It’s about time that the Goldstone/UnitedNations 2009 report of the Israel-Hamas war, is recognized as having been misguided (the lengthy report, sounding as though it was meticulously researched, improperly damned Israel for attacking Gaza, claiming that Israel targeted civilians after years of Hamas rockets targeting and hitting Israeli settlements in Israel’s Negev). As you likely know by now, the Goldstone/U.N. Report has effectively been reversed by the Goldstone apology published April 1 (this past Friday) in the Washington Post. It’s not known whether the U.N. will apologize, but based upon its past attitudes it will not (a deputy spokesman said yesterday that it would be up to member nations to decide whether to re-evaluate the report, this despite the fact that Goldstone had written but now disavowed it)!
All those who followed Israel’s response to years of Hamas attacks upon its southern civilians (in January 2009) may recall the relentless and damning media reports. Reuters, the New York Times, NPR and other mainstream media outlets, all reported roughly 1,000 civilians killed, with the anti-Israel atmosphere in the West reaching an unprecedented level. There was no evidence whatsoever to support the 1,000 number, but the absence of proof did not deter the press! And when UN-appointed judge Richard Goldstone concluded in September ’09 that Israel was guilty of “systematic and deliberate” targeting of civilians, with his increased estimate of 1,400 civilians killed which was proof of ‘war crimes’, it was icing on the cake for the world’s anti-Israelites.
Israel representatives continued to insist that the number of civilians was far lower than reported, and that many of those had been used by Hamas as human shields. One of America’s most prominent lawyers, Alan Dershowitz, investigated and analyzed the situation in parallel with Israel’s own continuiung analyses, proved that the accusations had been nonsense, but most of the world still sided with Goldstone.
In the shocking reversal this past Friday, Goldstone retracted his central allegations against the State of Israel.
In dry prose that belies the drama of the situation, Goldstone wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post, entitled “Reconsidering the Goldstone Report on Israel and War Crimes.”
Here’s a summary of what Goldstone had to say on Friday about what he originally dubbed Israel’s “war against the people of Gaza as a whole.”
The allegations of intentionality by Israel were based on the deaths of and injuries to civilians in situations where our fact-finding mission had no concrete evidence…. the investigations published by the Israeli military and recognized in the U.N. committee’s report have established the validity of some incidents that we investigated in cases involving individual soldiers, but they also indicate that civilians were not intentionally targeted, as a matter of policy (italics are mine)!
Goldstone originally lent credence to the claim of 1,400 killed, with over 80 percent of them (over 1100) women and children, while Israel claimed the numbers were 709 combatants and 295 civilians. At last, more power to him, he now acknowledges that Israel was right and he was wrong; a little late, but better late than never. He now admits that the U.N.’s “Human Rights Council” (!) has a “history of bias against Israel which cannot be doubted”! He acknowledges that he and his investigators worked on his report under Hamas’ auspices, and thus came up with the conclusion that the destruction of infrastructure could only be construed as intentional…”was designed to punish, humiliate and terrorize a civilian population…”
Mr. Goldstone now retracts that, admitting that there was then no evidence otherwise, but that now there is evidence that civilians were not intentionally harmed!
As mentioned, Goldstone was not alone in 2009. I’m particularly irked by The New York Times (once upon a time, a great and impartial newspaper) which despite not possessing a shred of evidence, demonstrated its un-researched and opinionated reporting in 3/09, by publishing the following op-ed:
“Speaking of violence, it’s worth recalling what Israel did in Gaza in response to sporadic Hamas rockets. It killed upward of 1,300 people, many of them women and children; caused damage estimated at $1.9 billion; and destroyed thousands of Gaza homes. It continues a radicalizing blockade on 1.5 million people squeezed into a narrow strip of land.
At this vast human, material and moral price, Israel achieved almost nothing beyond damage to its image throughout the world. Israel has the right to hit back when attacked, but any response should be proportional and governed by sober political calculation. The Gaza war was a travesty; I have never previously felt so shamed by Israel’s actions.”
It would be nice to hear the New York Times follow Goldstone’s recant, by acknowledging its own author’s multiple errors in 2009, together with an apology for its own sloppy editorial standards. In today’s Times, it relegates its article of Goldstone’s admission to its page 10, and does not mention its embarrasing op-ed which without a shred of evidence, joined the anti-Israel bandwagon. Now that Goldstone has admitted his error, it will be interesting to note whether the Times will follow suit in one of its own editorials!
But in fact, its 4/3/11 article is further proof of the Times’ lack of critical review of its own articles. It still goes out of its way to remind us that as many as 1400 Gazans were killed vs. 13 Israelis (in a separate sentence it notes that the dead included hundreds of civilians) ; and that graphic images of human suffering were broadcast all over the world.
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