In his debate with Dr. Dore Gold last night, Judge Richard Goldstone made a very telling remark.
Goldstone also revealed a personal aspect. “I was afraid to enter Gaza. I had nightmares that Hamas would kidnap me and that the Israelis would rejoice,” he said.
Judge Goldstone has been maintaining that he saw no sign of pressure exerted by Hamas on any of his witnesses. And yet he felt menaced? Goldstone was in Gaza under UN auspices and presumably there temporarily. What of the people who wouldn’t have the freedom to leave? Wouldn’t they fear kidnapping or worse, especially if they didn’t give Goldstone the responses that Hamas wanted them to?
But the second part of the remark is telling too. If he thought he was being fair why would Israelis rejoice at his kidnapping? I think that he’s strongly suggesting that he knew the verdict before the investigation. My Right Word noticed the same thing.
The Boston Globe also covered the debate.
Goldstone said the forum allowed him a chance to explain the substance of his findings “and avoid the personal and ad hominem attacks that have marked the debate on the report to date.” Goldstone, a former South African constitutional court justice who is himself a Jew, said much of the criticism of the report was based on false premises.
For example, he pointed out that many complaints say the UN Human Rights Council’s mandate to Goldstone was biased because it called only for an investigation of illegal Israeli acts. But Goldstone said he had refused to accept that mandate precisely because of its bias, and he had agreed to take part only when he was given the chance to rewrite the terms of the investigation.
He said the revised language called for a probe into the conduct by both sides in the three-week war, which raged from late December last year to mid-January and took 13 Israeli lives and those of more than 1,300 Palestinians.
Yes, I know he was hurt by the ad hominem attacks, But in order to argue that his opponents failed to critique the substance of his report, starting off with a distortion like that, wasn’t a good idea. Yes, Goldstone purported to change the mandate of his mission. But as Rep. Howard Berman’s revised resolution condemning Goldstone points out, the changes Goldstone “insisted” upon had no legal force.
Whereas Justice Richard Goldstone, who chaired the `United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict,’ told the then-President of the UNHRC, Nigerian Ambassador Martin Ihoeghian Uhomoibhi, that he intended to broaden the mandate of the Mission to include “all violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law that might have been committed at any time in the context of the military operations that were conducted in Gaza during the period from 27 December 2008 and 18 January 2009, whether before, during or after,” a phrase that, according to Justice Goldstone, was intended to allow him to investigate Hamas attacks on Israeli civilians;
Whereas Ambassador Uhomoibhi issued a statement on April 3, 2009, that endorsed part of Justice Goldstone’s proposed broadened mandate but deleted the phrase “before, during, and after,” and added inflammatory anti-Israeli language;
Whereas a so-called broadened mandate was never officially endorsed by a plenary meeting of the UNHRC, neither in the form proposed by Justice Goldstone nor in the form proposed by Ambassador Uhomoibhi;
And then Goldstone got off into his “collective punishment” argument. Funny, but having 1 million Israelis in missile range didn’t qualify.
The Globe also synopsizes Dr. Gold’s repsonse:
Gold – who has three degrees from Columbia University, including a doctorate, and now runs the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs – answered that while the report did criticize Hamas, it concentrated more intensively on alleged Israeli wrongdoing, when it was Hamas units that hid among civilians and all but ensured they would end up in the crossfire.
“There’s no question there was enormous damage in Gaza,” he said. “But why doesn’t Hamas appear as a responsible party for what happened? Who booby-trapped the buildings in Gaza? Who launched an eight-year war against Israel? Who built tunnels under people’s homes? The Hamas political leadership, which seems to get off the hook.”
Israel Matzav was there and blogged the event. He notes that Dr. Gold rebutted the report’s finding that Israel didn’t make sufficient efforts to alert civilians of impending attacks.
They said that they would hit any house that stored rockets, but sent multiple warnings to the civilian population. They entered into radio transmissions, leaflets were dropped, and then there was an attempt to directly contact families through cell phones or home phones. He put up a message in Arabic with an English translation.
How do we know that they received those warnings? Here’s a Hamas TV clip and how Hamas tried to keep the civilians among the military. (I haven’t seen these before – this is impressive). He said that the Goldstone Report wanted proof that the Palestinians were forced to be human shields – that’s an impossible standard to meet. He shows the famous video that I have of Fathi Hamad telling a rally that they must act as human shields and how they desire death. There’s no separation between Hamas and the ‘armed elements’ that fight Israel. He talked about Israel redirecting missiles while putting up a slide about the Palestinian police station strike.
How did Judge Goldstone respond to such presentations? Elsewhere, Israel Matzav observes:
Overall, I really felt that Dore Gold won the debate. That assessment is based on the audience reaction and on the comprehensiveness of his presentation. Goldstone seemed dumbfounded at the slides and video that Gold produced.
That’s pretty incredible. In this day and age, to learn anything of what Dr. Gold presented would have required a computer, an internet connection and a browser. But Judge Goldstone and his confederates couldn’t be bothered. If it didn’t fit their conclusions, they wouldn’t seek it out.
Courtesy of One Jerusalem here is Goldstone:
and here is Gold
In the end it’s impossible to escape the impression that Goldstone relishes playing the put upon prophet who only tells the truth, no matter the cost. However looking at his commission’s work and his smug self-righteousness you can only conclude that he cynically cherry picked his information in order to support his belief in Israel’s guilt rather than attempting to determine the truth. Impartiality was not a quality that Goldstone’s commission possessed.
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
