This article originally appeared in the Jerusalem Post.
Israel's missed opportunity
My mission was determined to investigate war crimes in Gaza fairly. The
Israeli government was wrong to shut us out
By Richard Goldstone
guardian.co.uk: 21 October 2009 10.30 BST
Five weeks after the release of the report of the fact-finding mission on
Gaza, there has been no attempt by any of its critics to come to grips with
its substance. It has been fulsomely approved by those whose interests it is
thought to serve and rejected by those of the opposite view. Those who
attack it do so too often by making personal attacks on its authors' motives
and those who approve it rely on its authors' reputations.
Israeli government spokesmen and those who support them have attacked it in
the harshest terms and, in particular my participation, in a most personal
and hurtful way. The time has now come for more sober reflection on what the
report means and appropriate Israeli reactions to it.
I begin with my own motivation, as a Jew who has supported Israel and its
people all my life, for having agreed to head the Gaza mission. Over the
past 20 years, I have investigated serious violations of international law
in my own country, South Africa, in the former Yugoslavia, in Rwanda and the
alleged fraud and theft by governments and political leaders in a number of
countries in connection with the United Nations Iraq oil-for-food programme.
In all of these, allegations reached the highest political echelons. In
every instance, I spoke out strongly in favour of full investigations and,
where appropriate, criminal prosecutions. I have spoken out over the years
on behalf of the International Bar Association against human rights
violations in many countries, including Sri Lanka, China, Russia, Iran,
Zimbabwe and Pakistan.
I would have been acting against those principles and my own convictions and
conscience if I had refused a request from the United Nations to investigate
serious allegations of war crimes against both Israel and Hamas in the
context of Operation Cast Lead.
As a Jew, I felt a greater and not a lesser obligation to do so. It is well
documented that as a condition of my participation I insisted upon and
received an even-handed mandate to investigate all sides, and that is what
we sought to do.
I sincerely believed that because of my own record and the terms of the
mission's mandate we would receive the co-operation of the Israeli
government. Its refusal to co-operate was a grave error. My plea for
co-operation was repeated before and during the investigation, and it sits,
plain as day, in the appendices of the Gaza report for those who actually
bother to read it.
Our mission obviously could only consider and report on what it saw, heard
and read. If the government of Israel failed to bring facts and analyses to
our attention, we cannot fairly be blamed for the consequences. Those who
feel that our report failed to give adequate attention to specific incidents
or issues should be asking the Israeli government why it failed to argue its
cause.
Israel missed a golden opportunity to actually have a fair hearing from a
UN-sponsored inquiry. Of course, I was aware of and have frequently spoken
out against the unfair and exceptional treatment of Israel by the UN and
especially by the human rights council.
I did so again last week. Israel could have seized the opportunity provided
by the even-handed mandate of our mission and used it as a precedent for a
new direction by the United Nations in the Middle East. Instead, we were
shut out.
As I stated in response to a recent letter from the mayor of Sderot, I
believed strongly that our mission should have been allowed to visit Sderot
and other parts of southern Israel that have been at the receiving end of
unlawful attacks by many thousands of rockets and mortars fired at civilian
targets by Hamas and other armed groups in Gaza. We were prevented from
doing so by, what I believe, was a misguided decision by the Israeli
government.
In Gaza, I was surprised and shocked by the destruction and misery there. I
had not expected it. I did not anticipate that the IDF would have targeted
civilians and civilian objects. I did not anticipate seeing the vast
destruction of the economic infrastructure of Gaza including its
agricultural lands, industrial factories, water supply and sanitation works.
These are not military targets. I have not heard or read any government
justification for this destruction.
Of course the children of Sderot and the children of Gaza have the same
rights to protection under international law, and that is why,
notwithstanding the decision of the government of Israel, we took whatever
steps were open to us to obtain information from victims and experts in
southern Israel about the effects on their lives of sustained rocket and
mortar attacks over a period of years. It was on the strength of those
investigations that we held those attacks to constitute serious war crimes
and possibly crimes against humanity.
The refusal of co-operation by the government of Israel did not prevent us
from reacting positively to a request from Gilad Shalit's father to speak
personally to our mission at its public session in Geneva. No one who heard
his evidence could fail to have been moved by the unspeakable pain of a
parent whose young son was being held for over three years in unlawful
circumstances without any contact with the outside world and not even
allowed visits from the International Committee of the Red Cross. The
mission called for his release.
Israel and its courts have always recognised that they are bound by norms of
international law that it has formally ratified or that have become binding
as customary international law upon all nations. The fact that the United
Nations and too many members of the international community have unfairly
singled out Israel for condemnation and failed to investigate horrible human
rights violations in other countries cannot make Israel immune from the very
standards it has accepted as binding upon it.
Israel has a strong history of investigating allegations made against its
own officials reaching to the highest levels of government: the inquiries
into the Yom Kippur war, Sabra and Shatila, Bus 300 and the second Lebanon
war.
Israel has an internationally renowned and respected judiciary that should
be envy of many other countries in the region. It has the means and ability
to investigate itself. Has it the will?
***
This Sunday, October 25th, Ash Grove Music and Beyond
November present "Resistance Then, Resist Now," an all
free afternoon of entertainment and dialogue on war,
recruitment, poverty and opportunities lost. We are pleased
to join with Arlington West, the long-running war memorial
for this event.
Famed veteran and peace activist Ron Kovic will MC, and
Featured artists include teenage wizards of poetry, the Get Lit
Players / musical satirist Roy Zimmerman and the SHINE
Mawusi Womens Drum Aliance.
We will hear from The Resistance, the Coalition Against
Militarization in our Schools, Veterans For Peace, and others.
Our latest additions:
Maricela Guzman of the AFSC (American Friends Service Committee)
will speak from the perspective of being a vet who became a C.O. during
her military time, and knows many others who share that transformation.
As a current student at CSULA, she'll also speak of the effect of the
War and the military budget on herself and many other students..
Art Goldberg was a student leader in 1960's UC Berkeley's Free Speech
Movement, and hasn't stopped since. He founded the Echo Park Working
Peoples Law Center, has organized for peace and Justice continually, now
a spokesperson for the Single Payer movement. Warfare vs. Healthcare.
Bring your drum or shaker for our drum circle.
It all begins 2 PM on the sand next to the Arlington West monument,
just North of the Santa Monica Pier. Be a part of this moving moment---
Resistance then, Resist now! at Arlington West this Sunday, October 25th.
For information, call 310-391-5974 or go to www.AshgroveMusic.com
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