Rozenman is wrong about Israeli settlements

Posted on by
Reply

Every once in a while, an article is published regarding Israel’s colonisation of Palestine, and how it isn’t really illegal after all. Normally they are filtered out as noise, but sometimes they take a prime time spot and require some fisking.

I was introduced to the article by CifWatch, a blog dedicated to promoting anti-Arab racism and devaluing the term “anti-Semitism”. I mention CifWatch’s introduction if only because it is amusing:

“Eric Rozenman, the Washington DC director of CAMERA, in an essay published today…concludes that settlements are not, in fact, illegal under international law.”

CAMERA, for those of you not aware, forms part of what we quaintly term “The Israel Lobby”. So the introduction from CifWatch is as ridiculous as writing:

“Pope Francis, the the newly elected head of the Catholic Church, in an essay published today…concludes that God, in fact, exists.”

In other words, Rozenman would not be able to hold the position he does without being able to make arguments for Israel. Now before I am accused of bashing CAMERA, I should say that I like them. Their corrections are often very factual (if biased and selective), well sourced and well argued. This, however, is one of those occasions were ideology forces Mr Rozenman to write something foolish.

Rozenman’s first assertion:

“The San Remo Treaty of 1920, in which the victorious World War I allies dealt with the remnants of the defeated Ottoman Turkish Empire, created an entity called Palestine along both sides of the Jordan River. The powers intended it as the land on which Great Britain would turn its 1917 Balfour Declaration from aspiration to reality, assisting the Zionist movement in re-establishing the Jewish national home.”

Hmmm, this is certainly a very selective interpretation of events.

Palestine of often referred to as “The Thrice Promised Land”, and there is some truth to this. Over the course of 1915/1916, via their High Commissioner in Egypt, the government of Great Britain entered into a legally binding agreement with the Sharif of Mecca which promised an area of land for Arab independence, an area of land which, according to the British Foreign Office, included Palestine.

In 1917, in a letter to a private British citizen published in a newspaper, Lord Balfour expressed the British Government’s support for the notion of creating a Jewish national home in Palestine, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine.

Note that the declaration speaks of a Jewish national home in Palestine, not a Jewish state over all of Palestine. It’s important to note also that anything which prejudiced the civil and religious rights of the indigenous non-Jews would be contravening the Balfour declaration, and hence the mandate into which it was incorporated.

There was also a French interest in Palestine, stemming from the Sykes-Picot agreement.

So we have three competing claims on Palestine.

So what of democracy? Well, it was a non-starter. Palestine was 93% non-Jewish in 1917 when Lord Balfour callously rode roughshod over the will of the indigenous majority. It is simple mathematics, if the British had allowed for democratic rule in 1917, it would have got in the way of British plans for Jewish colonisation of Palestine, or in Churchill’s words – “the creation at this stage of a national Government would preclude the fulfilment of the pledge made by the British Government to the Jewish people”.

Britain certainly has form in this area, an established track record of supporting white, minority rule in former colonies. Balfour, for example, supported minority rule in Ireland because he viewed the protestant, unionist minority as superior to the catholic nationalists. He also told Parliament in 1909 when the South Africa Act was being debated:

“All men are, from some points of view, equal; but, to suppose that the races of Africa are in any sense the equals of men of European descent, so far as government, as society, as the higher interests of civilisation are concerned, is really, I think, an absurdity which every man who seriously looks at this most difficult problem must put out of his mind if he is to solve the problem at all”

Britain duly supported white, European minority rule in South Africa after independence, and was quite happy to see the 3% white, European minority rule over the 97% black majority in the British colony of Southern Rhodesia.

Rozenman’s summary of Article 6 is very selective. Article 6 of the Mandate reads as follows:

“The Administration of Palestine, while ensuring that the rights and position of other sections of the population are not prejudiced, shall facilitate Jewish immigration under suitable conditions and shall encourage, in co-operation with the Jewish agency referred to in Article 4, close settlement by Jews on the land, including State lands and waste lands not required for public purposes.” [Emphasis mine]

So whilst Mr Rozenman wants you to come away with the belief that Article 6 gives carte blanche for Jewish colonisation across Palestine, it clearly does not. The suggestion that annexing and colonising Palestinian land does not prejudice the rights and positions of the indigenous Arabs is a pretty cold one. And suggesting that colonising another state classes as “under suitable conditions” is also a very tough sell.

Rozenman’s invocation of Article 80 of the UN charter is similarly flawed. Whilst he is correct in his citation, he is conveniently ignoring an important word, which I will highlight: “nothing in this Chapter shall be construed in or of itself to alter in any manner the rights whatsoever of any states or any peoples or the terms of existing international instruments to which Members of the United Nations may respectively be parties”.

Existing. When the UN Charter was crafted in 1945, the Mandate was still functioning. Britain terminated the mandate in 1948 – it was no longer an “existing international instrument”, therefore article 80 no longer applies. It is also worth noting that, as stated in Article 80, nothing in the UN Charter may alter “the rights of any states or any peoples” – not only Israel and not only Jews. Palestinians have an undeniable right to self determination, and the state of Palestine (as recognised by the UN) has a right to territorial integrity. Article 80 protects Palestinian rights, it does not detract from them.

Rozenman then goes on, bizarrely,  to invoke UNSC resolutions 242 and 338 as being in support of Israeli colonisation. Resolution 242 stresses the inadmissibility of territory acquired by war, and as commentary by its author explained, the intention was to negotiate minor and mutual land swaps, guided by the inadmissibility principle to rationalise the border. The intention was never to have Israel acquire territory by war.

The next points regarding Article 4 of the Geneva conventions can only be described as quite desperate. He states that “Mr. Ban’s recent statements on settlements were echoing a report by the obsessively anti-Israel U.N. Human Rights Council.” No. This is part dishonesty, part misdirection.

Mr Ban’s statements are echoing the position of every single institution of international law. Nothing less. There is no controversy on this.

In a fit of dishonesty, he then goes on to state that the 4th Geneva Convention “was adopted to prevent crimes like the Nazi deportations of European Jews from conquered countries to death camps.”

Let’s be specific. Colonisation of occupied territory contravenes Article 49, which states that “[t]he Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.” It’s pretty clear. And according to the commentary, it was not adopted to protect Jews from being transferred to death camps, as Mr Rozenman suggests, rather:

“It is intended to prevent a practice adopted during the Second World War by certain Powers, which transferred portions of their own population to occupied territory for political and racial reasons or in order, as they claimed, to colonize those territories. Such transfers worsened the economic situation of the native population and endangered their separate existence as a race.” [Emphasis mine]

Again, this is the position of every single institution of international law, and, incidentally, it was the position of Israel’s own legal adviser in 1967.

With regards to how Israel came to be the military occupier of Palestine, Rozenman suggests that Israel “gained the territories in 1967 in a war of self-defense.” I will ignore the obvious point regarding the “war of self-defence” and concentrate on what he means by “gained”-  it is a fundamental principle of international law that states cannot acquire territory by war. This is stressed by the resolution (242) that Rozenman cites. Israel did not “gain” Palestine, it became the military occupier – which is, by definition, a temporary situation.

Whilst Mr Rozenman’s article does not hold water, it does serve as a useful foil to explore some of the techniques used to obfuscate what is a trivial and uncontroversial aspect of international law.

I do not believe that Nasser wanted war

Posted on by
Reply

Rabin and Clinton

The second in my series on accurate scholarship, we are looking at a quote from Yitshak Rabin. Again, it is a well known quote within the debates surrounding the 1967 war:

I do not believe that Nasser wanted war. The two divisions that he sent in Sinai on the 14th of May were not enough to launch an offensive against Israel. He knew it and we knew it.

The citation given is “Le Monde, 29th February, 1968″. Again, the quote is accurate and genuine. I’ve added the entire article here.

To Add a little more context around the quote, there are two main topics covered in the article. The first being that in Rabin’s view, Nasser was an unwilling participant in the war. His actions were designed to save face, or as Rabin put it, “to take the opportunity to show himself as the savior of Syria and thereby win the sympathy of the Arab world”. He was under fierce criticism for appearing to be hiding behind the international forces.

The second, arguably more interesting point relates to the culpability of the United Nations in helping start the conflict. As the interviewer suggests, Nasser asked the UN to redeploy its peace keeping force into Gaza and Charm-El-Cheikh, which would have left the UN in control of the entrance to the Aqaba Gulf. UN Secretary General U Thant refused, insisting that either the troops remained where they were or they are removed entirely. As he was on a face saving exercise, Nasser chose the latter.

This meant that Nasser was now reluctantly in control of the Aqaba Gulf. To not lose face again, he announces the closure of the Gulf to Israeli flagged vessels. To show the thinking of the time, the interviewer notes that “[t]he partial blockade imposed on Aqaba did not constitute a matter of life or death for Israel which could be assured of supply by Haifa, as it was the case in 1956.” Rabin responds in a manner consistent with other Israeli leaders in saying that the closure represented, in their view, a casus belli.

This misjudgement by U Thant is covered in detail by Indar Jit Rikhye, who was the military adviser to the United Nations Secretary General at the time of the crisis, in his book “The Sinai Blunder: Withdrawal of the United Nations Emergency Force Leading to the Six-Day War of June 1967.” We now know a few important facts about the “closure”:

  1. Israel made virtually no use of the Straits, which were traversed by less than 5% of Israeli shipping.
  2. The primary commodity brought in through Eilat was oil, of which Israel had ample stockpiles, and which could easily have been rerouted via Haifa (as noted by the interviewer)
  3. The closure applied only to Israeli flagged vessels. An Israeli flagged vessel hadn’t used the Straits in two years.
  4. The closure never actually happened, it’s a myth. The U.A.R navy searched a few vessels in the first couple of days, after which any notion of a blockade was abandoned.

Indar Jit Rikhye’s detailed account of the event neatly punctures the myth of the “closure” of the Straits of Tiran being a casus belli. And the Le Monde article reinforces the notion that there was simply no perceived threat from Nasser’s bluff in the Sinai.

Enhanced by Zemanta

We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him.

Posted on by
Reply

Menachem BeginThere are many quotations used in the battle of narratives between Israelis and Palestinians. Some are accurate, some inaccurate. Some illuminating, some out of context –  and some entirely fabricated. In the race to score points, the veracity of these quotations is not often considered.

As part of a series on accurate scholarship, I am going to look at specific, well known quotations and examine their utility. I am going to begin with a series of quotations most often used in relation to Israel’s culpability (or lack thereof) with regards to the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

Today’s quotation is from Menachem Begin :

In June 1967 we again had a choice. The Egyptian army concentrations in the Sinai approaches do not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him.

The first question we should ask is this – is the quotation accurate? In this case, yes it is. The quote is taken from a speech given by Begin to the graduating class of the IRE National Defense College in 1982. I have added the source in full here.

The second question we should ask pertains to the context.

The speech (at least the section reproduced by the MFA), which is a brilliant piece of propaganda has but a single purpose – to justify the Israeli attack in 1967. There is no doubting that the Israelis felt justified in attacking, but objectively one should focus not on whether they felt justified, but on whether they were justified.

As is reasonably common with Zionist propaganda, Begin is quick to draw analogies between, Hitler, the Nazis, World War II and the 1967 war. His argument being that World War II could have been averted had France sent two divisions “into the demilitarized Rhineland”. The analogy Begin is making is that Nasser is Hitler, the Arab armies the Nazis and so on.

The quotation we’re looking at is used, correctly in my view, to support the thesis that Israeli leaders did not seriously believe in an imminent threat from the Arab armies. This is consistent with admissions from other Israeli leaders who were involved in one way or another in the 1967 war. It cannot, however, be used to support the thesis that Israeli leaders admit to launching a war of aggression.

 

 

Arafat and the Polonium Thesis

Posted on by
1

When al Jazeera published the “bombshell” of their research into Arafat’s death, the reception was almost completely predictable. The pro-Palestinian camp seem to have already concluded that Arafat was poisoned with Polonium 210. The anti-Palestinian camp have already concluded that the Polonium was planted.

As I am fond of doing, it may be wise to review the science and see what is and isn’t supported. The radiological analysis was conducted independently by the Institute of Radiation Physics (IRA) in Lausanne. They received Arafat’s belongings from the University Centre of Legal Medicine (CURML) and was asked to analyse them for possible traces of Polonium poisoning. Their report is here.

The Polonium Thesis alleges that Arafat was poisoned with Polonium 210, and this is what killed him. There are two main problems with this:

1. If we assume a similar dosage to that of the russian journalist Mr Litvinenko, then the residual levels of radioactivity are simply too high, they should have been much lower. Mr Litvinenko received between 10 and 200 times the median lethal dose of what is a very expensive, very hard-to-come-by poison. To support the poisoning theory, Arafat would needed a much, MUCH higher dose in order to explain the current levels of radioactivity.

It is possible, but strikes me as unlikely. Polonium 210 isn’t particularly dangerous when it is outside the body. It’s a basic alpha emitter, so it spits out a Helium-4 nucleus every time it decays. Alpha particle are blocked by a sheet of paper, our clothes, our skin – they are not dangerous.

Polonium is VERY dangerous though if it were to be ingested or inhaled. Any Polonium used as a poison would have had to have been in suspension, which would, when opened, have produced a toxic vapour which others around him would probably have inhaled. Given that it takes only 50 nanograms to kill someone, it would take only miniscule amounts to make someone ill with radiation poisoning. Given the high dosage that would have been required to support the current levels of radioactivity, it strikes me as odd that no such reports of radiation sickness were reported.

2. Polonium 210 is also a gamma emitter. This means it also spits out a gamma photon when it decays. Given the high levels of dosage required to support current levels of radioactivity, one would have expected these gamma decays to have been seen when the “Laboratoire de contrôle radiotoxicologique des Armées” performed gamma spectrometry analysis of Arafats urine on 8/11/2004. The Lausanne team went over the raw data from that spectrometry analysis and concluded that it did not show the presence of Polonium 210. As a lone data point, it is explainable (faulty equipment, user error, government conspiracy etc) but it certainly lends some support to the suggestion that Arafat did not die of Polonium 210 poisoning.

These are the two main sticking points for the Polonium thesis.

The counter-thesis, namely that the Polonium was planted is not without its problems. Here are the issues as I see them:

1. As far as I know, Arafat’s belongings have remained in the custody of the University Centre of Legal Medicine and were not released back to his widow. This raises the question of “how” any such planting might have occured. It would have required access, which would tend to suggest high level support for the plot or a recruited asset at the University Centre of Legal Medicine.

2. If the Polonium was planted, it was expertly planted. It’s not a case of giving his belongings a quick shake of some Polonium dust, the Polonium has been introduced in all the right places, in a way that did not raise the suspicions of one of the best forensic laboratories in the world. If it was planted, this might suggest that the person who planted it was skilled in forensic science and might have been an asset at the University Centre of Legal Medicine.

3. The source of the Polonium. Where did it come from? Whilst Polonium can be bought without a license in tiny, safe amounts – to get the quantities we’re talking about, it would require a lot of money and the right technology – i.e. the support of one of the major nuclear states, probably Russia/France/Israel/US. So even if it was planted, which nuclear power backed the plot to plant it? And why?

4. Why go to the trouble, risk and expense of planting Polonium on his possessions if you’re not also going to plant it on his body? An analysis of his body was obviously going to be called for – what is to be gained? The discrediting of al Jazeera? To what end? To discredit supporters of the Polonium thesis? Has it also been planted on his body?

So neither proposition is without its problems. Currently it makes very little sense. Depending on the direction the wind is blowing I change my mind over which thesis is least probable. The numbers make poisoning seem unlikely, but the counter thesis seems highly improbable too. Their is a lot of circumstantial evidence in support of the Polonium thesis. The finger of blame is already pointing at Sharon, but circumstantial evidence doee not a case make.

Will wait patiently for further analysis.

Enhanced by Zemanta

The Chutzpah of Clinton in Cambodia

Posted on by
Reply

I had to crack a smile this morning as I read this AP article at the Washington Post about Clinton’s trip to Cambodia.

The article’s author regurgitates, seemingly straight faced, these words by Mrs Clinton:

…we do have an interest in…the maintenance of peace and stability [and] respect for international law…

She went on to add, again without any hint of Irony:

[countries should] work collaboratively and diplomatically to resolve disputes without coercion, without intimidation, without threats and without use of force

One has to be impressed by Clinton’s cheek. Especially given the war rhetoric being directed from the US towards Iran.

Dershowitz on Hamas and the Gaza Police

Posted on by
Reply

A week or so ago, everyone’s friend, Alan Dershowitz published a propaganda piece called “Finally, a Hamas Leader Admits That Israel Killed Mostly Combatants In Gaza“.

I looked at this “news” when it first started doing the rounds at the beginning of November. You can find the original article here. I checked the translation and debated the content with several people but never went any further since it kind of ran out of steam. Now that Dersh has picked it up, it might be wise to dismantle the lies more publicly.

Figures from B’Tselem, the UN Fact Finding Mission and other NGOs put the death toll of the Gaza massacre at approximately 1400, with 1000 of those deaths being civilians. The official IDF figures are 1166 dead with 295 being civilians. Part of the disparity comes from the classification of Gaza’s police force, but I will come on to that in a moment.

So what has Dersh in a flap? In the interview, Fathi Hammad (a senior member of Hamas) says the following (taken from Dersh’s article):

“It has been said that the people were harmed by the war, but is Hamas not part of the people? It is a fact that on the first day of the war Israel struck police headquarters and killed 250 members of Hamas and the various factions, in addition to the 200-300 operatives from the [Izz al-Din] al-Qassam Brigades. In addition, 150 security personnel were killed, and the rest were from people. (The original text of the interview in Arabic, as reprinted in the Hamas newspaper Felesteen, can be found on the website of the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center. It was also reported by Agence France Presse)

“Aha!” exclaims the “Professor”. It is the policy of Israel to categorise the Gaza police force as combatants, rather than civilians. In the eyes of Monsieur Dershowitz, this is the proof he needs.

So let’s take a look at where his “arguments” predictably fall to pieces;

First of all, it is widely known in Palestine, and especially in Gaza, that many of Gaza’s police are policemen by day, militants by night. As far as I’m aware, this isn’t challenged by anyone who is serious.

Secondly, and as is often the case for Israel, it finds itself running up against International Humanitarian Law. To see why, we need to ask and answer an important question:

Gaza’s Police: Civilian or Combatant?

Gaza’s police force is wholly distinct from Hamas’ armed wing, the ‘Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades (operationally and otherwise). They have the same uniforms and pretty much the same chain of command that existed under Fatah. Indeed, the commander of the police, Tawfiq Jabr, who was killed by Israel on the first day of the massacre, was a Fatah man, a career policeman who had supervised the arrest of Hamas operatives during the Oslo period.

The conflict with Gaza is an International Armed Conflict, and Gaza is occupied territory. As such the occupying powers are subject to the Geneva Conventions. It is clear under these provisions that Gaza’s police are civilians as they do not class as combatants under either the Geneva Conventions  or under Art. 50 of Additional Protocol I. In fact, an argument could easily be made that even members of the ‘Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades also fail to meet the criteria for combatant status.

At the beginning of 2009, the BBC ran an article entitled “Gaza Conflict: Who is a Civilian” in which ”The IDF says it has intelligence that members of the police force often “moonlight” with rocket squads, but has given no details about the specific sites or individuals targeted.” Although I have only anecdotal proof (and the statement from Hammad) from speaking with Palestinians, it seems entirely probable that some members of Gaza’s police, at least on occasion, engage in militant activity at night, whether with Hamas or other factions. It is also clear from the perspective of International Humanitarian Law that civilians become legitimate targets if, and only if they are taking a direct part in hostilities. According to the ICRC commentary on AP I, hostile acts are “acts which by their nature and purpose are intended to cause actual harm to the personnel and equipment of the armed forces.”

In the targeted killings case, the Israeli Supreme Court stated that in addition to attacks against Israel’s armed forces, the term “hostile acts” ”applies also to hostilities against the civilian population of the state.” This is a common sense view that I agree with. So it is clear that a Hamas fighter, in taking up arms with the intention of attacking Israel is committing a hostile act and is a legitimate target.

There are, as always, important caveats. Only the members of the police who engage in hostile acts are legitimate targets, not the police force as a whole. Israel has the legal obligation to distinguish. Other police officers would continue to be civilians and should be counted as such when assessing disproportionate loss of civilian life.

Additionally, civilians who commit hostile acts lose their protection (and become legitimate targets) only “for such time” as they take a direct part in hostilities. In other words, while a policeman is undertaking his civilian role, discharging his civilian duties, he is classed as (and protected as) a civilian. If he directly participates in hostilities, he becomes a combatant only during his participation in said acts. This provision (the temporality clause) is provided under 51(3) of Additional Protocol I. Israel is not a signatory to AP I and the Israeli government takes the view that this provision is not part of customary international law. The Israeli Supreme Court (again, in the Targeted Killings case) ruled that this provision is part of customary international law, and as such is binding upon Israel.

Conclusion

So unfortunately for the “Professor”, International Humanitarian Law is quite clear. The policeman that were killed during the Gaza massacre were in their civilian roles, discharging their civilian duties. They were not directly participating in hostilities: they were civilians.

The figures still stand. 1400 dead, 1000 civilians.

Goldstone – I Want To Believe

Posted on by
1

On 3 April 2009, the President of the Human Rights Council established the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict with the mandate “to investigate all violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law” during the military operation referred to by the Israeli government, and most of the mainstream media as “Operation Cast Lead”.

The Mission comprised of a panel of 3 respected experts, as described in the report:

  • “Professor Christine Chinkin, Professor of International Law at the London School of Economicsand Political Science, who was a member of the high-level fact-finding mission to Beit Hanoun(2008)”
  • “Ms. Hina Jilani, Advocate of the Supreme Court of Pakistan and former SpecialRepresentative of the Secretary-General on the situation of human rights defenders, who was amember of the International Commission of Inquiry on Darfur (2004)
  • “Colonel Desmond Travers, a former Officer in Ireland’s Defence Forces and member of the Board of Directors ofthe Institute for International Criminal Investigations”

The Mission was chaired by a prominent and respected South African jurist, Judge Richard Goldstone. Judge Goldstone was widely known for his role as “chief prosecutor of the U.N. International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda”.

The report it produced found that both the Israeli and Palestinian sides had committed possible war crimes and crimes against humanity. The 22 day assault itself was almost completely one-sided, with most of the violence being meted out by Israel’s armed forces and so unsurprisingly, the report reflects that insomuch as Hamas barely featured in the conflict.

Violations of international humanitarian and human rights law committed by Israel were generally divided into two classes; individual instances of possible crimes such as the use of human shields or the targeting of civilians by individual soldiers, and evidence of high-level criminal policies such as the targeting of  civilian infrastructure or the use of White Phosphorous in civilian areas. Israel refused to cooperate with the Mission from the outset, blocking access of the investigators to Israeli officials.

There have been numerous reports into the assault on Gaza by international humanitarian organisations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. These reports not only confirmed the Mission’s findings, but often went further in terms of the depth of investigation and the conclusions they drew. In fact, of all the independent reports into the conflict, the U.N.’s Fact Finding Mission (FFM) was by far the tamest and the most cautious of them all.

When published, the report was widely condemned and/or dismissed by Israel’s supporters as biased. What was particularly interesting in the response to the FFM was the level of attack it sustained from the Israeli-right. If it was the tamest and most cautious of all the reports, why did it attract the most attention?

The answer lies in the chair of the Mission, Judge Goldstone. With international humanitarian organisations such as Amnesty or Human Rights Watch,  Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs simply dismisses them as biased then ignores them. But it was very hard for Israel to make this accusation against Goldstone since he is a proud Zionist Jew who comes from a family of Zionist activists and who has, in his words “lived his entire life for Israel”. In other words, he was propaganda proof. Web sites sprang up dedicated to attacking the report, op-eds were written.  The knives were out. He lost his honorary membership of the Board of Governors of Hebrew University, he was even forced not to attend his own grandson’s bar mitzvah because South African Zionists had threatened to picket the occasion if he was there. He has been comprehensively vilified by the Israel-right.

In spite of all the attacks he has suffered on his character, his commitment to Israel hasn’t wavered. He said from the outset that he hoped to be proven wrong. A couple of days ago, against this backdrop of vilification, the beleaguered Goldstone wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post which I suspect he hopes will bring an end to his excommunication. The piece has been seized upon by the Israeli-right, announcing that he has “admitted he was wrong” and also that Israel would launch a new initiative to have the FFM withdrawn.

With Israel’s supporters joyous, and their detractors puzzled, it’s important to see what impact, if any this has on the documentary record, especially since virtually no attention has been given by the corporate media to what he has actually said.

I will now review his op-ed, and contrast his statements with the documentary record:

The final report by the U.N. committee of independent experts — chaired by former New York judge Mary McGowan Davis — that followed up on the recommendations of the Goldstone Report has found that “Israel has dedicated significant resources to investigate over 400 allegations of operational misconduct in Gaza” while “the de facto authorities (i.e., Hamas) have not conducted any investigations into the launching of rocket and mortar attacks against Israel.”

The U.N. Committee was set up, on the recommendation of the FFM to “to establish a committee of independent experts in international humanitarian and human rights laws to monitor and assess any domestic, legal or other proceedings undertaken by both the Government of Israel and the Palestinian side, in the light of General Assembly resolution 64/254, including the independence, effectiveness, genuineness of these investigations and their conformity with international standards”. The report is available here – and I encourage you to read it to form your own opinions on whether it backs up Goldstone’s claims.

His comments on Hamas are spot on, they have not lifted a finger to take seriously the grave crimes of which they were accused of committing. And whilst Israel has indeed dedicated significant resources to the report, it is the independence, effectiveness and genuineness of the investigations which the Committee is mandated to assess.

While 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, they also indicate that civilians were not intentionally targeted as a matter of policy.

This is a clever sleight-of-hand by the South African. A casual reader would come away from reading this paragraph thinking that the U.N. Committee had indicated that civilians were not intentionally targeted as a  matter of policy. This is not the case – a careful reading indicates that he is referring to reports published by the Israeli military, not by the Committee. In fact, the Committee found evidence of high-level decisions to target areas in which civilians were known to be.

Goldstone continues:

For example, the most serious attack the Goldstone Report focused on was the killing of some 29 members of the al-Simouni 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. While the length of this investigation is frustrating, it appears that an appropriate process is underway, and I am confident that if the officer is found to have been negligent, Israel will respond accordingly.

The al-Simouni killings were among the most serious incidents in investigated by the FFM. It is very concerning that Judge Goldstone has chosen to misrepresent the Committee’s report in such a dishonest fashion. Not only was the Military Advocate General’s (MAG) decision to investigate opposed by the then Head of the IDF Southern Command, the report indicates that there is evidence to suggest that the officer who called in the strike was well aware of the presence of civilians, notably because the same unit had already warned the civilians in the area. The Committee also stated that the same officer gave the order to prevent ambulances from tending the wounded, a fact neglected by Judge Goldstone in his op-ed.

Goldstone’s faith in Israel to “respond accordingly” is not shared by the Committee, which expressed concern over Israel’s lack of appropriate response across the board. For example, when considering the case of the IDF’s use of Palestinian children as human shields, it noted the cases of two soldiers who were convicted, demoted and given a 3 months suspended sentence. The judge in their cases apparently took into account that “the soldiers did not seek to degrade or humiliate the boy” – a notion, the Committee went on to say, that was difficult to square with his deliberate use as a human shield by the soldiers. The Committee went on to contrast the punishment for human shielding (3 months suspended sentence) with the punishment of a soldier who stole a credit card in Gaza, who received seven and a half months. A disparity which casts doubt on Judge Goldstone’s “faith” in Israel’s justice system where Palestinians are involved – unless we can honestly claim that stealing a credit card is more serious than using a terrified 9 year old boy as a human shield.

Goldstone then indulges in what can be best described as more sleight-of-hand, by borrowing from a more recent bit of hasbara that I have covered previously:

Israel’s lack of cooperation with our investigation meant that we were not able to corroborate how many Gazans killed were civilians and how many were combatants. The Israeli military’s numbers have turned out to be similar to those recently furnished by Hamas (although Hamas may have reason to inflate the number of its combatants)

He is referring to a statement by Fathi Hammad (a senior Hamas member) who said that many of the members of the police force in Gaza were members of Hamas and other factions. As I wrote when I covered it here, the fact that members of the Gaza police are often policemen by day, militants by night in no way green-lights Israel to attack the entire of the Gazan police force. Additionally, under international humanitarian law, specifically article 51(3) of Additional Protocols I of the Geneva Conventions (the temporality clause), people that have dual function (civilian and combatant) are classed and protected as civilians while discharging their civilian duties, and only become legitimate military targets when in their combatant role. Israel’s decision to assault Gaza’s civilian police force shows clear intentionality in this respect.

It is worth noting that the Israeli Supreme Court as already upheld the notion that this law (specifically the temporality clause) applies to Israel.

I insisted on changing the original mandate adopted by the Human Rights Council, which was skewed against Israel. I have always been clear that Israel, like any other sovereign nation, has the right and obligation to defend itself and its citizens against attacks from abroad and within.

I have consistently maintained that in ignoring the illegality of Israel’s assault, and ignoring the point that as belligerent occupier Israel has only the right of belligerent reprisals (as opposed to blanket assaults), the FFM was systematically biased in Israel’s favour as it served to shift the focus onto the proportionality of Israel’s assault, rather than its right to that assault in the first instance. This further debate on proportionality and intentionality only serves to enforce that bias. Put bluntly, Israel has the right to eliminate specific threats, but it does not have the right to launch assaults against civilians and civilian infrastructure.

Indeed, our main recommendation was for each party to investigate, transparently and in good faith, the incidents referred to in our report. McGowan Davis has found that Israel has done this to a significant degree

Goldstone’s charge that the Committee believes to a “significant degree” that Israel has investigated its conduct “transparently and in good faith” is a flat out lie, there’s no other way of representing it.

With regards to transparency, the Committee specifically said that the “issue of the transparency of Israel’s investigations is a concern that has been highlighted by a number of different sources and appears to be a matter of some dispute.” Further, the Committee’s report continues – “the Committee received detailed, case-specific information concerning requests for information by different organizations – the great majority of which have gone unanswered. This situation raises serious questions concerning the effective implementation of the MAG’s reported policy to assure transparency into the investigation process.”

With regards to the Committee’s view on Israel’s “good faith”, the Committee’s report specifically noted that the Military Advocate General’s “dual responsibilities as legal advisor to the Chief of Staff and other military authorities, and his role as supervisor of criminal investigations within the military, raise concerns in the present context given allegations in the FFM report that those who designed, planned, ordered, and oversaw the operation in Gaza were complicit in international humanitarian law and international human rights law violations.” The report also recalls “that the MAG himself, in his testimony to the Turkel Commission, pointed out that the military investigations system he heads is not a viable mechanism to investigate and assess high-level policy decisions.” Is this what Judge Goldstone refers to as “good faith” investigations?

There is a reason why issues such as this are investigated and reported on by committees, rather than individuals. Assembling a team of experts forces the committee to act out of consensus, it drastically reduces the possibility that a member can make unsubstantiated claims, or go off on a partisan tangent. The requirement for committee reporting has been ably demonstrated by Judge Goldstone who has tarnished his record by indulging in what can best be described as self-serving propaganda.

I remain convinced that Goldstone was the right man to chair the FFM. His record spoke for itself. As his excommunication and vilification at the hands of his fellow Zionists has taken its toll, we’ve seen him gradually shifting away from the report assembled by him and the expert panel. He openly stated that he wanted to be proved wrong, and there is nothing wrong with that. It speaks volumes of the man that as a “proud Zionist Jew”, he was able to document Israel’s crimes in Gaza impartially. In the end, the vilification seems to have been too much to bear. He has waited and waited to be proved wrong, and when no such proof arose, he resorted to dishonesty. Although whether he is deceiving himself or the corporate media is for him to decide. In the end, he wanted to believe.

I’ve seen nothing in the corporate media to suggest that anyone is looking into his baseless claims. The story is worth too much to be untrue.

The real sadness will come if pressure is lifted on Israel (and Hamas) to conduct credible investigations into what happened in Gaza, in what Amnesty International described as “22 days of death and destruction”. The Committee whose report Goldstone wilfully distorts notes with sadness the case of “one family that had learned in an official government report that the criminal investigation into the killing of their young children had been closed without elucidation of the circumstances that led to such a tragedy.” – Let’s hope that the demand for justice will not be undone by one man’s dishonesty, and that stories like these are not told in vane.