Sacerdoti - Stop ignoring the facts about Cast Lead

Jonathan Sacerdoti
New Statesman
30 December '11
H/T Israel Matzav

It featured the lowest ratio of civilian to combatant deaths in any asymmetric conflict in the history of warfare.

Three years ago, Operation Cast Lead saw Israel send troops into the Gaza Strip in response to the thousands of rockets and mortars launched into Israeli civilian areas. Which other government in the world wouldn't defend its citizens in such circumstances? If some wish to portray this operation as a "massacre", they would have to ignore the facts to do so.

John Stuart Mill wrote in 1862 that "war is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things". Indeed today, even with laws, regulations and technology intended to lessen the horrors of battle, war is always ugly and tragic. But sometimes, it is still an essential response to something far uglier.

In 2006, following the Israeli disengagement and pullout from the Gaza Strip, there was an increase of 436 per cent in the number of Palestinian rockets launched towards Israel from that very territory. For some time, Israel resisted a large-scale military response to such acts deliberately aimed at civilians. As a result, the attacks got worse, and every country, including Israel, has the moral responsibility to defend its people from such actions.

Israel to set up judicial review of sorts.- Yea

Ted Belman
Israpundit.com
26 October 09

PM: Legal team will combat Goldstone

Instead of an inquiry committee questioning soldiers and officers about military conduct during Operation Cast Lead, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will put together a small team of legal experts and foreign ministry officials to reassemble and reevaluate material gathered by the the IDF in its partial investigation of the fighting against Hamas, Israel Radio reported on Monday.

The team will only use existing material, such as previously unreleased drone footage of terrorists operating behind civilian lines in Gaza, and present the findings as an internal investigation refuting the allegations put forth Goldstone Commission’s report.

In related news, Defense Minister Ehud Barak announced on Sunday that Israel would work to fight the legitimacy of the report and change the laws of warfare to fit the new reality of terrorist combat.

Barak’s comments came after a meeting Netanyahu convened in his office to weigh the ramifications of the report, proposing that a team of experts be set up to combat it.

In addition to Barak, senior officials from the Justice, Foreign and Defense ministries and the IDF were also present at the meeting, where it was decided to establish a committee to come up with effective ways to deal with the Goldstone Report.

Sunday’s meeting, according to government officials, dealt with a wide range of sensitive matters stemming from the report, such as the laws of war, diplomatic issues, international law and world public opinion.

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Gaza Police Fatalities: By the Numbers

Backspin/Honest Reporting

14 September 09

Should Palestinian policemen killed during Operation Cast Lead be defined as civilian casualties or combatants? The JCPA researched Gaza's cops.

343 Overall Palestinian security forces killed during the Gaza war.

286 Palestinian security forces killed during the war who were identified as terror organization members.

27 Palestinian security forces killed during the war who were undergoing infantry training.

89 Overall Palestinians killed in a December 27, 2008 air strike on an officer training course at the Gaza police HQ.

60 Palestinian policemen killed in the above attack who were members also members of Hamas.

0 Palestinians killed or wounded in incidents of "friendly fire" during the Gaza war, according to Palestinian claims.

See also Elder of Ziyon's research and The New Republic, which interviewed Palestinian and Israeli researchers on the wide divergence of civilian casualties.
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The Goldstone Show-Trial

Melanie Phillips
The Spectator
11 September 09

In the wake of Israel’s Operation Cast Lead in Gaza at the turn of this year, the UN’s satirically named ‘Human Rights Council’ set up what purported to be an objective, fact-finding commission of inquiry under Richard Goldstone, former chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda and a judge of the South African Constitutional Court.

The degree of objectivity on this Commission can be gauged from the mandate it was given by the , UNHRC, which announced it was dispatching

an urgent, independent international fact-finding mission, to be appointed by the President of the Council, to investigate all violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law by the occupying Power, Israel, against the Palestinian people throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory, particularly in the occupied Gaza Strip, due to the current aggression, and calls upon Israel not to obstruct the process of investigation and to fully cooperate with the mission.

So this 'objective' inquiry had been told before it was even established that the guilty party in Gaza was Israel, designated by the UN as the ‘occupying power’; that it was guilty of ‘aggression’ and ‘violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law’; and that the Palestinians of Gaza were the victims of this Israeli aggression.

Israel, of course, no longer occupies Gaza. Nor was it guilty of aggression: it was instead defending itself against the aggression of Hamas who had fired some 6000 rockets at Israeli citizens. Nor did it commit any violations of international law and human rights: it was Hamas who did so repeatedly -- not just against Israel but also the Arab inhabitants of Gaza who were used as human shields and mass hostages – and then made false accusations against Israel of committing such violations, falsehoods promulgated as true by the UN.

But the aggression and human rights violations committed by Hamas – the cause of the conflict – weren’t even to be considered by this objective, fact-finding Commission. Having been set up on the premise that Israel was guilty, it was directed to gather evidence to support the conclusion that had already been reached. As the Queen in Alice might have said, ‘verdict first, evidence afterwards’. Unless Goldstone has torn up the terms of his mandate, his Commission will possess all the objectivity of the show-trials of Stalin.

Publication of this kangaroo court’s report is imminent. There are even suggestions swirling today that it is to be published tomorrow – on the Jewish sabbath, when neither Israel nor the Jewish world can properly respond. That would be entirely in keeping with the malevolent racism and cynicism of this entire operation.

(Full Article)
Related: Goldstone’s Report: Fundamentally Flawed or a Step Towards Sanctions?
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