Goldstone's Statements Do Not Trump International Justice

http://www.worldpress.org/Mideast/3730.cfm

The Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies
April 20, 2011

A woman shows blood on her hands during the Gaza war in 2009.

The 26 undersigned human rights organizations express great concern over the attempts undertaken by Israel to bury the recommendations and conclusions of the Goldstone Report, viewing them as clear attempts to ensure impunity for perpetrators of war crimes in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and Israel during Operation Cast Lead in December 2008 and January 2009, during which more than 1,400 individuals were killed, amongst whom were more than 900 Palestinian civilians as opposed to 3 Israeli civilians. 

On April 1, 2011, Justice Richard Goldstone stated in his article in theWashington Post, "If I had known then what I know now, the Goldstone Report would have been a different document." Perhaps the most significant statement that Goldstone made in the article described his newly developed belief that Israel did not target civilians during the war on Gaza deliberately and as a matter of policy. Consequently, the Israeli government's calls to disregard the entire Goldstone Report, which holds both Israeli and Palestinian parties responsible for committing crimes that amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, have increased. Additionally, Israel has asked to drop the subsequent Committee of Expert's reports on national investigations into war crimes, which further outlined the ineffectiveness of the national investigations conducted by the Israeli and Palestinian sides.

This latest push for impunity comes while the Israeli government continues to perpetrate grave violations of international humanitarian law and human rights by constructing more settlements in the West Bank, suppressing peaceful protests and continuing the blockade on Gaza—a policy of collective punishment against the entire civilian population of the Gaza Strip. It also comes at a time when the current Israeli government has proven unwilling to take any meaningful steps toward peace by increasing its attacks on Gaza and killing more civilians during the past few weeks.

It is within this context that we urge the international community to seriously confront the systematic impunity that has characterized the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and to begin to hold accountable those responsible for war crimes. International justice and granting retributions to victims are crucial, especially following the failure to provide for true accountability for the crimes that have been committed on a national level.

We further stress that Justice Goldstone's opinions, which he expressed several months following the conclusion of his report and subsequent reports, do not possess any legal authority to annul the findings of the reports, nor should these opinions be used as a tool to impede further investigations. The war on Gaza was not only documented by the Goldstone report but also by the reports of dozens of international human rights organizations.

Thus, it is the responsibility of the international community to ensure that such crimes are referred to the International Criminal Court for investigation, in light of claims that domestic investigations have lacked independence, impartiality, effectiveness and promptness over the last two years, as noted in the report of the Committee of Experts that was presented before of the 16th session of the Human Rights Council. It is clear that investigations by Israel and Hamas into war crimes have not conformed to international standards. Therefore, recourse to international mechanisms of justice, including the ICC, is not only appropriate, but essential in order to begin to address impunity.

The undersigned organizations urge the international community and all actors involved to not impede referral of war crimes and possible crimes against humanity, carried out by any actor during Operation Cast Lead, to the International Criminal Court for investigation.

A historic opportunity exists to convey a clear message throughout the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region that perpetrators of war crimes are not immune to accountability. This is an opportunity to demonstrate to citizens struggling for democracy across the region that international justice is not a mere tool in the hands of power but rather an impartial force of protection for all victims of war crimes and human rights violations without distinction.

This release was originally distributed by the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies: www.cihrs.org/english/default.aspx. The undersigned organizations are as follows:

Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies; Al Mezan Center for Human Rights; Algerian League for the Defense of Human Rights (LADDH); Amman Center for Human Rights Studies; Arab Foundation for Civil Society and Human Rights Support, Egypt; Arab Organization for Human Rights, Syria; Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, Egypt; Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression, Egypt; Association for Human Rights Legal Aid, Egypt; Bahrain Center for Human Rights; Bahrain Youth Society foe Human Rights; Committees for the Defense of Democracy Freedom and Human Rights, Syria; Egyptian Child Rights Center; Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights;Egyptian Foundation for Advancement of the Childhood Condition; Human Rights First Society, Saudi Arabia; Human Rights Organization in Syria (MAF); Iraqi Human Right Association in Denmark; Kurdish Committee for Human Rights in Syria al-Rased; Kurdish organization for the defense of human rights and public freedoms in Syria (DAD); Law Society, UAE; Moroccan Organization for Human Rights; National Organization for Human Right in Syria; Palestinian Center for Human Rights; Palestinian Human Rights Organization, Lebanon; Yemeni Organization for Defending Rights and Democratic Freedoms.

'My father is a Zionist, loves Israel'

http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/more-on-goldstone/

'My father is a Zionist, loves Israel'

| The Jerusalem Post

Nicole Goldstone, the daughter of Richard Goldstone, whose report on Operation Cast Lead alleged that Israel committed war crimes in Gaza, maintained on Wednesday that her father “is a Zionist and loves Israel.”

Speaking from Toronto, where she now lives, Nicole told Army Radio she had many conversations with her father after he was asked to head the UN inquiry.

“I know better than anyone else that he thought however hard it was to accept it, he was doing the best thing for everyone, including Israel,” she said. “He is honest, tells things how he sees them and wants to uncover the truth.”

Nicole, who said she had read the first 300 and last 100 pages of the report, conceded that it contained some “very harsh” allegations against Israel.

She said she planned to host her parents in Toronto for Rosh Hashana, and that while speaking with her father following the report’s release, he had quipped, “Are you sure we can still come?”

Nicole insisted that the fact the report also accused the Palestinians of crimes against humanity showed that her father tried to be balanced.

“I am not angry with him. I love him and respect him,” she said.

“He is a Zionist,” she added. “My dad loves Israel and it wasn’t easy for him to see and hear what happened. I think he heard and saw things he didn’t expect to see and hear, and I am 100 percent sure he [conducted the investigation] in the hope that the Israelis would come to cooperate, and he wanted to help find a long-term solution for the State of Israel.”

Nicole, who lived in Israel for six months, said that the country “is the most important thing in my life, my heart is there…. I love Israel more than my family and friends and anything else.”

Editor Fired

 

The Editor of the English language Kyiv Post was fired today after he refused to kill a story. The story was an interview with the Agriculture Minister of Ukraine Mykola Prysyazhnyuk about the lack of transparency and alleged problems with the distribution of grain export quotas.  Business people linked to the Agriculture Minister and the president may be benefitting from the system. High members of government pressured the publisher not to run the story who then told the editor, Brian Bonner, to kill it. Today he ran it anyway. Right on, Brian!

 

The story in question can be seen here:

 

http://www.kyivpost.com/news/nation/detail/102436/.

 

Only last month, Bonner courageously fought and won a libel lawsuit in London by Ukrainian oligarch Dmitry Firtash. In the past under such legal threats, the paper had capitulated and ran retractions and then positive stories. The paper had gotten significantly better under his direction.

 

According to an email from a reporter on staff:  "The Kyiv Post editorial staff is protesting interference in its tradition of independentjournalism through owner Mohahammad Zahoor’s decision to fire chief editor Brian Bonner today over the publication of an interview with Agriculture Minister Mykola Prysyazhnyuk (vol. 16, issue 15, April 15, 2011.  Hereinafter, the Kyiv Post editorial staff announces a strike, demanding to reinstate Brian Bonner as Chief Editor. We will continue writing and editing our articles, but will post no news or layout the paper for print. Later today, we will send out comments from Zahoor given to editorial staff in a phone conversation, which took place on April 15 along with more detailed information. "

 

Kyiv will be the location of the next Global Investigative Reporting Conference.

 

Drew Sullivan

Advising Editor - OCCRP

Goldstone's Rethink: Cleansing of Israel's War Crimes

http://palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=16779

By Jonathan Cook - Nazareth Israeli leaders have barely hidden their jubilation at an opinion article in last Friday's Washington Post by the South African jurist Richard Goldstone reconsidering the findings of his United Nations-appointed inquiry into Israel’s attack on Gaza in winter 2008. For the past 18 months the Goldstone Report had forced Israel on to the defensive by suggesting its army – as well as Hamas, the ruling faction in Gaza – had committed war crimes and crimes against humanity during Israel’s three-week Operation Cast Lead. Some 1,400 Palestinians were killed, including hundreds of women and children. Goldstone’s report, Israeli officials worried, might eventually pave the way to war crimes trials against Israeli soldiers at the International Criminal Court in the Hague. In what appeared to be a partial retraction of some of his findings against Israel, Goldstone argued that he would have written the report differently had Israel cooperated at the time of his inquiry. Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, immediately called on the United Nations to shelve the Goldstone Report; Ehud Barak, the defence minister, demanded an apology; and Avigdor Lieberman, the foreign minister, said Israel’s actions in Gaza had been “vindicated”. Israel would certainly like observers to interpret Goldstone’s latest comments as an exoneration. In reality, however, he offered far less consolation to Israel than its supporters claim. The report’s original accusation that Israeli soldiers committed war crimes still stands, as does criticism of Israel’s use of unconventional weapons such as white phosphorus, the destruction of property on a massive scale, and the taking of civilians as human shields. Instead Goldstone restated his position in two ways that Israel will seek to exploit to the full. The first was an observation that since his report’s publication in September 2009 “Israel has dedicated significant resources to investigate over 400 allegations of operational misconduct”. In the past Goldstone has made much of the need for Israel and Hamas to investigate incidents where civilians were targeted, saying that otherwise his report should be transferred to the ICC. In his article he favourably compared Israel’s investigations to the failure by Hamas to carry out any probes. The significance of Goldstone’s reassessment from Israel’s point of view was underlined this week by comments to the Jerusalem Post newspaper from a senior unnamed legal official in the Israeli military. He said Goldstone’s professed confidence in Israel’s investigatory system would help to forestall future war crimes probes by the UN. That will be cause for Palestinian concern at a time when, in response to renewed hostilities between Israel and Hamas, some Israeli government ministers have called for a Cast Lead 2. Another unnamed commander told the popular Israeli news website Ynet yesterday that Goldstone’s change of tack might lift the threat of arrest on war crimes charges from Israeli soldiers travelling abroad. However, according to both Israeli human rights groups and a committee of independent legal experts appointed by the UN to monitor implementation of the report, Goldstone’s applause for Israel’s investigations is unwarranted. Sarit Michaeli, a spokeswoman for B’Tselem, an Israeli organisation monitoring human rights in the occupied territories, said Israel had failed to conduct a prompt, independent or transparent inquiry. “The materials on which Israel has relied have not been made available to us, so we are not in a position to judge the quality of the investigations or the credibility of the findings.” Likewise, the UN committee of experts, led by a New York judge, Mary McGowan-Davis, has complained that the Israeli army is probing itself and questioned the effectiveness of the investigations following “unnecessary delays” in which evidence may have been “lost or compromised”. Human rights groups have pointed out that, despite the large number of deaths in Gaza, only three of the 400 investigations cited by Goldstone have so far led to indictments. One of those cases involved the theft of a credit card. Another, in which two soldiers used a nine-year-old boy as a human shield, led to their being punished with three-month suspended sentences and demotion. The second, more significant reassessment by Goldstone is that he was wrong to conclude in his report that Israel intentionally targeted civilians “as a matter of policy”. Despite Goldstone’s misleading wording in the article, he is referring not to an Israeli order to intentionally murder civilians but a policy in which indiscriminate attacks were undertaken with a disregard to likely casualties among civilians. Strangely, he appears to base his revised opinion on Israel’s own military investigations, even though no evidence from them has yet been made public. Rina Rosenberg, the international advocacy director of the Adalah legal centre in Israel, which has been monitoring Israel’s investigations on behalf of Palestinian legal groups, said Goldstone had given Israel a “gift” with this observation. “Israel has tried to focus the debate entirely on whether it intended to kill civilians, as though a war crime depends only on intentionality. Israel knows that intention – outside a policy like targeted assassinations – is very difficult to prove.” She pointed out that there were other important standards in international law for assessing war crimes, including negligence, disregard for the safety of civilians, and indiscriminate use of force. Also, observers have wondered what new information has emerged since Goldstone published his report to justify a rethink on whether Israeli policy left civilians in the line of fire. His original conclusion drew in part on public statements by Israeli military commanders that in Gaza they had applied the Dahiya doctrine – an Israeli military strategy named after a suburb of Beirut that Israel levelled during its 2006 attack on Lebanon. In his article, Goldstone cast no fresh doubt on his earlier premise that such a strategy would by definition endanger civilians. In addition, Israeli group Breaking the Silence has collected many testimonies from soldiers before and since publication of the Goldstone Report indicating that they received orders to carry out operations with little or no regard for the safety of civilians. Some described the army as pursuing a policy of “zero-risk” to soldiers, even if that meant putting civilians in danger. Similarly, leaflets produced by the military rabbinate – apparently with the knowledge of the army top brass – urged Israeli ground troops in Gaza to protect their own lives at all costs and show no mercy to Palestinians. The timing of Goldstone’s article has raised additional concern among Israeli and Palestinian human rights groups that he may have succumbed to political pressure. Late last month the UN’s Human Rights Council, which set up the fact-finding mission, recommended that the General Assembly refer the Goldstone Report to the Security Council – the decisive stage in moving it to the International Criminal Court. It is expected that the US, which has consistently opposed such a referral, will block the report’s progress to the ICC – further embarrassing Washington after its recent veto at the UN of a Palestinian resolution against Israeli settlements. Shawan Jabareen, director of the Palestinian legal rights group al-Haq, said Goldstone’s article had provided Israel and the US with a “new weapon” to discredit the report even before it reached the Security Council. - Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His latest books are “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His website is www.jkcook.net. He contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com.

If you like this article, please consider making a contribution to the Palestine Chronicle

Much Ado About Nothing: Richard Goldstone's Supposed Retraction

http://www.countercurrents.org/emmerich030411.htm

By Don Emmerich

03 April, 2011
Countercurrents.org

Writing in the Washington Post, Richard Goldstone claims that, had the Goldstone Commission known in 2009 what it knows now, its report would have “probably” been different.  Specifically, he writes, the Commission most likely wouldn't have concluded that Israel had a policy of intentionally targeting civilians ( Washington Post ). 

Not surprisingly, Benjamin Netanyahu has jumped all over this, claiming that this op-ed exonerates Israel of all wrongdoing in Operation Cast Lead. He added: “The fact that Goldstone changed his mind must lead to the shelving of the [Goldstone] Report once and for all” ( Haaretz ).

There's just one problem with all this: the Goldstone Report never claimed that Israel had a policy of intentionally targeting civilians.  As Yaniv Reich writes, “This is a red-herring; nobody seriously believes there is a high-level policy to murder civilians.  The actual issue is that ‘these incidents indicate that the instructions given to the Israeli forces moving into Gaza provided for a low threshold for the use of lethal fire against the civilian population' (Goldstone report, pp. 16).  This low threshold was an intentional policy, as has been confirmed by dozens of soldiers' and officers' statements” ( Mondoweiss ).

So, despite what Netanyahu has claimed, Goldstone has not actually retracted any of the allegations of war crimes made by the Goldstone Commission, officially called the UN Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict.  It should also be pointed out that the other members of the Commission—Christine Chinkin, Hina Jilani, and Colonel Desmond Travers—continue to stand by the Report's findings. 

All of which means that Israel still stands accused of committing several war crimes—among them, using civilians as human shields, deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure, and conducting indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks.

Goldstone proceeds to praise Israel for conducting investigations into “over 400 allegations of operational misconduct in Gaza.”  But the UN Committee of Independent Experts, which was charged with following up on the Goldstone Report, has reported that Israel has not adequately investigated many of the allegations made by the Goldstone Commission. Most significantly, “there is no indication that Israel has opened investigations into the actions of those who designed, planned, ordered and oversaw Operation Cast Lead” ( Committee of Independent Experts ).

In his op-ed, Goldstone mentions one, just one, specific allegation made by the Goldstone Commission which he believes should be retracted: “[T]he most serious attack the Goldstone Report focused on was the killing of some 29 members of the al-Samouni family in their home. The shelling of the home was apparently the consequence of an Israeli commander's erroneous interpretation of a drone image, and an Israeli officer is under investigation for having ordered the attack.” 

As proof that the IDF didn't target civilians in this instance, Goldstone simply states that an IDF investigation concluded that it didn't target civilians.  Needless to say, this argument is highly flawed.  Both the Goldstone Commission and the Committee of Experts concluded that, for obvious reasons, Israel cannot be expected to conduct an unbiased investigation into its own affairs ( Goldstone Report ). 

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

Richard Goldstone's motives in writing this op-ed are completely irrelevant.  What matters is the evidence.  And the evidence—documented not just by the Goldstone Commission, but also by the Arab League , Breaking the Silence , Amnesty International , and Human Rights Watch —indicates that Israel committed numerous war crimes in Operation Cast Lead. 

Don Emmerich is writer and peace activist . His political writings can be found athttp://donemmerich.blogspot.com/ 

What made Goldstone change his mind about the Gaza war report?

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/what-made-goldstone-change-his-mind-about-the-gaza-war-report-1.353905

Israeli academic suggests Goldstone decided to reconsider his report partly due to debate he attended at Stanford University, just days before he released his Washington Post column.

By Natasha Mozgovaya

A few days before Richard Goldstone wrote his column in the Washington Post expressing a certain degree of regret over what was reported in the Goldstone Report, the former jurist had attended a debate about the report at Stanford University.

According to an article published on the 'International Middle East Media Center' website (a site describing itself as a "joint Palestinian-International effort"), Goldstone sat in the audience of a debate between two lawyers who had visited Gaza as part of a National Lawyers' Guild Delegation, and two Zionist academics who represented Israel.

Professor Abraham Bell and fellow academic Peter Berkowitz represented Israel in the debate, which took place on March 28, 2011, just days before Goldstone wrote his column in the Washington Post.

Bell, a lecturer at Bar Ilan University's Law faculty, and at that of the University of San Diego, told Haaretz on Sunday that "it appeared that Goldstone decided that it was time to try to explain himself," at the debate.

Bell said Goldstone was not meant to confront him, or Berkowitz, but after having said "what he had to say," the audience probed him with questions, forcing him to return to the stage.

According to Bell, Goldstone insisted at the debate that all the investigations showed that, thus far, the facts were as they were reported. "Later on he apologized and said there may be people who would disagree with what he said, like Professor Bell" said Bell, quoting Goldstone.

Bell told Haaretz that, in his opinion, the whole experience of the last few months – where Goldstone has heard what many people have to say about him and his report – "caught up with him."

"He tried to claim that he did not make a mistake, but after that night – it seems to me – he understood that he could not claim such a thing and be taken seriously," said Bell.

"If [Goldstone] hadn't have sat there and people hadn't have confronted him at other events, he would not have done it," said Bell, referring to the column Goldstone wrote in the April 1 edition of the Washington Post, entitled 'Reconsidering the Goldstone Report on Israel and war crimes."

What Made Goldstone reversal...?

http://www.haaretz.com/news/goldstone-s-daughter-my-father-s-participation-softened-un-gaza-report-1.7776

Goldstone's daughter: My father's participation softened UN Gaza report

'My father took on this job for the sake of peace,' Nicole Goldstone told Army Radio on Wednesday.

By Haaretz Service

Had Richard Goldstone not served as the head of the UN inquiry into the Gaza war, the accusations against Israel would have been harsher, Goldstone's daughter, Nicole, said in an interview conducted in Hebrew with Army Radio on Wednesday.

"My father took on this job because he thought he is doing the best thing for peace, for everyone, and also for Israel," Nicole Goldstone told Army Radio.

She added that her father wrestled with the decision to take on the task. "It wasn't easy [for him]," Nicole Goldstone said. "My father did not expect to see and hear what he saw and heard."

Nicole Goldstone, who currently lives in Canada with her family, spoke of her great love for Israel.

"Every time I dream of returning to the country or that my son will one day immigrate there," she told Army Radio.

"Israel is more important to me than anything. I'm not there at the moment, but my heart is always there."

Nicole Goldstone said she expects to host her father for the upcoming Rosh Hashanah holiday.

What Made Goldstone Reconsider? 'Zionist Threats'? Guilt?

by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu

Hamas says death threats from the “Zionist lobby” forced Judge Richard Goldstone to write a “reconsideration’ of his 2009 U.N. Human Rights Council report against Israel; a friend of Goldstone says, “Jewish reaction influenced him."

“The Zionist lobby’s death threats” and Israel-American pressure forced Goldstone to recant, Hamas stated Sunday. There is not evidence of either nor did Goldstone hint at the possibility in his article.
The rival Fatah movement, headed by Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, also condemned Goldstone's reversal, singling out Hamas for not investigating war crimes while vindicating Israel for alleged intentional attacks on civilians during the Operation Cast Lead counterterrorist campaign two years ago.
Yasser Abed Rabbo, a senior leader of the Secretary of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) executive, told Voice of Israel government radio, "There was a war crime in which 1,500 [Arab] civilians were killed. One person [Goldstone] cannot change that.”
Former Foreign Ministry director-general Alon Liel, speaking on Channel 10 Sunday, said he is a friend of Goldstone and that the retired Jewish judge “couldn’t sleep at night" because of Jewish reaction to his scathing report against Israel. "The Jewish reaction definitely influenced him to write his op-ed in The Washington Post," Liel stated. "He added that his daughter Nicole's reaction also had an impact on him."
After the report was published in 2009, Nicole, who lived in Israel for six months and now lives in Toronto, was preparing to welcome her parents for a visit for the Rosh HaShanah holiday. She told Army Radio at the time that her father asked her, “Are you sure we can still come?"
Nicole said she was not angry at her father. “I love him and respect him. He is a Zionist. My dad loves Israel and it wasn't easy for him to see and hear what happened."
"[Israel] is the most important thing in my life, my heart is there...." She said. "I love Israel more than my family and friends and anything else."
However, no one really knows what made Goldstone write the retraction of his harsh, now proven to be innacurate by his own admission,  report on Israel that caused damage of international scope and much anger in Israel.

(IsraelNationalNews.com)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/reconsidering-the-goldstone-report-on-israel-and-war-crimes/2011/04/01/AFg111JC_story.html?fb_ref=NetworkNews

Reconsidering the Goldstone Report on Israel and war crimes

By Richard Goldstone, Friday, April 1, 8:42 PM

We know a lot more today about what happened in the Gaza war of 2008-09 than we did when I chaired the fact-finding mission appointed by the U.N. Human Rights Council that produced what has come to be known as the Goldstone Report. If I had known then what I know now, the Goldstone Report would have been a different document.

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.”

Our report found evidence of potential war crimes and “possibly crimes against humanity” by both Israel and Hamas. That the crimes allegedly committed by Hamas were intentional goes without saying — its rockets were purposefully and indiscriminately aimed at civilian targets.

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 evidence on which to draw any other reasonable conclusion. 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.

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 purpose of these investigations, as I have always said, is to ensure accountability for improper actions, not to second-guess, with the benefit of hindsight, commanders making difficult battlefield decisions.

While I welcome Israel’s investigations into allegations, I share the concerns reflected in the McGowan Davis report that few of Israel’s inquiries have been concluded and believe that the proceedings should have been held in a public forum. Although the Israeli evidence that has emerged since publication of our report doesn’t negate the tragic loss of civilian life, I regret that our fact-finding mission did not have such evidence explaining the circumstances in which we said civilians in Gaza were targeted, because it probably would have influenced our findings about intentionality and war crimes.

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).

As I indicated from the very beginning, I would have welcomed Israel’s cooperation. The purpose of the Goldstone Report was never to prove a foregone conclusion against 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. Something that has not been recognized often enough is the fact that our report marked the first time illegal acts of terrorism from Hamas were being investigated and condemned by the United Nations. I had hoped that our inquiry into all aspects of the Gaza conflict would begin a new era of evenhandedness at the U.N. Human Rights Council, whose history of bias against Israel cannot be doubted.

Some have charged that the process we followed did not live up to judicial standards. To be clear: Our mission was in no way a judicial or even quasi-judicial proceeding. We did not investigate criminal conduct on the part of any individual in Israel, Gaza or the West Bank. We made our recommendations based on the record before us, which unfortunately did not include any evidence provided by the Israeli government. 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; Hamas has done nothing.

Some have suggested that it was absurd to expect Hamas, an organization that has a policy to destroy the state of Israel, to investigate what we said were serious war crimes. It was my hope, even if unrealistic, that Hamas would do so, especially if Israel conducted its own investigations. At minimum I hoped that in the face of a clear finding that its members were committing serious war crimes, Hamas would curtail its attacks. Sadly, that has not been the case. Hundreds more rockets and mortar rounds have been directed at civilian targets in southern Israel. That comparatively few Israelis have been killed by the unlawful rocket and mortar attacks from Gaza in no way minimizes the criminality. The U.N. Human Rights Council should condemn these heinous acts in the strongest terms.

In the end, asking Hamas to investigate may have been a mistaken enterprise. So, too, the Human Rights Council should condemn the inexcusable and cold-blooded recent slaughter of a young Israeli couple and three of their small children in their beds.

I continue to believe in the cause of establishing and applying international law to protracted and deadly conflicts. Our report has led to numerous “lessons learned” and policy changes, including the adoption of new Israel Defense Forces procedures for protecting civilians in cases of urban warfare and limiting the use of white phosphorus in civilian areas. The Palestinian Authority established an independent inquiry into our allegations of human rights abuses — assassinations, torture and illegal detentions — perpetrated by Fatah in the West Bank, especially against members of Hamas. Most of those allegations were confirmed by this inquiry. Regrettably, there has been no effort by Hamas in Gaza to investigate the allegations of its war crimes and possible crimes against humanity.

Simply put, the laws of armed conflict apply no less to non-state actors such as Hamas than they do to national armies. Ensuring that non-state actors respect these principles, and are investigated when they fail to do so, is one of the most significant challenges facing the law of armed conflict. Only if all parties to armed conflicts are held to these standards will we be able to protect civilians who, through no choice of their own, are caught up in war.

The writer, a retired justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa and former chief prosecutor of the U.N. International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, chaired the U.N. fact-finding mission on the Gaza conflict.

Israel lauds war crimes investigator's reversal

http://www.almasryalyoum.com/en/node/385280

Jerusalem -- Many modern armies have struggled with how to battle an enemy who uses human shields, perhaps none more so than Israel.

So Israeli leaders were especially pleased Sunday after an admission by Richard Goldstone -- a Jewish UN investigator who became persona non grata in the Jewish state -- that war crimes accusations contained in his report on Israel's offensive in Gaza two years ago should be reconsidered.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged the United Nations to nullify Goldstone's report. Defense officials urged the international community to rewrite the laws of war. Commentators alternated between attacking Goldstone for causing what they said was irreparable damage to Israel and praising him for admitting he made a mistake.

"There are very few instances in which those who disseminate libels retract their libel. This happened in the case of the Goldstone report," Netanyahu told his Cabinet.

Urban warfare has long vexed Israelis military, which for decades was dominant over the Arab nation's numerically superior armies but has struggled with foes in crowded refugee camps, dense cities and villages lined with cinderblock homes in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and southern Lebanon.

While referring to itself as the world's "most moral army" and insisting it has strict rules of engagement, it nonetheless has killed many hundreds of civilians in fighting over the years.

The US and other Western powers have faced a similar challenge in places like Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, where militants often blend into civilian populations.

In December 2008 Israel launched on offensive against Gaza, a densely populated strip of land that borders southwest Israel, in response to years of Palestinian rocket fire. In three weeks of fighting, some 1400 Palestinians were killed, including hundreds of civilians, while 13 Israelis died.

Israel said the civilian death toll was unintentional and said Gaza's Hamas rulers hid militants in populated areas and staged attacks from residential neighborhoods, schools and mosques, making civilian casualties unavoidable.

It refused to cooperate with Goldstone's investigation, commissioned by the UN Human Rights Council, a body with a history of anti-Israel declarations.

The Goldstone report, released in September 2009, concluded both Israel and Hamas committed potential war crimes and possible crimes against humanity.

"Goldstone" has since become a dirty word in Israel.

Israeli leaders across the political spectrum vilified the South African judge, who for years was active in Israeli charitable causes, accusing him of contributing to the "delegitimization" of Israel.

Writing in the Washington Post over the weekend, Goldstone said that in light of internal investigations conducted in Israel and a subsequent UN report last month, he was reconsidering his most serious accusation -- that Israel deliberately targeted civilians.

"If I had known then what I know now, the Goldstone Report would have been a different document," he said, adding Israel's investigations "indicate that civilians were not intentionally targeted as a matter of policy."

He also said "Hamas has done nothing" to investigate the charges against it.

Israeli leaders could hardly contain their glee.

Brig. Gen. Avi Benayahu, the Israeli military's chief spokesman, suggested that Goldstone be invited to help in the country's public relations efforts.

Livni, the foreign minister during the Gaza War, was less forgiving, saying a "nice article" in the Washington Post was insufficient.

"We are talking about the rights and the legitimacy of Israel to defend itself from these terrorists that are looking for children to kill," she told CNN. "We need this clearance coming from the international community in order to have the legitimacy to act in the future."

Livni may have been alluding to the growing sense here that another round with Hamas is possible given an escalation of rocket fire from Gaza and counterstrikes by Israel.

Israel has long contended that the laws of international warfare -- drafted in the wake of World War II -- do not apply to the modern "asymmetrical" battlefield in which standing armies battle loosely organized militias.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak, a mastermind of the Gaza war, called for a new global approach.

"Now is the time to ... start working much more seriously how to correct the international rules, norms and laws in order that it will enable both us and others to fight against terrorists, even if terrorists are acting from within heavily condensed civilian populations," he said.

The U.S. has faced similar situations in Iraq and Afghanistan, where thousands of civilians have been killed in airstrikes and other attacks aimed at militants in densely populated areas.

In Afghanistan, 440 civilians were killed by the US-led coalition last year, according to UN figures. That was a drop of 26 percent from the previous year, in part because of stricter US rules of engagement.

International law clearly forbids deliberately attacking civilians. It becomes blurry when a military target is found in an area where civilians are known to be located, said Robbie Sabel, an international law expert at Hebrew University and a former legal adviser to Israel's Foreign Ministry,

Militaries must take precautions to avoid civilian casualties and use "proportionate" force in such situations, he said.

In Gaza, Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said "Goldstone's retreat is reprehensible."

He noted that the report "was the effort of a team of experts, and not by Goldstone himself, and based on facts and meetings with families of victims, as well as the honest documented work of human rights groups."