Goldstone's Lament and the Damage Done

Shoshana Bryen
Senior Director for Security Policy
JINSA
Report #: 1,077
April 3, 2011


http://www.jinsa.org/node/2262

"If I knew then what I know now..." So goes Goldstone's lament in The Washington Post. Openly blaming Israel for his lack of understanding that the IDF is a moral military force and the Government of Israel a civilized government (1), Goldstone insists that, "The purpose of the Goldstone Report was never to prove a foregone conclusion against Israel."

Oddly, he may be right. The "foregone conclusion" was only a starting point for the real evil. The "purpose" of the Goldstone inquisition was to create international equivalence between Israel and Hamas; between Israel and those who would destroy a sovereign state and member of the United Nations; between defenders and aggressors; between firemen and arsonists. Between Jews and those who would exterminate Jews. And it succeeded in spades. The villainy of Goldstone was to set in motion the wheels of an international "justice" system that is flawed in its construct and disgusting in its execution. The evil perpetrated was to make Israel stand in the dock of the UN Human Rights Council - judged not only by Goldstone (always called a "respected jurist" but by whom is unclear) and friends, but also by the likes of Libya, Zimbabwe, Saudi Arabia and North Korea. Judged by the "international community," most of which has a faulty moral compass and a sliding moral scale.

The bitterness for Israel and its friends was not that Israel was judged by people who were publicly biased in their work or hateful in their mien, it was the excruciating and false even-handedness with which Goldstone carved out his original bookends - "the mission concluded that actions amounting to war crimes and possibly in some respect crimes against humanity were committed by the Israel Defense Forces" and, on the other hand, Hamas missile fire into Israel, "was deliberate and calculated to cause loss of life and injury to civilians and damage to civilian infrastructure," and the mission "found that these actions also amounted to serious war crimes and also possibly crimes against humanity."

They weren't judging, mind you, just "finding." Goldstone writes, "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 (emphasis added). Indeed, our main recommendation was for each party to investigate, transparently and in good faith, the incidents referred to in our report."

JINSA wrote at the time of the report's publication:

Israel and Hamas, Hamas and Israel-no difference. Which, from the Hamas point of view, is a huge victory. Hamas knows it commits war crimes and does so deliberately. Killing Jews and "liberating Palestine" through blood and revolution are in the Charter. Hamas knows it uses human shields. If Israel aborts a mission because it sees civilians, Hamas wins; if Israel carries out the mission and kills civilians, Hamas wins. The Goldstone report also noted that Hamas and Fatah torture and assassinate one another-but Hamas and Fatah already know that and no one else really cares. Their behavior is calculated, designed and deliberate.

The calumny of even-handedness continues even in the apologia as poor Sir Richard asks for our understanding that he is just an idealist who finds himself dashed on the rocks of human nature. "It was my hope, even if unrealistic, that Hamas would [investigate itself], especially if Israel conducted its own investigations. In the end, asking Hamas to investigate may have been a mistaken enterprise."

"Mistaken" is a mild word. A thesaurus would be the place to find a word deep enough to describe what it was for Sir Richard and company ever to have credited Hamas with a moral code to which the "international community" could appeal. There are 93 synonyms for "stupid," including two British usages, but there wasn't one black enough.

The question remains, why bring it all up now? Perhaps he just wants to be sure he'll be invited for Seder. Somewhere.

(1) "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." And, "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." And more.


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