Consensus forming that Goldstone report set to continue passage through UN despite Goldstone’s retraction, diplomats, officials suggest
Evidence mounts that Goldstone Report into Israel’s Operation Cast Lead will not be withdrawn from the UN even after Goldstone publicly retracts core allegations
It now appears all but certain that the controversial report alleging deliberate Israeli atrocities against Palestinian civilians in Operation Cast Lead in Gaza will not be withdrawn from the United Nations despite retractions of key allegations made in the report by its author, Justice Richard Goldstone.
One well-placed European diplomat told The Commentator on Saturday that all the signs this week from major European countries and from the United Nations itself suggested that hostility to the Jewish state remained so strong that even Goldstone’s remarkable comments, made in the Washington Post on April 1, could not stop the report’s momentum in its passage through UN bodies:
“Just look around you,” the diplomat said. “The messages from major European countries as well as what people are saying in the halls of the United Nations all indicate that this thing cannot be stopped.”
“The Europeans in particular are keen not to upset the Arab world at a time of turmoil and as several leading countries are involved in military actions in Libya.”
In his Washington Post article, Goldstone admitted that he had been wrong to say Israel had deliberately targeted civilians in the December 2008/January 2009 operation in Gaza, and that had he known at the time of authoring the report what he knows now conclusions concerning supposed Israeli “war crimes” would probably have been different.
Despite this, the British Foreign Office said, in an exclusive to The Commentator last week, that it had no intention of calling for a withdrawal of the report since other “credible organisations” had corroborated Goldstone’s original allegations.
The Commentator has also learned that a very high ranking official in the German foreign ministry had been asked in Berlin on Thursday whether his country would now call for the withdrawal of the Goldstone Report and had pointedly refused to give any such assurance.
On the same day, Israeli President Shimon Peres met UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in New York and asked him to have the Goldstone Report rescinded.
But the Jerusalem Post reported that a spokesman for the UN Human Rights Council, to which the Goldstone Report was originally submitted in September 2009, had said that Goldstone’s retractions “would have no impact on the status of the report.”
Israel and its supporters regard the Goldstone Report as little short of a modern day blood libel and are shocked that, apart from the United States, most Western countries are either turning a blind eye to it at the United Nations or actively cheerleading its continued passage.
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Actually as a supporter of Israel who has been watching the scene for some time now, I would have been shocked if most Western countries were NOT still actively cheerleading the report's continued passage through the UN! The spineless, senseless and self-serving leaders of Western countries don't let the truth get in the way of a good political agenda based on delusional ideology and self-interest.
Guys - don't dream of the impossible at the UN. Let's face it, the UN will have no compunction about treating "not deliberately targeting civilians" and "deliberately targeting civilians" as identical - where it concerns Israel's actions. And, for anyone who is listening, Israel is well able to defend its integrity forcefully and with good conscience. The same, though, cannot be said of Hamas. So it would be interesting to see how the Hagues and Westervelles of this world respond to the question as to how strongly they intend taking Hamas, which they recognise as a terrorist organisation, to task at the UN. How uncommitted or negative their answers are will be a good indicator for each of them of their degree of moral sickness.
It's axiomatic there needs to be a sustained missile attack on the UN building.
No doubt the passage if the Goldstone report will be used to shore up any pressure that the Europeans think that they can bring to bear on Israel in their forthcoming Middle East "Peace" iniative. At the same time they look to increase their credibility with the Palestinians and other hangers-on that fancy some de-legitimisation sport this summer. Basing an initiative on a baseless report will not help their cause especially as the US has completely rejected this reports finding. What will be interesting is who amongst the Europeans will be pushing the hardest, providing a league table of anti Israel bigotry amongst European nations.
"Fair is foul, and foul is fair / Hover through the fog and filthy air" of the United Nations, that is, and this "world turned upside down" as Melanie Phillips so insightfully points out. Shame on Britain. Shame on the European Union. The United Nations? Well, it's what we have come to expect of that morally and intellectually bankrupt agency for neo-marxist, islamofascist mendacity. PAX, SHALOM & VERITAS . . . not ISLAMIC JIHAD!
As it turns out, the 3 most influential states of the rotten-to-the-core E.U. are the most disgusting. The only thing that irks me is not even this particular fact, but as some encourage Israel (Carol Glic, Mel Phillips, ann Bayefsky; the 3 BEST women on earth) to apeak out vocally and forcefully not taking anything off the table. I think of more than anything deliberate (but credible and factual) offenses and insults that remind these protagonists to their odious pasts wrt Jews.
With the approach of Passover, I am reminded that the ancient Pharaoh of Egypt was apparently not the only one who had his heart "hardened" by the Almighty when Moses demanded to "let my people go..." It appears that the modern-day Pharaohs- the powers that be- at the UN and its misnamed UN Human Rights Council have also had their hearts hardened against modern Israel. We should not be upset about this, for this too is a miracle from the "Guardian of Israel, Who neither slumbers nor sleeps". As we remember how Egypt was punished for its treatment of the Jews, we should take comfort in the fact that the present-day enemies of Israel will suffer a similar fate.
Judge Richard Goldstone did NOT say that his official report to the UNHRC ‘was wrong to accuse Israel of war crimes in Gaza”. What he did say last week, writing in the Washington Post, was that he believes now that “civilians were not intentionally targeted as a matter of policy”, - which is an altogether different point.
The allegation in the UNHRC report still stands in that civilians in Gaza were intentionally targeted by the IDF during Operation Cast Lead in which hundreds of men, women and children were killed by Israeli forces.
Facts are irrelevant to this question apparently. Civilian fatalities are generally over 90% in conflict while Israel keeps them way down to under 50% even though ME states tactically involve civilians. They're not even being mentioned in Libya while in any war in which Israel participates they are the media's sole preoccupation.
It is Israel that is being targeted for being Israel.
Bit of a fudge, eldoret. Do follow the logic. Given that it is now accepted that civilians were not intentionally targeted as a matter of policy, then any other targeting of civilians was, by its nature, a matter of individuals exceeding their powers and obligations either deliberately or accidentally. Israel’s enquiries are very competent to examine these, and it is only the country’s obsessive detractors that doubt the robustness of its legal system. Part of the shame of the Goldstone report is that its conclusions flew in the face of evidence that was readily available even while Cast Lead was taking place. This included plenty that should have refuted any accusation of deliberate targeting of civilians.
The Goldstone report stands as is with only minor corrections. It alleges that Israel committed war crimes in killing over 300 children and over 100 of their mothers. It also alleges, after intensive investigation, that the IDF used Palestinians as human shields. The report was compiled after extensive investigation on the ground notwithstanding obstruction from the Israeli authorities.
As for 'Civilian fatalities are generally over 90% in conflict while Israel keeps them way down to under 50%'. I have rarely come across such confused nonsense in all my life. Clearly, the person who wrote this has never been a serving soldier who has been in action in any Western army.
But it's a good musical hall joke.
No need to respond to "eldoeret" as everything he wrties is blatant lies peddled by the likes of Goldstone and equally incompetent pseudo-judges. The likes of Christine Chinkin (sic!) from the totally discredited London School of Saik-al Islam Gaddhafi's Economic in London...
Margie says: "They're not even being mentioned in Libya while in any war in which Israel participates they are the media's sole preoccupation.It is Israel that is being targeted for being Israel. " Yes, Margie, that's right. And it has a name too. It's called ANTISEMITISM.
As the old saying goes: If truth gets in the way of the legend, and people believe the legend, then keep printing the legend. Leftists and their anti-semitic bedfellows have an acute aversion to hearing as well as telling the truth and also to admitting they are wrong - and being told they are wrong too. It's their hatred of Israel, you see. It transforms them - in this case the UN - into a collective politically and morally confused Pilate who eventually found himself begging the legendary question 'What is truth?' This is
@ max
"Part of the shame of the Goldstone report is that its conclusions flew in the face of evidence that was readily available even while Cast Lead was taking place"
Israel should have participated in the mission and offered evidence and not leave it to the gods to acquaint the mission with this evidence that was "readily" available, as you aver with no offer of examples.
The 300 children includes U18s killed as combatants. The NGO figures matched initial Hamas ministry claims. Unfortunately for them and for Goldstone, Hamas recanted some 18 months after Cast Lead, revising their figures to agree with the IDF list of combatant deaths. It wouldn't surprise me if recent Afghani civilian casualties reached 90%, but fighting an enemy which doesn't wear uniform (or ditched theirs, as Hamas forces quickly did for Cast Lead) causes problems for both sides. Goldstone himself now recognises that Israeli policy has not been to target civilians deliberately. Contrast that with Hamas' stated aim of killing all Jews. It's hard to imagine anyone who considers themselves moral taking Hamas' side in an argument.
I believe, as do perhaps millions of others, that we should let the International Criminal Court decide the guilt or innocence of those alleged guilty of war crimes in Gaza, from either side. That is the specific remit of the court from the international community.
What we do know is that the deliberate killing of civilians is a war crime under the Geneva Conventions and that over 300, under 16 year olds, were killed by a heavily armed attacking army and that they used civilians as human shields. They also used white phosphorus as a banned chemical weapon. This facts are not opinions and they do not require such.
I am finding it hard to find any country that is a democracy and that stringently follows the rule of law that would accede to such an inquiry. Every sane country that has to use arms to solve a problem carries out its own internal inquiry to learn from the action. In rare cases these inquiries lead to some personnel or even units being brought to book. I can't imagine that the US, Britain or France or NATO for that matter would take kindly to the UNHCR demanding an independent inquiry based upon Libyan government claims that any of them had killed civilians in the recent actions. So why should Israel? Hamas cannot take a moral stand on this issue and frankly neither can the UNHCR.
Kamal, G. Fraenkl refers to Christine Chinkin. Her advance declaration that Israel commits war crimes left the committee's partiality in no doubt, so co-operation at that stage was pointless. Expert evidence addressing its accusations was presented directly by Col. Kemp, but they chose to ignore it. Partial or impartial behaviour, one may ask. The commission apparently also felt able to ignore the evidence of plenty of other people's eyes and ears - Israel's leaflet drops and telephone campaigns to persuade civilians to move out of the way of their advances. Yes, the evidence was readily available. Don't you feel that the cover that this biased report has given Hamas has some responsibility for the atrocities that Hamas has committed since?
The difference is that in Libya, the killing of civilians is genuinely collateral damage which is inevitable in conflict to a greater or lesser extent. That which occurred in Gaza in 12/08 was a concerted attack upon combatants and civilians by those determined to wreak vengeance regardless of any international conventions on the conduct of war or on state-sponsored assassinations. The killing of 8 Turkish activists on board a vessel bound for Gaza and the murder in a Dubai hotel, confirm Israel's contempt for national law, international law, democracy and international agreements between democratic states, and the authority of the UN.
That is the reason for the description 'rogue state'. A state that acts only on its own authority.
Eldoret, I think the NGOs use the UN definition of U18, not U16. In any case, see Wikipedia, “the ICT estimated that 63% to 75% of the Palestinians killed in Gaza War appear to have been specifically targeted, combat-aged males, and stated that PCHR’s own data refutes the claim that Israel’s attacks were indiscriminate”. Children perished, most regrettably, but few as civilians. Contrast Hamas’ direct targeting of school buses, including prior to Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza, and rocketing Israeli towns particularly just before and after the school day. Phosphorous was used for the purpose that any army uses it. The ICC is a great idea. You can see my charge sheet against Olmert’s government if you show me yours against Ahmadinejad’s.
“The Europeans in particular are keen not to upset the Arab world at a time of turmoil and as several leading countries are involved in military actions in Libya.”
I suspect that many European countries are being kept afloat financially, on a sea of Arab money, namely sovereign funds which are being used to sustain what would otherwise be bankrupt states..
As he who pays the piper usually calls the tune, we can't expect the EU states to do other than vote in their own self interests until they become viable again, or until an alternative to oil becomes universally available.
If Israel has any sense, it will have an army of scientists working on just such a project.
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So it appears the facts don't matter to the likes of Britain and Germany. It's all about narrow self-interest and not wanting to upset the Muslims.
The pro-Palestinian bias of the EU and the UN has contributed to the failure of peace negotiations. There was no downside for the Palestinians for not negotiating seriously, which is what happened for nine out of the ten months of the settlement freeze.