The UN Goldstone Report

The United Nations Human Rights Council commissioned a “fact-finding” report for the Gaza conflict, headed up by Richard Goldstone, which is somewhat analogous to Elmer Fudd hunting unicorns, although the likelihood of Elmer Fudd finding unicorns is probably much greater than the likelihood of the UN HRC finding “facts” in Gaza.

Sure enough, the “facts” filling the 575 pages churned out by Goldstone’s kangaroo court were essentially copy-and-paste jobs straight from NGO statements, publications, and submissions, taken virtually verbatim as gospel with no fact-checking!

NGO Monitor reports:

1. The 575-page Goldstone report is primarily based on NGO statements, publications, and submissions (70 references each for B’Tselem and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, and more than 30 for Al-Haq and Human Rights Watch). In its analysis of NGO submissions and testimony, NGO Monitor found numerous false and unsubstantiated allegations. Nevertheless, the Goldstone committee simply copied the NGO biases, flawed methodology, and false claims, rendering the entire report invalid.
2. Goldstone’s press conference in New York and the report’s recommendations constitute another step in the Durban Strategy, crystallized at the 2001 NGO Forum, using the language of human rights and international law as weapons in the political war to isolate and demonize Israel, and restrict legitimate responses to terror.
3. Still no “human shields” in Gaza. Following HRW and Amnesty, paragraph 495 ignores evidence that contradicts Goldstone’s predetermined conclusions: “Although the situations investigated by the Mission did not establish the use of mosques for military purposes or to shield military activities, the Mission cannot exclude that this might have occurred in other cases.”
4. The report copies NGO distortions of international law, including:
   1. Promotion of the false legal claim invented by the PLO Negotiation Affairs Department (and promoted by NGOs such as B’tselem, HRW, Amnesty) that Gaza remains “occupied” after the 2005 disengagement (p. 9). The political objective of this distortion is to manufacture humanitarian obligations that do not exist under international law. (The ICRC, in contrast, had acknowledged that Gaza is an “autonomous territory.” However, after the release of the Goldstone report, the ICRC changed its website to promote the biased conclusion of the Mission.)
   2. The classification of the Gaza police force as “civilian” (paras. 33-34) even though independent studies have shown that more than ninety percent were members of Hamas’ military wing and active combatants.
   3. The claim that under the Geneva Convention (para 28) Israel has a duty to supply food to Gazans. No such duty exists and the Commission does not cite to any specific provision of the Convention to support its claim. For more on NGO distortions of international law regarding Gaza, see NGO Monitor’s report on the topic.
   4. Paragraph 493 claims that the failure of armed Palestinian groups “to distinguish themselves from the civilian population by distinctive signs is not a violation of international law in itself.” This is patently false. The adoption of civilian dress is a violation of the IHL obligation against perfidy.
5. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, Goldstone’s report asserts that the “data provided by non-governmental sources with regard to the percentage of civilians among those killed are generally consistent …” (para. 30). There is no such “consistency” — the numbers claimed by these organizations differ by the hundreds. Goldstone also fails to note the major lack of credibility in PCHR’s data, such as characterizing two leading Hamas military figures, Nizar Rayan and Siad Siam, as civilians. And as researchers have shown, the B’Tselem data, while different from PCHR’s, is also unreliable.
6. Prior to the report’s release, Goldstone made several public statements that the Commission’s work was “not judicial. This is not a court.” (This claim was used to defend Prof. Christine Chinkin’s membership on the committee, who should have recused herself because of prejudicial comments made during the war.) In contrast, the report draws legal conclusions, asserting (without basis) that “the normative framework for the Mission has been general international law, the Charter of the United Nations, international humanitarian law, international human rights law and international criminal law” (para 15). But these legal judgments are issued without any evidentiary procedures in place, including the right to cross-examination or guarantees of due process.

Here’s some more interesting information about the report’s “facts” as “investigated” by Goldstone:

An Israeli activist who gave evidence to a United Nations commission investigating Israel’s winter offensive in the Gaza Strip accused the head of the commission on Wednesday of sleeping during his testimony.

‘I was flown to testify in front of the committee at the UN headquarters in Geneva and during my testimony, which included raw video footage of children running from rocket fire, Richard Goldstone fell asleep,’ Noam Bedein charged in a statement sent to journalists.

This has obviously provoked a huge amount outrage.

Israeli spokesman Mark Regev said:

This report was conceived in sin and is the product of a union between propaganda and bias… Israel is a country with a fiercely independent judiciary … Everything done by the military in Israel is open to judicial review by the independent judiciary… The mandate was biased from the beginning and it would have been a mistake to give credibility to a mission that has more in common with a kangaroo court than it does with a serious investigation.

Israeli President Shimon Peres said that the report, “makes a mockery of history and fails to distinguish between aggressor and those acting in self-defense.”

Israel’s former ambassador to the UN, Danny Gillerman, said that Israel was right not to cooperate with the inquiry, and said that “the findings would never have been objective.”

Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz wrote a whole piece on this, saying that the UN investigation of Israel discredits itself and undercuts human rights:

Richard Goldstone—the primary author of a one-sided United Nation’s attack on Israeli actions during the Gaza war—has now become a full fledged member of the international bash-Israel chorus. His name will forever be linked in infamy with such distorters of history and truth as Noam Chomsky, Norman Finkelstein and Jimmy Carter. The so-called report commissioned by the notorious United Nations Human Rights Council and issued under his name is so filled with lies, distortions and blood libels that it could have been drafted by Hamas extremists. Wait, in effect, it actually was!

One member of the group is an Hamas lackey who before being appointed as an “objective” judge had already reached the conclusion—without conducting any investigation or hearing any evidence—that Israel’s military actions “amount to aggression, not self defense” and that “the manner and scale of its operations in Gaza amount to an act of aggression and is contrary to international law.” So much for objectivity. Many human rights experts urged her to recuse herself because of her prejudgment, but she was on a mission on behalf of her “client”—Hamas. And she did a good job as an advocate! But as a judge, she employed an Alice-In-Wonderland conception of justice: verdict first, trial to support the verdict later.

Other members were accompanied on their investigations in Gaza by actual Hamas activists who showed them only what they wanted them to see. The group was eager to find or manufacture “evidence” to support what the Human Rights Council itself had directed them to find, namely that Israel committed “grave violations of human rights in the occupied Palestinian Territory, particularly due to the recent Israeli military attacks against the occupied Gaza Strip.” This conclusion too was reached before any investigation. No wonder so many prominent human rights experts, including Mary Robinson, refused to participate in this mockery of human rights, declaring that it was “guided not by human rights, but by politics.” No wonder so many nations that are dedicated to human rights—such as Switzerland, Canada, Japan, France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands—refused to go along with the politically-motivated witch hunt. They should also refuse to accept the politically motivated, entirely pre-ordained conclusions of the biased report…

Every serious student of human rights should be appalled at this anti-human rights and highly politicized report. Judge Richard Goldstone should be ashamed of himself. In an apparent effort to curry favor with the international anti-Israel establishment, and perhaps with the Nobel Peace Prize Committee, he has abandoned all principles of objectivity and neutral human rights. He no longer deserves the mantle of a human rights advocate. He has done more to destroy the credibility and objectivity of human rights than any credible human rights personage in modern times.

In addition to presiding over a biased and bigoted report, Goldstone has been two-faced. In an op ed published by the New York Times following release of the report, he is far more critical of Hamas than he was in the report itself. The Times article was intended for an American audience, so he went out of his way to create the false impression that the report was balanced in its allocation of blame.

If the methodology and conclusions of this infamous report were ever applied generally to democracies seeking to combat terrorists who hid behind civilians—as in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq—it would constitute a great victory for terrorism and a defeat for democracy. But not to worry. The report is not intended to establish general principles of international law, applicable to all nations. It is directed at one nation and one nation only: the Jew among nations—Israel. For shame.

Haaretz’s Ari Shavit points out the glaring double-standard here, as other world governments get off scot free for the exact same (or worse) offenses:

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’s clear that the United States and Germany are responsible for an extremely brutal attack. Britain, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium and Norway also bear responsibility for the massacre as NATO members.

…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. It is possible that at the end of the process it would be necessary to put U.S. President Barack Obama, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the leaders of Britain, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium and Norway on trial for their role in committing a severe war crime that did not distinguish between civilians and combatants.

…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.

For additional reading, read the comments in response to the report made by Israel’s Foreign Affairs ministry, and read Professor Gerald M. Steinberg’s comments (he heads NGO Monitor and is on the political science faculty of Bar-Ilan University).

Tags: Gaza, Hamas, Israel, Palestinians, Richard Goldstone, United Nations

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 17th, 2009 and is filed under Politics, World Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.