Responding to Richard Goldstone

by Don Emmerich

http://windowintopalestine.blogspot.com/2011/04/is-being-shunned-or-punished-by.html

Responding to Richard Goldstone

(Updated Below)

Writing in the Washington Postin the link address posted above , Richard Goldstone claims that, had the Goldstone Commission known in 2009 what it knows now, its report would have “probably” been different.  Specifically, he writes, the Commission most likely wouldn’t have concluded that Israel intentionally targeted civilians.  As evidence that Israel didn’t target civilians, he points to “investigations published by the Israeli military” which “indicate that civilians were not intentionally targeted as a matter of policy” (Washington Post). 

Let me repeat that last part.  As proof that the IDF didn’t target civilians, Goldstone points out that the IDFclaims it didn’t target civilians.  Needless to say, this argument is highly flawed.  Both the Goldstone Commission and the UN Committee of Independent Experts, which was charged with following up on the Goldstone Report, concluded that, for obvious reasons, Israel could not be expected to conduct an unbiased investigation into its own affairs (Goldstone Report, Committee of Independent Experts). 

Moreover, the UN Committee of Independent Experts has concluded that “there is no indication that Israel has opened investigations into the actions of those who designed, planned, ordered and oversaw Operation Cast Lead.” This also warrants repeating.  While Richard Goldstone now claims—on the basis of internal IDF investigations—that the IDF did not target civilians “as a matter of policy,” it doesn’t appear that the IDF ever investigated those who shaped Cast Lead policy.

It should be pointed out that Goldstone is the only member of the Goldstone Commission (officially called the UN Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict) who has retracted any of the Commission’s major findings.  To the best of my knowledge, the Commission’s other members—Christine Chinkin, Hina Jilani, and Colonel Desmond Travers—stand by the Report. 

It should also be pointed out that Goldstone has only retracted one of the Commission’s allegations against Israel, that it intentionally targeted civilians. Even if we excise this allegation from the Report, Israel still stands accused of several war crimes—for example, using civilians as human shields and conducting indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks.

In his Washington Post article, Goldstone gives just one example for his revised claim that Israel didn’t target civilians: “[T]he most serious attack the Goldstone Report focused on was the killing of some 29 members of the al-Samouni family in their home. The shelling of the home was apparently the consequence of an Israeli commander’s erroneous interpretation of a drone image, and an Israeli officer is under investigation for having ordered the attack.” 

But the UN Committee of Independent Experts doesn’t share Goldstone’s conclusion here.  First, the Committee states that, as far as it knows, Israel has not completed its investigation of the massacre.  Second, the Committee notes that, according to an October 2010 Haaretz report, although the commander who authorized the missile attack claimed that he had not been informed that civilians were present, several air force officers had in fact warned him that “there could be civilians in the area” (Haaretz).

The Committee of Experts emphasizes that Israel has not adequately investigated many of the allegations made by the Goldstone Commission.  “These include allegations related to higher level decisions about the design and implementation of the Gaza operation, including those related to the nature, objectives and targets of the Israeli military in that conflict.” 

Richard Goldstone’s motives here are irrelevant, just as his motives were irrelevant when the Goldstone Report was released in September 2009.  What matters is the evidence.  And the evidence—documented not just by the Goldstone Commission, but also by the Arab League, Breaking the Silence, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch—reveals that much of Israel’s killing of civilians and destruction of civilian infrastructure during Operation Cast Lead cannot simply be attributed to human error. 

Human Rights Watch, for instance, has documented several incidents “where Israeli soldiers fired on civilians with small arms.”  “In each case, the victims were standing, walking, or in a slowly moving vehicle with other unarmed civilians who were trying to convey their non-combatant status by waving a white flag.  All available evidence indicates that Israeli forces had control of the areas in question, no fighting was taking place there at the time, and Palestinian fighters were not hiding among the civilians who were shot” (HRW).

Similarly, Amnesty International has described how IDF forces “carried out attacks which appear to have deliberately targeted civilians,” including attacks against “ambulance and rescue crews and others who were trying to evacuate the wounded. As a result people who could have been saved died and others endured needless suffering and a worsening of their injuries” (Amnesty).

There is even less doubt that Israel intentionally targeted much of Gaza’s civilian infrastructure.  Relying largely on the Goldstone Report, Norman Finkelstein describes some of the damage caused: “Israel destroyed or damaged 58,000 homes (6,300 were completely destroyed or sustained severe damage), 280 schools and kindergartens (18 schools were completely destroyed and six university buildings were razed to the ground), 1,500 factories and workshops, several buildings housing Palestinian and foreign media (two journalists were killed while working, four others were also killed), water and sewage installations, 80 percent of agricultural crops, and nearly one-fifth of cultivated land.”  Israel also destroyed 30 mosques, 74 police buildings, and Gaza’s only operational flour mill, and it damaged 16 hospitals and 43 health facilities.

Finkelstein proceeds to point to statements by Israeli officials who claimed that Israel used “sophisticated precision weapons,” that it possessed an “intelligence gathering capacity” that “remained extremely effective,” that “99 percent of the firing that was carried out [by the Air Force] hit targets accurately,” and that it only struck one building in error. “In other words,” Finkelstein writes, “Israel was able to pinpoint its targets on the ground and, by its own admission, could and did hit these designated targets with pinpoint accuracy. It thus cannot be said that the criminal wreckage resulted from mishap or from a break in the chain of command. What happened in Gaza was meant to happen—by everyone from the soldiers in the field who executed the orders to the officers who gave the orders to the politicians who approved the orders” (This Time We Went Too Far).

Again, it needs to be emphasized that Richard Goldstone has not offered any evidence to refute any of the claims made by the Goldstone Commission.  Unless he, or anyone else for that matter, does so, it must be maintained that much of Israel’s killing and destruction in Cast Lead was deliberate.

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UPDATE: Benjamin Netanyahu has claimed that the Goldstone op-ed exonerates Israel of all wrongdoing in Operation Cast Lead. He added: “The fact that Goldstone changed his mind must lead to the shelving of the [Goldstone] Report once and for all” (Haaretz).

But, as I stated above, Goldstone has only retracted one of the Commission’s allegations against Israel, that it intentionally targeted civilians. Even if this allegation is excised from the Goldstone Report, Israel still stands accused of committing several other war crimes—for example, using civilians as human shields and conducting indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks.

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