What Happened at the mosque and inside Goldstone’s mind?

Richard Landes
Augean Stables
15 November 09

Jonathan Dahoah Halevi, whose work on the evidence from OCL is extensive, has published some thoughts on the Al Maqadmah mosque case and the Goldstone Report’s handling of it. I add comments to bring out some of the more astonishing aspects of his argument.

What happened at mosque?
Jonathan Dahoah Halevi questions reliability of reports on Gaza mosque attack

Jonathan Dahoah Halevi
Published: 11.12.09, 17:21 / Israel Opinion

On November 5, 2009 there was a confrontation at Brandeis University in Massachusetts between the president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Dr. Dore Gold, and Judge Richard Goldstone. It dealt, among other things, with the affair of the Maqadmah mosque in Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip, about which two contradictory versions exist, that of Israel and that of the Goldstone Committee’s Report.

The Goldstone Report about Operation Cast Lead accuses Israel of an air strike on the mosque on January 3, 2009, which caused the deaths of “at least 15 Palestinians” who were in it at the time. During the confrontation with Dr. Gold, Goldstone claimed that 21 Palestinians had been killed, and he presented the attack as a salient example of Israel’s policy of deliberately targeting innocent civilians. However, Israel issued official documents stating that its Air Force did not attack the mosque and that the dead had been killed in fighting the IDF.

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