Israeli right-wing journalist has, at last, come up with the final solution. That is, the final solution to the problem of Israel being criticised in the British press and media:
Just sue them: Ynet News
Yair Lapid offers new tactic in international struggle against new anti-Semites
We sat in the small and well-kept backyard at the home of Israel’s ambassador in London, Ron Prosor. Light rain was falling intermittently, leaving behind it fresh English air, yet the expressions around the table remained grim. The conversation focused on the British media’s takeover by anti-Israel elements.
Prosor is a large and smiling man, with a soft base voice, but his smile was gone when he spoke of the way he is being welcomed by pro-Palestinian protestors every time he arrives for a lecture at a British university.
You need to read some of the things they write about us here, he sighed. I don’t even know how to start responding to them.
Don’t respond, I said. Sue them.
One of those present, an influential London attorney, raised his head: What do you mean sue them? He said.
What’s so complicated? I replied. Just like they threaten to sue IDF officers, we need to sue them. Every journalist who refers to us as “war criminals” or “child killers” needs to know that the next day his newspaper will be slapped with a million pound lawsuit on behalf of the State of Israel.
What will we gain from it? Someone else asked.
Newspapers don’t like lawsuits, I said. It takes time, it costs money, the paper’s insurance company raises their premium, stockholders are wondering why they got into this mess to begin with, and the editor in chief is infuriated after he discovers that he needs to waste two days on testifying in respect to an article that he didn’t even read.
The press won’t come out against us? Prosor asked.
There is no such thing as “the press,” I said. This is the most competitive profession in the world, and everyone is just waiting to see the others fall. Do you really think that The Independent cares whether we sue The Guardian? They’ll be happy about it.
And who will represent us? Asked someone else.
Him, I gestured at the lawyer sitting with us, and a hundred others like him. If the Jewish people has one reservoir that will never run out, it’s lawyers. Every Western capital boasts at least five successful Jewish law firms, and most of them will be glad to represent the State of Israel against the new anti-Semitism.
The lawyer in the group suddenly looked up. It will work, he said. I’m willing to take London upon myself.
We’ll be attacked over this, said Prosor. So? I responded. Aren’t they attacking us already at this time?
Well, they are used to attack all the time, so why not in this area? Maybe the next stage will be to shoot the journalist, like they do in Gaza… no one will be allowed to question r criticise Israel! And they wonder why anti-semitism is rising… One also wonders, will the suing of media outlets be limited to Britain, or will they also sue Israeli papers? Here is one candidate for suing for printing the truth – Gideon Levy in Haaretz:
America, stop sucking up to Israel: Ha’aretz
By Gideon Levy
Barack Obama has been busy – offering the Jewish People blessings for Rosh Hashanah, and recording a flattering video for the President’s Conference in Jerusalem and another for Yitzhak Rabin’s memorial rally. Only Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah surpasses him in terms of sheer output of recorded remarks.
In all the videos, Obama heaps sticky-sweet praise on Israel, even though he has spent nearly a year fruitlessly lobbying for Israel to be so kind as to do something, anything – even just a temporary freeze on settlement building – to advance the peace process.
The president’s Mideast envoy, George Mitchell, has also been busy, shuttling between a funeral (for IDF soldier Asaf Ramon, the son of Israel’s first astronaut Ilan Ramon) and a memorial (for Rabin, though it was postponed until next week due to rain), in order to find favor with Israelis. Polls have shown that Obama is increasingly unpopular here, with an approval rating of only 6 to 10 percent.
He decided to address Israelis by video, but a persuasive speech won’t persuade anyone to end the occupation. He simply should have told the Israeli people the truth. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who arrived here last night, will certainly express similar sentiments: “commitment to Israel’s security,” “strategic alliance,” “the need for peace,” and so on .
Before no other country on the planet does the United States kneel and plead like this. In other trouble spots, America takes a different tone. It bombs in Afghanistan, invades Iraq and threatens sanctions against Iran and North Korea. Did anyone in Washington consider begging Saddam Hussein to withdraw from occupied territory in Kuwait?
But Israel the occupier, the stubborn contrarian that continues to mock America and the world by building settlements and abusing the Palestinians, receives different treatment. Another massage to the national ego in one video, more embarrassing praise in another.
Now is the time to say to the United States: Enough flattery. If you don’t change the tone, nothing will change. As long as Israel feels the United States is in its pocket, and that America’s automatic veto will save it from condemnations and sanctions, that it will receive massive aid unconditionally, and that it can continue waging punitive, lethal campaigns without a word from Washington, killing, destroying and imprisoning without the world’s policeman making a sound, it will continue in its ways.
Illegal acts like the occupation and settlement expansion, and offensives that may have involved war crimes, as in Gaza, deserve a different approach. If America and the world had issued condemnations after Operation Summer Rains in 2006 – which left 400 Palestinians dead and severe infrastructure damage in the first major operation in Gaza since the disengagement – then Operation Cast Lead never would have been launched.
It is true that unlike all the world’s other troublemakers, Israel is viewed as a Western democracy, but Israel of 2009 is a country whose language is force. Anwar Sadat may have been the last leader to win our hearts with optimistic, hope-igniting speeches. If he were to visit Israel today, he would be jeered off the stage. The Syrian president pleads for peace and Israel callously dismisses him, the United States begs for a settlement free ze and Israel turns up its nose. This is what happens when there are no consequences for Israel’s inaction.
When Clinton returns to Washington, she should advocate a sharp policy change toward Israel. Israeli hearts can no longer be won with hope, promises of a better future or sweet talk, for this is no longer Israel’s language. For something to change, Israel must understand that perpetuating the status quo will exact a painful price.
Israel of 2009 is a spoiled country, arrogant and condescending, convinced that it deserves everything and that it has the power to make a fool of America and the world. The United States has engendered this situation, which endangers the entire Mideast and Israel itself. That is why there needs to be a turning point in the coming year – Washington needs to finally say no to Israel and the occupation. An unambiguous, presidential no.
What a pity that Obamah and Clinton don’t read Ha’aretz…
EU court: No customs breaks for Israeli goods from settlements: Ha’aretz
Israeli goods produced in West Bank settlements are not eligible for customs benefits in the European Union, stated an advocate general of the European Court of Justice last week.
Israel and the EU have a free-trade agreement that gives Israeli exports substantial customs breaks.
The advocate general’s non-binding opinion, if followed, could mean that goods produced in the territories may be saddled with full customs duties.
The opinion, submitted in a case in Germany brought by water purification firm Brita in 2002, could serve as a precedent in the EU. The company was ordered to pay 19,155 euros in customs for equipment it imported from the Israeli firm Soda Club, whose factory is in the West Bank.
German customs authorities asked Israeli authorities whether the goods were produced in the territories, and when no answer was received, Brita was ordered to pay customs duties.
Brita then appealed the decision to the German court system, and the Finance Court in Hamburg requested advice on the matter from European Union legal authorities.
In the past, EU authorities have ruled that the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem are also part of the “occupied territories,” but in this case, the advocate general said his opinion referred only to the West Bank and Gaza.
Currently, for goods from the territories to receive customs breaks, they must bear a certificate issued by the Palestinian Authority.
The disagreement with the EU over Israeli exports from the territories has been going on for a long time. At one point, the EU threatened sanctions against all Israeli exports if an agreement was not reached. However, Israel refused to label or otherwise differentiate products from the settlements.
Five years ago, Israel and the EU agreed that all exports would be labeled with the place of manufacture, or the factory’s zip code, and the EU customs authorities would then decide whether to levy customs.
Israeli exports to the EU totalled $17.8 million in 2008, of which only a tiny fraction were from the territories. However, Der Spiegel recently reported that a third of Israeli exports to Europe are made in part or in full in the territories.
Meanwhile, the unofficial boycott is spreading to European governments:
Belgium to stop exporting ‘arms that bolster the IDF’ to Israel: Ha’aretz
Belgium’s government has agreed to ban the export to Israel of weapons that “strengthen it militarily,” a Belgian minister said on Thursday. A Brussels-based research group accused Israel of enlisting child soldiers.
The Belgian daily De Morgen quotes Minister Patricia Ceysens from the Flemish regional government as saying: “There’s a consensus [among ministers] not to approve exports that would strengthen Israel’s military capacity.”
Ceysens said this after a discussion on policy regarding weapons exports to Israel following the operation in Gaza. A final resolution has not been passed yet, but Belgian Foreign Minister Karel De Gucht already said recently that “given the current circumstances, weapons cannot be shipped from Belgium to Israel.”
According to a recently-released report by the European Institute for Research and Information on Peace and Security on Belgian arms exports to the Jewish state, Israel is the fourth largest importer of Belgian arms in the Middle East. In 2007, Belgium sold Israel weapons (mostly light firearms) to the tune of $5,409,223, according to the report.
The report, which accuses Israel of human rights violations, also says that Belgium’s major weapons clients in the Middle East are Saudi Arabia (69 percent), Jordan (17 percent) and the United Arab Emirates (4.2 percent). The 15-page report does not deal with human rights violation in those countries.
Quoting a 2003 amendment to Belgian law which forbids the sale of weapons to armies with child soldiers, the report says that Israel “accepts and arms underage volunteers.” Further on, the report mentions “use of underage Palestinians as informants and sometimes human shields.”
The Israeli Defense Forces’ Gadna program runs a one-week military training session on a base as part of the curriculum at most Israeli high schools. The army accepts volunteers from the age of 17 into non-combat posts.
Meanwhile, 13 Belgian politicians, authors and scholars released a statement that calls for a more evenhanded approach to Israel.
And if you wish to read about racism, just turn to the Israeli papers. Another one to sue?…
Crossing boundaries: Ha’aretz
By Sefi Rachlevsky
Even if the children of foreign workers are not deported in the end, the sword of deportation hanging over their heads is still a painful image reflecting the face of the State of Israel.
The ministers of this country are seriously deliberating the dangers posed to the Jewish people, the dangers of mixing, the influence of non-Jews on the Jews of the land – when even the nationalists, the pragmatists and the demographers should be delighted to receive such a loyal addition, comprised of people longing to serve in the army, to work and to contribute to the only country they know.
The state funds the education of more than half of all the Jewish first-graders who attend religious and ultra-Orthodox schools. In teaching the assertion of Rabbi Yehuda Halevi – that goyim occupy the lowest rung of all things natural, and Jews belong to the highest – these schools treat this dictum as self-evident.
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Protests recently broke out regarding the ethnic segregation in the education of immigrants from Ethiopia – but of course this system observes the segregation of boys from girls, and instills a qualitatively different perception of the secular and the religious. It also insists there is a sharp hierarchical difference between Jews and non-Jews.
When Israeli children grow up they discover that a woman can be exempt from military service simply by being defined as religious, as opposed to non-religious; that the title of “religious student” can make years of mandatory service go away; and that Israeli law does not allow a Jewish man and a non-Jewish woman to marry.
The portrait of the current Israeli reality is not unconnected with the ability to nominate a man like Avichai Rontzki as chief rabbi of the Israel Defense Forces, who ruled that a paramedic must not treat an Arab non-Jew on Shabbat unless he is ordered to do so – in which case he must try to have the order reversed. These views, which resulted in Rontzki’s zealous emissaries delivering sermons to IDF troops during the last round of fighting, cannot be separated from the bleak picture, that can be seen through any undistorted mirror, of what those soldiers did where they had been sent. The other side does not have people defined as “Jewish people.”
This week Israel is marking the anniversary of the assassination of its prime minister and minister of defense, Yitzhak Rabin. Far from being a pacifist universalist, he nonetheless maintained the vision of a national-democratic state aspiring to a normal existence. To many, Rabin was not murdered a “Jew.” Many years before his murder, he had been redefined as “a mixed multitude” – meaning an Amalekite who is merely pretending to be Jewish, belonging to those who infiltrated the ranks of the Israelites on their way to the promised land, the main culprits causing pure Jews to stray off the righteous path.
Unfortunately, the racist mentality that has led many to join the messianic revolution threatening to sweep over Israel continues to show its animosity toward “foreigners.” This mentality, which manifested itself in the murder of the prime minister, is continuing to recruit souls on the hills for which Rabin had fought.
This process, which replaces the current democratic-national state (with all of its contradictions and problems) with a borderless entity whose essence is ethno-religious, is not only a moral catastrophe that contradicts the Zionist vision in its entirety. Israel did not withstand all of its enemies since the great rebellion as an ethnic-religious entity. As a borderless, stateless entity Israel will not withstand the growing strategic threat against it. Thus not only the desire for peace for which Rabin was killed will die out, but also the proud dream of Hebrew safety to which Rabin dedicated his life.
To read more about who runs Israel, and on their views which could have come straight from the Third Reich, read this Israeli minister on migrants. Is this not what they used to say about Jews, perchance? It is good to see some historical continuity in racist argumentation, isn’t it?
Yishai: Migrant workers will bring diseases to Israel: Ha’aretz
Interior Minister Eli Yishai said on Saturday that he still supported the deportation of illegal migrant workers, one day before the government was to decide on whether to deport such workers and their families.
“If hundreds of thousands of migrant workers come here now, they will bring with them a profusion of diseases: hepatitis, measles, tuberculosis, AIDS and drug [addiction],” Yishai, the head of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, told the Channel 2 program Meet the Press.
“Will any of Israel’s citizens be willing for migrants to enter at this rate?”
Plans to deport the group, which includes 1,200 children, have met with fierce public opposition. Protesters last week called on cabinet ministers to “do what is moral, true and right” and grant the children legal status.
But in the Channel 2 interview, Yishai asked: “With all of this sanctimoniousness, do [the workers] not threaten the Zionist project in the State of Israel?”
The Prime Minister’s Office said on Saturday that no decision had yet been made on the matter. The Oz task force, which replaced the Immigration Police, has said it is still operating according to its current guidelines, which prohibit the detention of families with children.
However, a high-ranking government official said Saturday that the deportation of the children was likely to be postponed until after the end of the school year.
Yishai, who is also a deputy prime minister, added: “I need to choose between popularity and hypocrisy: How will I appear to the journalists today, or how will I appear to the State of Israel in 20 years time.”
Israeli minister’s speech disrupted at London university: Electronic Intifada
Press release, LSE SU Palestine Society, 27 October 2009
The following press release was issued by the London School of Economics Student Union Palestine Society on 26 October 2009:
Students protested and disrupted a lecture tonight at the London School of Economics (LSE) by Daniel Ayalon, the controversial Deputy Foreign Minister of Israel.
More than 50 students and activists greeted Ayalon outside of the lecture on LSE’s campus with placards and banners, while inside audience members heckled the controversial minister as a “racist” and “murderer” in relation to the illegal occupation and violence carried out by the Israeli state.
Ayalon was in the UK to meet British government officials and speaking at the LSE ahead of these talks in a lecture titled “The Middle East: The View From Israel.” Security at the university was tight, with private security and police officers keeping a close watch on protesters. The minister began and ended his lecture amid boos and chants of “Free, Free, Palestine” while his speech was interrupted relentlessly throughout with audience members questioning Israel’s atrocities.
The action was organized by the LSE Students’ Union Palestine Society and the Palestine Solidarity Initiative. The London School of Economics Students’ Union is officially twinned with An-Najah University [West Bank] and has previously voted to divest funds from those companies profiting from the Israeli occupation of Palestine. The motion also called on LSE to respect human rights and follow suit in embracing a divestment agenda with regards to such companies.
Mira Hammad who attended the lecture and is the Chair of the LSE SU Palestine Society said after the protest, “The Palestine Society at LSE has grown in support since the atrocities committed in Gaza which explains the huge turnout tonight. We will continue to support the growing international resistance against the occupation of Palestine until a just peace is achieved.”
Merna Al Azzeh, a Palestinian masters student who was in the audience, added, “As an LSE student, I find it disgusting that LSE could invite a Minister to speak from a racist government that has been committing war crimes for the last 60 years.”
“The recent Goldstone Report overwhelmingly condemns the genocide waged against Gazan civilians last winter and as a Palestinian I am reassured by the growing international resistance to Israeli apartheid.”
Israelis Targeting Grassroots Activists: Israeli Occupation Archive
By Mel Frykberg, IPS News – 27 Oct 2009
EAST JERUSALEM, Oct 27 (IPS) – Israeli authorities are increasingly targeting and intimidating non-violent Palestinian grassroots activists involved in anti-occupation activities who are drawing increased support from the international community.
Several weeks ago masked Israeli soldiers stormed the home of Ehab Jallad from The Jerusalem Popular Committee for the Celebration of Jerusalem as the Capital of Arab Culture for 2009.
“Around 3am the soldiers started kicking and banging on the door and threatened to break it down if I didn’t open immediately. My young daughters were terrified as they didn’t know what was happening,” recalls Jallad, a young Palestinian architect from Jerusalem.
“The soldiers then proceeded to ransack my home before confiscating my laptop, several computers, files with my contacts and my ipod. When I asked them why they were doing this and told them I wanted to call my lawyer, they told me to shut up and threatened to beat me up,” Jallad told IPS.
This is just the latest incident in which the Israeli authorities have arrested and taken Jallad in for questioning over his organisation of cultural events marking East Jerusalem as the capital of Arab culture. Jallad has also been monitoring the protests outside Al-Aqsa Mosque during the last few weeks.
“The Israeli officer questioning me said he knew I was in contact with the media but stated this would not help. He further warned me that I was being monitored, and if I continued with my activities my family and I would be subjected to further raids and harassment,” said Jallad.
The same morning that Jallad was arrested Israeli security forces raided a warehouse used by Jerusalem community groups and cultural events organisers.
“They vandalised material we use for cultural events and confiscated other material,” Jallad told IPS.
To date Jallad has not been charged with anything. But a war between Palestinians and Israeli continues unabated over Israel’s continued Judaisation of East Jerusalem.
This has involved the expulsion of Palestinian residents from their homes in the eastern sector of the city and the expropriation thereof to make way for Israeli settlers.
A number of Palestinian families continue to live in tents pitched on streets outside their former homes as they watch Israeli settlers go about their daily business in their former homes.
Periodic violence between the two groups has broken out during the last few weeks with the Israeli police selectively arresting only Palestinians.
The Jerusalem Municipality has deliberately limited building permits for East Jerusalemites despite a chronic housing shortage, while the settlement of Israeli settlers in the area has been actively encouraged. Palestinian homes built without permits are regularly destroyed.
The Palestinian Authority (PA) envisions East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state. Under international law East Jerusalem is part of the Palestinian occupied West Bank.
The PA has tried to counter Israel’s Judaisation efforts by asserting its presence in the contested part of the city. Organising cultural events has been part of the effort.
Hatem Abdul Qader, a PA official for Jerusalem Affairs, has been arrested by Israeli security forces several times over the last few months. He has also been banned from the city for several weeks on a number of occasions.
Meanwhile, Muhammad Othman, 33, from the northern West Bank village Jayyous continues to languish in solitary confinement in a dirty Israel prison cell devoid of natural light or windows.
Othman has been labelled a “security threat” by the Israelis ever since his arrest on Sep. 22 as he crossed into the West Bank from Jordan. Othman had returned from a trip to Norway where he met with senior officials to discuss human rights abuses in the occupied Palestinian territories. The Norwegian government has divested its funds from Elbit, an Israeli company which supplies drones and other military technology.
During his incarceration Othman has been subjected to hours of interrogation, handcuffed, seated in stress positions and denied sleep. Like Jallad he has had no involvement in military activities which could constitute a security threat to the Jewish state. He too, has not been charged with any infringement of the law.
But Othman, a political activist, has been joining the Stop the Wall Campaign against the illegal Zufim settlement built by Russian billionaire Lev Leviev. The Stop the Wall Campaign is fighting against Israel’s construction of a separation barrier which separates Israel proper from the West Bank.
The wall cuts through swathes of Palestinian territory dividing Palestinians from their agricultural fields, and trapping some Palestinian communities in pockets of territory between Israel and the West Bank.
The wall was ruled illegal by the International Court at the Hague, and several years ago an Israeli high court ordered the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) to reroute parts of the wall, arguing that is compromised the livelihoods of Palestinian farmers.
Othman is also involved in the Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) campaign which has been drawing increased international support.
Othmans supporters believe his main “crimes” are his activities on behalf of the BDS which wants to see a boycott of Israel along the lines of the former boycott against apartheid South Africa.
“I think Israel is worried about its reputation amongst the international community now that more people are waking up to the human rights abuses and injustices being committed here,” Jallad told IPS.
“I think in some ways we are perceived as more of a threat than an armed cell of Hamas fighters precisely because we are non-violent and what we are fighting for is reasonable.”
Richard Goldstone: Response to the Berman–Ros-Lehtinen Resolution: Israeli Occupation Archive
By Richard Goldstone – 29 Oct 2009
Dear Chairman Berman and Ranking Member Ros-Lehtinen,
It has come to my attention that a resolution has been introduced in the Unites States House of Representatives regarding the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, which I led earlier this year.
I fully respect the right of the US Congress to examine and judge my mission and the resulting report, as well as to make its recommendations to the US Executive branch of government. However, I have strong reservations about the text of the resolution in question – text that includes serious factual inaccuracies and instances where information and statements are taken grossly out of context.
I undertook this fact-finding mission in good faith, just as I undertook my responsibilities vis à vis the South African Standing Commission of Inquiry Regarding Public Violence and Intimidation, the International War Crimes Tribunal on the former Yugoslavia, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, the International Panel of the Commission of Enquiry into the Activities of Nazism in Argentina, the Independent International Commission on Kosovo, and the Volker Committee investigation into the UN’s Iraq oil-for-food program in 2004/5.
I hope that you, in similar good faith, will take the time to consider my comments about the resolution and, as a result of that consideration, make the necessary corrections.
Whereas clause #2: “Whereas, on January 12, 2009, the United Nations Human Rights Council passed Resolution A/HRC/S-9/L.1, which authorized a `fact-finding mission’ regarding Israel’s conduct of Operation Cast Lead against violent militants in the Gaza Strip between December 27, 2008, and January 18, 2009; ”
This whereas clause ignores the fact that I and others refused this original mandate, precisely because it only called for an investigation into violations committed by Israel. The mandate given to and accepted by me and under which we worked and reported reads as follows:
“…to investigate all violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law that might have been committed at any time in the context of the military operations that were conducted in Gaza during the period from 27 December 2008 and 18 January 2009, whether before, during or after”.
Whereas clause #2: “Whereas the resolution prejudged the outcome of its investigation, by one- sidedly mandating the `fact-finding mission’ to `investigate all violations of international human rights law and International Humanitarian Law by … Israel, against the Palestinian people … particularly in the occupied Gaza Strip, due to the current aggression’”
This whereas clause ignores the fact that the expanded mandate that I demanded and received clearly included rocket and mortar attacks on Israel and as the report makes clear was so interpreted and implemented. It was the report carried out under this broadened mandate – not the original, rejected mandate – that was adopted by the Human Rights Council and that included the serious findings made against Hamas and other militant Palestinian groups.
Whereas clause #3: “Whereas the mandate of the `fact-finding mission’ makes no mention of the relentless rocket and mortar attacks, which numbered in the thousands and spanned a period of eight years, by Hamas and other violent militant groups in Gaza against civilian targets in Israel, that necessitated Israel’s defensive measures;”
This whereas clause is factually incorrect. As noted above, the expanded mandate clearly included the rocket and mortar attacks. Moreover, Chapter XXIV of the Report considers in detail the relentless rocket attacks from Gaza on Israel and the terror they caused to the people living within their range. The resulting finding made in the report is that these attacks constituted serious war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity.
Whereas clause #4: “Whereas the `fact-finding mission’ included a member who, before joining the mission, had already declared Israel guilty of committing atrocities in Operation Cast Lead by signing a public letter on January 11, 2009, published in the Sunday Times, that called Israel’s actions `war crimes’;”
This whereas clause is misleading. It overlooks, or neglects to mention, that the member concerned, Professor Christine Chinkin of the London School of Economics, in the same letter, together with other leading international lawyers, also condemned as war crimes the Hamas rockets fired into Israel.
Whereas clause 5: “Whereas the mission’s flawed and biased mandate gave serious concern to many United Nations Human Rights Council Member States which refused to support it, including Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cameroon, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, the Republic ofKorea, Slovakia, Slovenia, Switzerland, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland;”
This whereas clause is factually incorrect. The mandate that was given to the Mission was certainly not opposed by all or even a majority of the States to which reference is made. I am happy to provide further details if necessary.
Whereas clause #6: “Whereas the mission’s flawed and biased mandate troubled many distinguished individuals who refused invitations to head the mission;”
This whereas clause is factually incorrect. The initial mandate that was rejected by others who were invited to head the mission was the same one that I rejected. The mandate I accepted was expanded by the President of the Human Rights Council as a result of conditions I made.
Whereas clause #8: “Whereas the report repeatedly made sweeping and unsubstantiated determinations that the Israeli military had deliberately attacked civilians during Operation Cast Lead;”
This whereas clause is factually incorrect. The findings included in the report are neither “sweeping” nor “unsubstantiated” and in effect reflect 188 individual interviews, review of more than 300 reports, 30 videos and 1200 photographs. Additionally, the body of the report contains a plethora of references to the information upon which the Commission relied for our findings.
To read the whole reply by Goldstone, please use the link above
Zeev Sternhell: With a conscience that is always clear: Ha’aretz
The most interesting aspect of the debate surrounding the Goldstone report has attracted no attention. The cabinet and its supporters are dealing only with the question of damage control as far as image is concerned, and how to deflect international criticism. The question of what really happened in Gaza is considered to be tainted with anti-Semitism. The ever-quiet conscience of the average Israeli deflects the question effortlessly. But as time passes the legal aspect will be increasingly shunted aside, and it will be the moral dimension of the report that is etched in our consciousness and that of the world.
Everyone understands that the army’s opposition to a probe of the accusations against it can have only one reason: There is something to hide. There is a simple way to convince people that any further investigation is unnecessary. That is, of course, to publicize the the army’s own investigations. Publicity is one of the foundations of law. There is no reason to believe the army more than any other public body. Therefore, all that needs to be done is to present the material to the public.
But that coin has two sides. On the one hand, in principle everything is known. The directives handed down by the decision-making troika – the prime minister, the defense minister and the Israel Defense Forces chief of staff – were as clear as day. The army was to carry out its mission without losses and at the same time break the spirit of the Gazan population, punish it for the past and deter both militants and civilians from any future provocation. That is the other side of the problem, and Israel’s Achilles’ heel: The operation in Gaza was a campaign of punishment and intimidation. That is why Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi refuse to allow an investigation of the operational echelon. It is reasonable to assume that to every question a field commander is asked, he will respond that the mission was carried out in accordance with orders approved in advance by all the appropriate authorities. These include the military advocate general and the Justice Ministry, which it may be assumed was also involved. It is no coincidence that Daniel Friedmann, who was justice minister at the time of Operation Cast Lead, attacked the Goldstone report with a vengeance.
By the same token, all that is needed to counter the harsh and legitimate criticism is to respond to specific claims of war crimes. The sweeping claim that the IDF is completely irreproachable is no more persuasive than the self-righteous outbursts of anger by Israel’s leaders. Many people have been repulsed by the Israeli demand to change the rules of warfare. What is it that Israel wants? Permission to fearlessly attack defenseless population centers with planes, tanks and artillery? The likelihood that international institutions will accept this demand is practically nil.
The army will have to find the middle ground between the methods of the British in Northern Ireland, which focused on removing the terrorists from the general population, and the Israeli method of placing responsibility for terror on the entire population. It is this method that leads to horrors like the killing of children and the wiping out of entire families, not to mention the destruction of civilian infrastructure and the means for the population to earn its livelihood. Thus responsibility, both moral and political, devolves on Israel’s government and the top brass, which in any case has controlled the cabinet for many years. Sanctions are inevitable, and as usual the temptation to blame everything on the field command will be great. For now, this should be avoided. The primary responsibility is always that of those who loosened the reins. However, this does not absolve those who committed criminal acts, if there were any, of responsibility.
It is not the Goldstone report that has opened another painful phase in the erosion of Israel’s credibility, but rather the cavalier attitude here toward the heavy Palestinian losses. In broad circles of Western European and American intelligentsia – in the universities and among cultural and media figures – Israel arouses ever-deepening hostility.
To have friends is power, Thomas Hobbes said in the mid-17th century, but Israel’s friends are dwindling. Even those who remain, except for the usual mouthpieces, find it difficult to accept as legitimate the huge gap between the capabilities of the two sides. Most cannot understand the clear conscience of “the only democracy in the Middle East,” which does not hesitate to hold an entire people under occupation and siege, and at the same time punctiliously presents itself as always, in any situation, as the innocent victim of the hostile gentiles.
