http://www.counterpunch.org/cook04052011.html
The Cleansing of Israel 's War Crimes
Goldstone's Rethink
By Jonathan Cook\
Counterpunch: April 5, 2011
Israeli leaders have barely hidden their jubilation at an opinion article in last Friday's Washington Post by the South African jurist Richard Goldstone reconsidering the findings of his United Nations-appointed inquiry into Israel's attack on Gaza in winter 2008.
For the past 18 months the Goldstone Report had forced
Goldstone's report, Israeli officials worried, might eventually pave the way to war crimes trials against Israeli soldiers at the International Criminal Court in
In what appeared to be a partial retraction of some of his findings against
Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, immediately called on the United Nations to shelve the Goldstone Report; Ehud Barak, the defence minister, demanded an apology; and Avigdor Lieberman, the foreign minister, said
The report's original accusation that Israeli soldiers committed war crimes still stands, as does criticism of
Instead Goldstone restated his position in two ways that
The first was an observation that since his report's publication in September 2009 "
In the past Goldstone has made much of the need for
The significance of Goldstone's reassessment from
That will be cause for Palestinian concern at a time when, in response to renewed hostilities between
Another unnamed commander told the popular Israeli news website Ynet yesterday that Goldstone's change of tack might lift the threat of arrest on war crimes charges from Israeli soldiers travelling abroad.
However, according to both Israeli human rights groups and a committee of independent legal experts appointed by the UN to monitor implementation of the report, Goldstone's applause for
Sarit Michaeli, a spokeswoman for B'Tselem, an Israeli organisation monitoring human rights in the occupied territories, said
"The materials on which
Likewise, the UN committee of experts, led by a
Human rights groups have pointed out that, despite the large number of deaths in
One of those cases involved the theft of a credit card. Another, in which two soldiers used a nine-year-old boy as a human shield, led to their being punished with three-month suspended sentences and demotion.
The second, more significant reassessment by Goldstone is that he was wrong to conclude in his report that
Despite Goldstone's misleading wording in the article, he is referring not to an Israeli order to intentionally murder civilians but a policy in which indiscriminate attacks were undertaken with a disregard to likely casualties among civilians.
Strangely, he appears to base his revised opinion on
Rina Rosenberg, the international advocacy director of the Adalah legal centre in
"
She pointed out that there were other important standards in international law for assessing war crimes, including negilgence, disregard for the safety of civilians, and indiscriminate use of force.
Also, observers have wondered what new information has emerged since Mr Goldstone published his report to justify a rethink on whether Israeli policy left civilians in the line of fire.
His original conclusion drew in part on public statements by Israeli military commanders that in
In addition, Israeli group Breaking the Silence has collected many testimonies from soldiers before and since publication of the Goldstone Report indicating that they received orders to carry out operations with little or no regard for the safety of civilians. Some described the army as pursuing a policy of "zero-risk" to soldiers, even if that meant putting civilians in danger.
Similarly, leaflets produced by the military rabbinate – apparently with the knowledge of the army top brass – urged Israeli ground troops in
The timing of Mr Goldstone's article has raised additional concern among Israeli and Palestinian human rights groups that he may have succumbed to political pressure.
Late last month the UN's Human Rights Council, which set up the fact-finding mission, recommended that the General Assembly refer the Goldstone Report to the Security Council – the decisive stage in moving it to the International Criminal Court.
It is expected that the
Shawan Jabareen, director of the Palestinian legal rights group al-Haq, said Mr Goldstone's article had provided
Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in
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