel’s case, the ones imposed on us by Hamas.
There is one instance of a violation of the laws of war cited by Goldstone with which I agree — but not for the reasons he cites. Goldstone blames Israel for imposing “collective punishment” by imposing an economic blockade on Gaza. He ignores the responsibility for this act shared by Egypt, the Palestinian Authority and the Quartet, all of which gave their blessings to this response to Hamas’s brutal takeover of Gaza back in June 2007. Had the closing of the Gaza passages brought about the removal of Hamas rule, it could be condoned. But it has failed abjectly; indeed, it has proven counterproductive by weakening the moderate sectors of the Gaza population and strengthening Hamas-linked smugglers. Here Israel, and its friends and neighbors, have been relying blindly on a failed strategy, one that helped bring about last January’s war.
Contrast this outcome with the results of Israel’s massive use of force against terrorist infrastructure in the broadest sense: The Lebanon front has been more or less silent since the summer 2006 war against Hezbollah, just as the Gaza front was relatively muted by Israel’s use of the military tactics Goldstone condemns. And a quiet front means fewer casualties on both sides.
Richard Goldstone’s rules of war are the only ones on the books. As a man of integrity and a judge, he had no alternative but to seek to enforce them “by the book.” Unless, recognizing the absurdity of the entire Human Rights Council investigation, he had simply turned down the job.
Yossi Alpher is former director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University. He currently co-edits the bitterlemons.org family of Internet publications.
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You are arguing that Israel must fight by different laws when they are fighting terrorists.
Here is 5-year-old Samar Abed Rabbo,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfT4QrqOnYM
who, according to the Goldstone report,
http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/specialsession/9/docs/UNFFMGC_Report.pdf
was shot by an Israeli soldier while she and her two sisters had stepped out of her house, as ordered by the soldiers, accompanied by their parents and grandmother who were holding a white flag. A soldier came out of a tank and fired at them, killing her two sisters, Souad, 9, and Amal, 3, and leaving Samar a paraplegic for the rest of her life.
Under what rules of warfare, even against terrorists, is it acceptable to kill 3- and 9-year old children?
770. In the late morning of 7 January 2009, Israeli tanks moved onto the small piece of agricultural land in front of the house. Shortly after 12.30 p.m., the inhabitants of that part of Izbat Abd Rabbo heard megaphone messages telling all residents to leave. According to one witness’s recollection, there had also been a radio message broadcast by the Israeli armed forces around 12.30 announcing that there would be a temporary cessation of shooting between 1 and 4 p.m. that day, during which time residents of the area were asked to walk to central Jabaliyah.
771. At about 12.50 p.m., Khalid Abd Rabbo, his wife Kawthar, their three daughters, Souad (aged 9), Samar (aged 5) and Amal (aged 3), and his mother, Hajja Souad Abd Rabbo, stepped out of the house, all of them carrying white flags. Less than 10 metres from the door was a tank, turned towards their house. Two soldiers were sitting on top of it having a snack (one was eating chips, the other chocolate, according to one of the witnesses). The family stood still, waiting for orders from the soldiers as to what they should do, but none was given. Without warning, a third soldier emerged from inside the tank and started shooting at the three girls and then also at their grandmother. Several bullets hit Souad in the chest, Amal in the stomach and Samar in the back. Hajja Souad was hit in the lower back and in the left arm.
This is precisely the type of "blaming the victim" one would expect of Yossi Alpher, former Mossad officer and AJC "moderate." Need we go on?
David, I didn't realize that Alpher was a Mossad office. I could never figure out where he's at.
It looks like Goldstone's attackers can't get him on the facts, so they're left with abuse and personal attacks.
Sorry Melanie and Frank. Im famous now and you are not. You are just jealous. Norman is welcome to accompany me to Davos, Switzerland when I get my awards from the Ford Foundation and the Saudi Royal family. The streets of Gaza are paved with gold. How fitting is it that my name contains the word gold?
Israeli soldiers are deliberately killing 3-year-old children in the absence of any threat, and the Israeli government isn't prosecuting them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfT4QrqOnYM
The Goldstone report documented that, and none of your cut-and-paste propaganda can refute that.
I wish the Forward would delete that long article from The Spectator by Melanie Philips that somebody posted in violation of copyright. It's longer than Yossi Alpher's original column.
I don't mind people posting links and excerpts, but this is just spamming the Forward's comments pages which are supposed to be a discussion by the Forward's readers.
By Israeli standards, Polish and French resistance fighters against the Germans should have been put on trial after WWII. After all, the committed terrorist acts against Germans civilians without caring about the Geneva Convention.
Subsequent to submitting comments about the previous article (Quick Buriel) and reading others' remarks regarding the same subject I can't help but take notice about the vehement accusations and declarations regarding Israel's alleged over reaction to Hamas during the recent conflict. Most of them were written by Jews, especially assimilated, educated American Jews whose concept of reality is limited to academia and/or selected travels with so called informative authorities on the Middle East conflict. While Israel is hardly perfect and less than totally innocent of attrocities against civilians during the Gaza incersion it should be pointed out that Hamas, Hezbollah & Iran are hardly followers of Gandhi, Martin Luther King & Mother Teresa. Their intent of Israel's total destruction is well documented. As Jews we all place a premium on human life, one of the most fundemental principles of our faith. This, in my opinion places us on higher moral plane than our adversaries. Naturally when one holds oneself up to a higher moral standard it is usually more difficult to live up to given mans' frailties, especially in war. When some ultra left wing Jewish intellectuals routinely condemn Israel for its' allegedly harsh treatment of Palestinians they by their words and actions, however naive and short sighted plainly illustrate the moral superiority of Israel and the Jewish people. It's been well over sixty years since 1948. I am still waiting for the other side to acknowledge Israel's right to exist as a nation state in the middle of twenty two hostile Arab nations and a belligerent hostile Palestinian population who, given the opportunity would pick up where Hitler left off. I also wait for some Palestinian to acknowledge that just maybe they may share the blame for their position and that Israels' concerns are legitimate. Those who have are either dead or imprisoned unlike the dissenters in our community. But as I said in my other comment I am not holding my breath.
Here is the rub:
"The problem is that Goldstone is judging Israel on the basis of totally different rules than those Israel applies to its warfare . . . By Israel’s standards, the Palestinian Legislative Council building, the main prison and many other facilities had been thoroughly corrupted by Hamas’s takeover."
Israel does not believe it should be judged by the standards of international law, even those laws Israel has agreed to abide by. Here Apher argues for a metaphysical definition of a legal target - any thing or person "corrupted" by Hamas, whatever that might mean (Are there then also degrees of corruption with only partial target? Half a building, a third of a woman?). I doubt however Apher would acknowledge Hamas or anyone else the right to exercise the same latitude in standards towards Israel.
Video of Bibi's U.N. Speech evicerates Goldston's UN farce:
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2009/09/israeli-prime-minister-benjamin-netanyahus-un-speechbut-to-those-who-gave-this-holocaustdenier-a-hea.html
Israeli soldiers are murdering 3-year-old children, and the IDF refuses to prosecute them. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfT4QrqOnYM
None of your cut-and-paste articles, insults or mockery can change that.
I am not a self-hating Jew for saying that it's wrong to kill 3-year-old children.
Once again Rabbi Rosen's comments have placed Israel and the Jewish people on morally higher ground over the supposedly down trodden Palestinians. If the BBC & other reports are true of alleged atrocities and overreactions by the IDF in Gaza they must be investigated and accounted for. The guilty must be punished. But for Rabbi Rosen to accuse Israel of overreaction to Hamas' intension of wiping Israel off the face of the earth is not only short sighted but just plain insane. Maybe Hamas should have taken this into consideration before provoking Israel into retaliation. Once again I ask Rabbi Rosen and his followers where his Palestinian counterparts are. They elected Hamas in an internationally supervised election observed by former President Jimmy Carter among others who verified their validity. Once Hamas was elected they suppressed all opposition. This was their green light to attack Israel with rockets. What was she supposed to do in return, roll over and die. Yes the Goldstone report should be seriously scrutinized by both sides - and I do mean both sides. But once again, I won't hold my breath.
My name is Dr. Mirela Siderer. I am a gynecologist living in Ashkelon, Israel.
Judge Richard Goldstone, in July you invited me to testify. I told you my story. I am known by my patients - including many women from Gaza. For me, every human being is equal.
On May 14, 2008, my life was changed forever. I was working in my clinic. Suddenly, the building was hit by a missile, fired from Gaza. I was terribly wounded. Blood was everywhere. My patient was also wounded, and more than 100 others. Next month will be my eighth operation.
Judge Goldstone, I told you all of this, in detail. I testified in good faith. You sent me this letter, saying, "Your testimony is an essential part of the Mission's fact-finding activities."
But now I see your report. I have to tell you: I am shocked.
Judge Goldstone, in a 500-page report, why did you completely ignore my story? My name appears only in passing, in brackets, in a technical context. I feel humiliated.