Richard Goldstone recants. What price the Israel witch-hunt now?

independent patriot

Bravo...well said.

John B.

One of the most powerfull critics I have ever read.
GREAT ARTICLE Melanie Phillips

Veracity

Goldstone will go down in history as a betrayer of Jews and Israel. Nothing will change this . There was ample evidence to give the lie to Hamas from those who DID take part in the investigation and were ignored. Goldstone was ably assisted by those who had already condemned Israel from their own mouths before taking part in this the investigation.One could say they were hand picked as was Goldstone in all probability , to ensure the outcome was as it appeared I for one will accept not one word he has said unless it is endorsed by each and every member of that investigative team and presented to the United Nations.

Hardeep Singh

It's shame that it's become so fashionable to put the boot in when Israel is mentioned. Whereas Hamas gets off almost scot free, thanks to the blinkered view of the liberal elite. It's just not on to pass such negative and at times baseless accusations at Israel. I highly doubt Israel targets civilians, why would they? In fact they're well aware that such actions would always witnessed by the semi-permanent glare of the world's media towarsd everything Israel does. It's a pity the same glare isn't focused upon Hamas & chums!

Ovid

Your beautifully crafted review on Goldstone's recant should be compulsorily reprinted in Australia's left wing, Fairfax media. I doubt, however, whether the Australian public will ever get to hear that Goldstone has damned his own report. That would be too much for them to swallow.
Similarly, your recent rebuke of the BBC for failing to adequately report the murder of an Israeli family which included the decapitation of an infant could be equally applied to Australia's own anti-Israel (and anti-Semetic) public broadcaster, ABC whose coverage of the murder was minimal and which ignored the decapitation of the baby.

Brian Moshe

As usual, Melanie, I read it here first.

I wonder what the Guardian will say?

Aviel

Dozens of Israeli soldiers testifying for "Breaking the Silence" on the crimes they committed or were ordered to commit are not dependent on Goldstone's report.
Phillips takes for granted all the Hammas's lies but ignores her own: "Israel always investigates allegations of misconduct made against its soldiers and holds them to acount under the rule of law" Between 2006 and 2009 an investigation was opened in less than 15% of cases of killings of unarmed Palestinian civilians and not one case ended with indictment.

Okey

Goldstone, who appears to be a very ambitious,arrogant, narcissistic, self-righteous individual, has destroyed himself. He will now be reviled and despised by the anti-Zionists, as he was by the Zionists and by other decent, moral folk.

When the UN so-called "Human Rights Council" commissioned him to lead the kangaroo court "investigation", he should have recused himself on the grounds that he is a Jew and (according to him) a Zionist.
The UN body would not have selected such a man had they not known in advance that he would hand down a "guilty judgement," given that its members had already proved publicly their prejudice against Israel.

Mark

At least he admitted that the Report was totally wrong and deliberately skewed against Israel. His conscious did not let him sleep well. But there a tons of other scumbags in UN, America and in particular in Europe (trash Norway for example) that consciously choose side of evil.

Andrew Smith

First rate. Neil Turner picked this up earlier in another post and I was moved to contact the BBC (for the first time) asking why this has not yet been picked up by them. This is what I wrote.

"Can I assume that the BBC will give appropriate coverage to Richard Goldstone's recent remarks on his report into the fighting in Gaza? Given the prominence the report was given by the BBC at the time I would imagine that his recent comments would demand a significant response by the BBC. A search of the term "Goldstone Report" on the BBC website indicates the skewing of the focus onto Israel rather than HAMAS. Perhaps you should be correcting this now in the interests of balance. I would also add that your coverage of the recent killing of the settlers appeared oddly muted. If a settler broke into a Palestinian family home and murdered children, babies and adults I am certain the reaction would be different. I should not have to say this but I am British, Christian by birth but non-practising and secular and increasingly disturbed by the BBC's bias against Israel. I am also, by force of law, a licence payer but am being steadily pushed towards a position of civil disobedience as a matter of conscience on the basis of the bias rooted in your system. If unaddressed, it will see the end of the BBC as you know it. I look forward to the coverage of Goldstone's remarks."

Alastair

I have been reading many United Nations reports into Israel going back over the last 50 years.

It seems that we spend billions on an organisation that it filled to the brim with well intentioned idiots.

I used to think the USA wishing to leave the UN was a bad thing. Now I look at all the Islamic countries leaching money and promoting their agenda and I wonder why we bother.

Melanie, I love the fact they are going to investigate you for telling the truth.

Let them try to prove killing a baby girl does not equate to savagery.

Gershon

The anti-Israel rent-a-mob (some of whose members regularly write here)have never let the facts bother them in the past. Why should they suddenly change now?

AKUS

There was a time that the Jewish community would prescribe a cherem on a person like this – no Jew would talk to him, he would be unwelcome in any Jewish community or synagogue.

The damage he did to Israel will never be repaired, and he has put himself irreparably outside the community.

This apology, with its self-serving rationalizations and continuing complaint that Israel will not cooperate with him – why should it? Should an innocent person cooperate with a hanging judge? – is too little, too late.

Londoner

What was goldstone's excuse for ignoring the testimony of Col. Richard Kemp? http://www.unwatch.org/site/apps/nlnet/content2.aspx?c=bdKKISNqEmG&b=1313923&ct=7536409

Londoner

This particular blood libel was a joint enterprise by the Arabs and the EU. Arabs tell us daily why they hate Jews:

Qatari cleric Sheik Muhammad Al-Muraikhi: We will treat the Jews as our enemies even if they return Palestine to us, because they are infidels. They rejected Allah and His messengers, January 2009.
http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/0/0/0/0/0/64/2077.htm

Egyptian Cleric Muhammad Hussein Ya’qoub: The Jews Are the Enemies of Muslims Regardless of the Occupation of Palestine, January 2009.
http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/0/0/0/0/0/64/2042.htm

What is europe's excuse?

Jerry

Quite a simple matter! Mr. Goldstone should be encouraged to write an addendum for inclusion with the original report. Alternatively, he could ask for his name to withdrawn from the original document. Or, he might write a series of clarifying articles on how his conclusions have been affected by additional information that he has received since the report's publication.

Seraph

Dear Mr. Goldstone,

"Apology" NOT accepted.

joseph david

The Goldstone Report=The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

Londoner

This is a watershed moment -- not for Arabs for whom Jew-hatred is second nature; and not for Europeans who are gleefully continuing their war against Jews by funding and providing diplomatic cover for Arab proxies.

It is a watershed moment for Israel. Not a single British paper has reported Goldstone's retraction yet. Israel must withdraw the press passes for those news outlets which fail to report this development fairly and prominently -- on the grounds that she will not facilitate the output of purveyors of lies dressed up as 'news'.

Israel is being used and abused twice over:
Reporting restrictions in all the neighbouring tyrannies, in addition to the western comforts that Israel offers, attract reporters by the hundreds. They use Israel as a base, but dare not stray from the arab 'narrative' -- for which there are known consequences. If the arab 'narrative' demands dishonesty and fabrications about Israel, these reporters are ideologically happy to oblige. They know they are safe in Israel whatever they write.

Well, that has to change -- start depriving the worst offenders of the coveted press passes, and we'll soon see a salutary effect on the rest.

Alex from Haifa

People, publish this. EVERYWHERE.

Melanie, thank you for your continuous defense of reason in the world turned upside down.

Chris Nathan

Your chastisement of Goldstone is 100% correct. He's a self-serving idiot to believe what he did. He was the UN's 'Court Jew' to give biased "evidence" against the victim, calling him the aggressor. For shame, Mr. Goldstone. However, give credit-where credit is due. He had the 'testicular fortitude' to get up and declare himself and his report wrong. For this, and only this, should he be given credit.

Roy

How sick and treacherously cruel to put pen to paper on an official document when so many could read the untruths in it. These are the educated and cultivated of society that so many rely on to impart their polished training into their world wide community work. In the end it is demoralizing for ones who have not gained such top notch scholarship, yet can see through the imbecility of ones lording it over us. When they lack even the wisdom to obtain both sides of the story. How do such people have the gall to take on such work when they know they are so biased? One indeed wonders if all the decision makers and official report editors are on the side of truth and decency or working for the devil?

mareli

Abject idiot? Moral bankrupt? A tad harsh, Melanie. I read the Goldstone report and it never said that Israel was totally blameworthy and Hamas innocent of any wrongdoing. The judgment of Israel was perhaps too strong, but had Israel participated in the process it might not have been so. At least Goldstone admits he is not perfect. You should acknowledge that neither is Israel. And I am NO fan of Hamas.

Merlyn

Of course the BBC report on this shows an image of a frightened woman, a man carrying a frightened child and smoke and fire behind them... a picture says a thousand words.

Derek BLADES

The thrust of Melanie's latest attack on the United Nations is that the Goldstone commission should have accepted Israel’s statements without question because Israelis are nice people and disregarded anything said by Hamas because they are terrorists. Goldstone rightly rejected this approach and, in the absence of any cooperation from the Israeli government, did their best with the evidence then available.

The real lesson of Cast Lead is that nothing is gained by callous demonstration of Israel’s military superiority. Tit for tat shelling and bombing by the Israelis and mortar and rocket fire from Gaza continue unabated. Melanie describes Gaza rocket fire as representing an “existential” threat to Israel. An absurd exaggeration. The real “existential” threat to Israel comes from the present government’s determination to continue settlement building and refusing to negotiate.

Fran

Hear Hear!

Now let's see whether the BBC, Channel 4 et al now give the same publicity to Goldstone's recantation as to his original allegations ...

Robbo

How and why do these imbeciles like Goldstone get into positions of power and influence in the first place?

elixelx

Don't you know, Melanie, that if you say you're sorry--even long, long after the mayhem you have caused--if you say you're sorry, why...you're forgiven!

Borrar y cuenta nueva...wipe the slate clean and start a brand new account!

Of course that's the Christian way of sinning and redeeming..the Jewish way will require the (presumably)repentant Goldstone to ask Mehila (forgiveness), personally, of every single soldier in the IDF, every pilot in the IAF, every general and every member of the Israeli Cabinet he slandered.

Start puckering, Richard! You're about to need a brand new pair of lips to go with that brand new tongue!

You will be forgiven for the slander, the libel, the mayhem you've caused--but an op-ed in the New York Times doesn't cut it as proof of T'Shuva! (repentance)

Reuven

I was waiting for a brilliant comment from you, Melanie. I wasn't disappointed.

Sarah

Why didn't The Guardian say anything about it? How about honest journalism?

R. B-M.

In future, Israel should cooperate fully and openly with international investigations. Its refusal to permit this, on countless occasions when people have been killed in large numbers, looks bad. I was brought up to respect and love the Jewish people, but the arrogant attitude of modern Israeli politicians and spokesmen has frequently taken me aback. I feel strongly that a people that has suffered so much should have more compassion for the sufferings of an oppressed and impoverished minority living on their doorstep. Death and injuries inflicted on innocent people of any race are always to be deplored, and Israel cannot expect to escape the suspicion of wrongdoing if it routinely spurns subsequent investigations, most especially if it confiscates on-the-spot evidence such as cameras, and blocks access to sites where bloodshed has occurred. For its own security, Israel should beware of alienating its friends and well-wishers. Current hard-line policies are putting the lives of Jews at risk everywhere in the world.

Carl

So no Palestinian civilians got killed during Israel's onslaught? That is good news.

wond34

The testimony of Israel soldiers I believe has been damning, which did highlight abuses in the invasion of Gaza.

Israel continues to tighten up on Palestinians, such as: the trampling of legal rights, the building of the wall, illegal seizure of Arab houses in Jersusalem etc.

The deadly assault on the peace ship last year and slaughter of civilians is another example of Israel's attrocities.

While I condemn violence and terrorism - especially the senseless acts by Hamas - it is time that the world put pressure on Israel to abide by UN declarations and raise the bar in terms of human rights.

YG

Liers exposed!
While Israel is being demonised, the "Allies" are killing thousands of innocent civilians in Iraq, Afganistan and Lybia. Jews are always the scape goat to whiten the crimes of other nations. Specially Britian.

Richard

I'll try again.

DIME bombs, flechettes, cluster bombs, white phosphorus, aerial bombardment, artillery bombardment of an over-populated ghetto is, as in the Lebanon,okay because Israel decided it was at "war" in "self-defence"? The destruction of housing (after Israel had finished its attack) of civilian infrastructure, of agricultural facilities, of water treatment facilities, of power generation facilities? The killing, wounding, impoverishment and degradation of civilian men, women and children is okay - because Hamas uses them as "human shields" (that is one and a half million people are crammed in a sliver of land - so any resistance immediately makes those one and a half million "human shields" and regrettably fair game in the way of "collateral damage")?

And this after Hamas offered an extension of the ceasefire which Israel admitted was working.

And the IDF is investigating (still) and will discipline anyone who made "mistakes" (punish and promote). So the IDF's implementation of the Dahiya doctrine in a "war" of "self-defence" turns out to be ethical!

This is shameful.

Goldstone has compounded his initial error of accepting the Israeli fiction that it was at war.

YG

Carl,
I suggest you check how many Civilians are killed by the "Allies" in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. If anything, they can learn from the IDF how to minimize civilian casualties.
As col. Richard Kemp put it: "I don’t think there has ever been a time in the history of warfare when any army has made more efforts to reduce civilian casualties and deaths of innocent people than the IDF is doing today in Gaza."

Shaun Harbord

I suggest people use the link provided to read Goldstone's article for themselves. I did and found what is written above a travesty.

where's_the_beef?

Too little, too late; but why would anyone have expected a forensically independent judgement from a man that dutifully carried out his masters' bidding both during the apartheid regime, and the one-party rule that replaced it?

YG

Richard,
I guess in your comment you refer to the bombings of the US, Britian, France and NATO members on Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya.
Correct ?

Travis

For today's Britain and the rest of \Western Europe, Israel is always guilty until proven guilty.

John Dowser

It doesn't seem quite right expecting Hamas to behave like responsible representatives while they have never been recognized as elected body and their leaders are being assassinated by state actors in this very same dispute. How can there be a reasonable complaint now about them not leading any 'investigations'? I think it's case of completely missing the plot or submission to insane pressure. Or both.

Graeme Thompson

I believe I'm right in thinking that the Goldstone Report has been used as evidence by Hamas backed UK lawfare groups applying for arrest warrants for visiting Israeli dignitaries under 'universal jursidiction'? If Goldstone's article is anything but a self-serving exercise to extricate himself from being the pariah he rightly is amongst Jews and civilised people in South Africa, he should make plain he is readily available to give evidence on behalf of these Israeli dignitaries and against the terrorist backing lawfare groups who apply for the arrest warrants. They are wilfully aiding and abetting a terrorist organisation and they themselves should face charges for doing so.

YG

The truth has a bad habit of popping up after a while to expose the lies of those evil forces.
Like in the Elders of Zion,
The "Massacre" in Jenin,
The Muhammad Al-Dura death,
The "Peaceful" flotilla,
And now the Goldstone Report.
My heart goes with those liberals of our world.
What a wonderful world it could be without the truth…

John Blaimont

Vindication at last.
The recantation and your article wil rank in time to come to rank with the story of Balaam & Barak in the Bible. who came to curse Israel and ended up blessing Israel guided eventually by an ass (the world's Press?)

Carl

YG - just at the moment, this is about Israel, not other Armies. As for your spokesman, I really don't think he is credible.

Sandra

Thank you Melanie for your article. Always interesting to read your comments. As for Goldstone, maybe a reason he has had 2nd thoughts about his scandalous report against Israel, is because the Jewish community in South Africa was totally furious with him for penning such abominable lies about Operation Cast Lead, so much so that he was ostracized from his own community in South Africa. He's had about a year for some deep soul searching. As one person on this list mentioned, why didn't he listen to what Col. Richard Kemp said?
There's also an excellent article in The Jerusalem Post www.jpost.com by the editor, David Horovitz. Worth a read.
The heading is: Goldstone:The belated penitent. Goldstone has done monstrous damage to Israel, our soldiers, sailors, airmen and the population at large. May he never have a good nights sleep for the rest of his miserable life.

B. Roozendaal

There is an upside to this extraordinary story.
In his article Goldstone admits verbatim that the UNHRC was and is biased against Israel, and that Hamas is bent on the destruction of Israel.
The question now becomes with what kind of logic any self-respecting Western democracy wants to remain part of the political whorehouse that is the United Nations.
A dysfunctional organisation, biased by admission of its own functionaries, that can not even protect its own personnel, as was the case in Afghanistan, and practises selective indignation (if Libya, why not Sudan) has become morally bankrupt, politically inconsequential and deserves to be disbanded. It is time to deligitimise the U.N.and the liblab mob that supports it.

Augustus

Derek Blades - Israel's military
superiority hasn't anything to do with being 'callous' as you so stupidly put. It is simply a necessity, considering the circumstances under which it has to put up with the Muslim
terrorism which shows no real sign of abating. That's why it has developed the most advanced
systems of rocket defense in the world. There's the Iron Dome
which can deal with all short-range weapons such as Kassam rockets fired by Hamas, as well as the Kassam Sceptor for middle-range rockets, and the
Arrow system developed by Israel's space industry for long-range attacks. So now Israel has a full arsenal of sophisticated air defence systems designed to deal with every type of mortar and rocket attack, and all developed by Israeli technology. I hope that makes you pleased!

Raymond in DC

There's a Jewish story of a man who, after having engaged in slander, comes to his rabbi to gain his forgiveness. The rabbi tells him to take a pillow out to a field, tear it open and scatter the feathers. He does so, then returns to the rabbi, who tells him, "Now go out and gather those feathers." As the penitent is now confused, the rabbi continues, "Just as those feathers have scattered, so too have your words. They cannot be retrieved, nor the damage undone."

Goldstone offers only a limited "in hindsight, we came to the wrong conclusion", but that can't undo the damage wrought by his report. The ball that is thrown, as Aristotle reminded us, has already left one's hand.

Richard

YG
April 3rd, 2011 1:19pm
Since this blog is about Goldstone, No, I was referring to Israel. You are right, of course, that similar crimes on a much bigger scale have been committed by the US and Britain.

gary ashton

i look forwards to the sydney morning herald and the abc reporting this tomorrow, mmm, and pigs will fly.

Augustus

Of course, the Goldstone Report must now be consigned to the dustbin of history, and naturally, the left-wing biased media will fail to report it, and if they do, like the usual
Israel bashers here, will no doubt put some sort of a twist
on the admission to still find
something to blame Israel for.
Pathetic!

Travis

Carl posts "So no Palestinian civilians got killed during Israel's onslaught? That is good news."

Yes just like the British in their flattening of the city of Caen during Montgomery's offensive in in 1944 killed no French civilians and their firebombing of Dresden in Feb. 1945 killed no German civilians too! The aggressor is not he who fires the first shot but in him who makes war inevitable.

Edward in the USA

BTW, isn't the murder of 10 UN workers in reprisal of one man burning a copy of the Koran "disproportionate response"?

blue_&_white_avenger

Alistair - I take exception with what you wrote here -"It seems that we spend billions on an organisation that it filled to the brim with well intentioned idiots".
What tyou write is an insult to well-intentioned idiots!
The UN GA consists of characters far more wicked & sinister than you portray. We have the 57-man gaggle of Islamic states none of which is a democracy, most of which are autocratically ruled by tyrants with no respect for their own subjects let alone anyone else. Then there's the remnants of the Soviet Union - another rag-tag set of tyrants, the South Americans another partly-fascist bunch & the countries of the West who are so desperate to safeguard their oli-supply that they'll vote for a flat earth to appease the Arab nations.
So please go easy on the idiots; if the UN was simply idiots, there are also well-intentioned idiots. Most of these lot aren't

Paul

Melanie my hero. Brilliant.

Denis Fitzgerald

As HRW director Ken Roth has pointed out, Goldstone did not retract the charge of indiscriminate warfare. Charges of deliberately targeting civilians were much lesser.

YG

Carl,
The moment to talk about other armies never comes. Somehow it is always the IDF.
Please remind me of the UN delegation which investigated the british ramie atrocities in Iraq.
As for my "spokes man"', it is Colonel Richard kemp from the British army , which coordinated the British operations in Afghanistan, he should know something about it.

gareth

Well done Andrew Smith (post below) - good people need to speak up - and watch them run for cover.

wonderer

@R. B-M.
April 3rd, 2011 10:25am
"I feel strongly that a people that has suffered so much should have more compassion for the sufferings of an oppressed and impoverished minority living on their doorstep."

In fact, there is abundant evidence that Israelis are a compassionate and caring people, eg the large number of Palestinians treated in hospitals in Israel.

That apart, your logic leads to the curious conclusion that someone who has not suffered or been persecuted need feel no compassion and is quite entitled to inflict suffering on others. It also conflicts with the approach of progressives at the individual level: when someone has committed violent crimes, progressives typically bend over backwards to make allowances for him if he himself has suffered violence when growing up.

I don't know your personal history of course, but I assume you and your family have not have had to live with terrorism, coupled with explicit and plausible threats of extermination by neighbours for more than six decades. This being so, following your logic, you are not competent to appreciate the point of view of those who have been in that position.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Derek Blades: "The real lesson of Cast Lead is that nothing is gained by callous demonstration of Israel’s military superiority. Tit for tat shelling and bombing by the Israelis and mortar and rocket fire from Gaza continue unabated. Melanie describes Gaza rocket fire as representing an “existential” threat to Israel. An absurd exaggeration. The real “existential” threat to Israel comes from the present government’s determination to continue settlement building and refusing to negotiate."

Blades: the Goldstone Report is a shameful and cynical travesty. End of story. Stop apologising for it like you do for the slitting of 3 month old Jewish babies' throats - merely because they are the children of settlers or Jews or both.

Re the Settlements: no doubt the settlements inflame Palestinian opinion. Well, apart from the fact that it takes little for a Jew to succeed in doing that, it equally lends Hamas - and the anti Zionists in general - even more oil for their propaganda machine .

The simple fact is, however, as even anti Zionist exercises like the mini series 'The Promise" demonstrate, the Arabs and moslems believe Israel has no right to exist and the Jews are solely responsible for the victimisation of arabs and moslems; and the only good Jew is one who suffered in the holocaust, if not a dead one.

This latter view, right or wrong - and it is certainly a singular exercise in historical mono vision - precludes any genuine efforts to achieve peace. The mutual suffering hat has been caused over the last 100 years cannot have any room whatsoever to heal, if there are no substantive intentions to recognise Israel as a Jewish state, even now that it has existed for over 60 years and has 6 million+ population who will not give up statehood willingly. More to the point, the proponderance of arab and moslem opinion in the Middle East doesn't, and never has, genuinely desired a two state solution. Nothing has changed since the arabs and moslems rejected the Partition Resolution and nothing has changed since the moslems and arabs started murdering Jewish civilians in the 1920's.

Blades would do well to change his little, if not monotonous, ditti and start discussing genuine ways to stop the suffering and how to start the healing.

In short, he should stop his pernicious double speak and say something intelligent, for a change.

deegee

Goldstone had accomplices, Chinkin, Jilani and Travers.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Graeme Thompson
April 3rd, 2011 1:43pm
Graeham Thompson: "I believe I'm right in thinking that the Goldstone Report has been used as evidence by Hamas backed UK lawfare groups applying for arrest warrants for visiting Israeli dignitaries under 'universal jursidiction'? "

Not only: the trial over which Judge Bathurst Norman presided over the Brighton arms manufacturer case should be retried.

As for this judge, he should be made publicly to answer for his bigotry and cynical betrayal of the British judicial system.

Nea

I have a hard time understanding what a civilian is.
Is it someone who does not wear a uniform?
Is it someone hiding weapons and ammunition in Mosques and ambulances?
Then, most hamas fighters are civilians.

D. Roberts

The similarity between the original comments of Goldstone and Derek Blades cannot be pure coincidence.

It's amazing how Blades attaches some perverse sort of moral equivalence between the attacks of Hamas upon Jewish civlians and the eventual Israeli responses against the Palestinians firing the missiles and mortars.

It is akin to asserting an equivalence between the arsonist and the firefighter.

For decades the great sham of the Middle East Peace Process has dragged on. And this despicable scam has consisted of only one policy, only one platform and only one plan. Pressuring Israel for more concessions.

Year in and year out, new peace conferences were declared and new plans for peace were hammered out. All of them had one thing in common, they carved up Israel for a non-existent peace.

Concessions & gestures to the Palestinians have consistently been met with increased intransigence with each Israeli concession being met by new Palestinian demands.

The Palestinian side has not made a single concession not even a tiny one such as Hamas & Fatah removing the complete and utter destruction of the Jewish people from their Charters.

The Middle East "peace-process" whose main principle is supposed to be "land for peace" involves a paradox whereby the minuscule democracy of Israel is being forced to provide it's totalitarian neighbours & enemies even more territory.

The principle of "land for peace'"has now died, having again shown it's true face in Gaza, where ceded Israeli territory by withdrawing the entire Jewish population, both dead and alive.

In response former Israeli territory and property was ransacked. Israel ceded Gaza in good faith for peace. It got anything but in return. All Jewish synagogues were desecrated and vandalized. The Jews had even taken their dead from cemeteries with them as they knew from past experience what would happen to those left behind.

Former Jewish towns and villages were turned into Palestinian terrorist training camps and also used to launch tens of thousands of missiles/mortars into neighbouring Jewish villages.

Of course Blades and co see the "settlement" issue as a platform from which to further denigrate Israel. Israel withdrew from Gaza - the rest is indeed history. Jews were being attacked and killed before there were any "settlements". Indeed the PLO was created in 1964 when the "West Bank" and Gaza were already in Arab hands. All Palestinian "leaders" have walked away from negotiations when it suited them, to return to violence. Its not for nothing that the charters of Hamas and Fatah still call for Israel's destruction and the PLO's phased plan speaks for itself.

It also speaks volumes that Abbas and co predicate any future Palestinian state on the principle of it being entirely "Judenrein". Enough said.

Graeme Thompson

@Derek BLADES
April 3rd, 2011 8:23am

Mr Blades, your consistent paeans to the gods of disreason against the State of Israel is an 'existential threat'. For those willing to recognise the naked reality of evil when it is staring them in the face, your contributions to Melanie's blog are very salutory.

Thank you for so persistently reminding us of the demonic pathology all people of goodwill are facing.

david elder

Ah! My weekly dose of Blades! Nothing like swallowing some Blades to get the circulation going, and activate the little grey cells.

Blades, if the rocket attacks from Gaza are not a major problem, or indication of a Hamas desire to become a major problem - why don't you go and live in this part of Israel? You and your Solomonic wisdon can show the Israelis how to deal with such little problems.

Arnold Levan

Brilliant article!!! However the hard Far Left are so blinded by their hatred of Israel and all its democratic institutions that no amount of logical argument will ever convince them. they only believe what they want to hear.

daniel maris

Yes, Goldstone's report was indefensible. If a state can't protect its people against rockets being fired into civilians settlements, what can a state do?

The Israelis are up against an ideology that states clearly "war is deception". The Jihadists are quite prepared to hide behind civilians and attack civilians.

Goldstone should be absolutely ashamed of himself.

Sandy

Let him seek forgiveness from the victims of Hamas.

John from Toronto

Unfortunately we won't see the left and the Arab apologists recant. They are far too heavily invested in the Goldstone Report lies, because they were their lies before they were the Report's lies.

Iris Israel

I love this brave woman!
She's one of a kind.

wolf t.

Trying to make peace with his Maker, is he?

Ruth Sobol, Israel

Excellent article Melanie!

Sadly, as you so rightly say, the damage has already been done.

Derek BLADES

@ D. Roberts

You wrote "Year in and year out, new peace conferences were declared and new plans for peace were hammered out. All of them had one thing in common, they carved up Israel for a non-existent peace."

The last sentence puzzles me. Peace plans promoted by every American President since Jimmy Carter as well as by the Quartet envisage an Israel living within its 1967 border although, as a sweetener for Israel, most of them also provided for land-swaps to incorporate settlements contiguous with that border to be included in Israel.

Which plans envisaged "carving up" Israel?

Joseph Katz

I do of course agree with Ms Phillips. I find it hard to understand that such an intelligent person as Judge Goldstone did not envisage before accepting the job from the UN that whatever the conclusion of his report, it would be used against Israel.It was politicized from the start. What a shame for Judge Goldstone

Derek BLADES

D. Roberts writes "The Palestinian side has not made a single concession not even a tiny one such as Hamas & Fatah removing the complete and utter destruction of the Jewish people from their Charters."

The Palestine papers show just how far the Palestinians are willing to go to achieve an equitable settlement. Mr/Ms Roberts will find that they are very willing to go substantially further than “a single concession”.

From Hamas’ point of view, the problem is that Israel is dedicated to its “complete and utter destruction" and has a programme of extra-judicial killing of Hamas leaders to prove it. Despite this, Hamas and Israel have agreed on several cease-fires and Hamas spokespersons have indicated that they could live in peace with Israel if the central issue of the right of return can be fairly addressed. Quite possibly a right of return limited to refugees born before 1948 and monetary compensation for others would fit the bill.

All this is, of course, speculation because as long as Israel continues with its illegal settlement programme and thumbs its collective nose at President Obama by deliberately sabotaging peace talks, we will never know whether a reasonable settlement is possible. But to dismiss the possibility on the grounds that Hamas are “terrorists” is as self-defeating as British governments’ years of struggle against the IRA. Hamas and its supporters in Gaza genuinely believe they have been wronged by Israel. Actually, substantial numbers of Israelis seem to agree but the voices of reason are drowned out by the religious nutters that Netanyahu has chosen as his allies.

Julie C.

Now that Goldstone has admitted at least some of the errors of his ways, can we look forward to Peter Kosminsky admitting that The Promise was fiction, and anti semitic propoganda? I hope so but I don't see any little pink flying pigs when I look out of the window.

Anth

Goldstone is guilty of quasi-criminal naivety, but if Israel fails to learn that refusal to participate in the enquiry was suicidal stupidity, they will repeat the error of the Palestinians in the 20s and 30s. As you love Jerusalem, Melanie, hammer this point home, too.

Andrew

The man who lies to the world is the world's slave from then on.

Ayn Rand

Ruth Harvey

Wey hey Melanie. Well said. The truth does sometimes out but let's face it, most of the world, including our own country, is duped by the lies and propaganda of the Palestinian/Hamas/Hezbollah leadership.

EDDIE

It is my opinion that Judge Goldstone, a Jew, committed a blood libel against Israel and the Jewish people .It has done immense damage He has now issued a retraction.
In today’s ‘The Times’ there is an article by sheera frenkel with the headline “Israel ‘must throw Gaza war crimes report in bin’ after UN judge’s rethink”. Now what kind of sense does that make? You can imagine the rest of this mealy mouth pathetic little article and anther one almost as bad in today’s Telegraph. Nothing on the BBC

jose carp

Shakespear said, 'the evil that men do liveves after them, the good is oft enterred with their bones'... there was no good in the goldstone report!

Reuven

Perusing the British papers and finding meaningless or no mention of this historic Goldstone turnaround, Melanie's column is highlighted as an island of sanity in a Britain turned upside down.

wearenotblind

Let us all look forward now to years of repeated quotes from the original report along with the Guardianista tagline about Goldstone partially recanting (upon pressure from Israeli/Jewish/Zionist influences). Melanie hit the main point. It beggars belief that anyone with an ounce of honesty could write a report and maintain that Hamas was to be viewed as trustworthy as the Israeli government in providing the information used as the basis of the report. For those above who point to incidents where Israeli soldiers acted improperly, there is no question that individuals will violate the rule of law in warfare. The question was whether it was government policy. Savage acts were committed by both sides in WW2. The fate of Berlin and Nanking were not merely savage acts. They were government policies.

Bernard

According to today's report that the New York Times refused to publish the article so Goldtsone went to the Washington Post. Goldtsone has had a number of articles published in the NYT in the past and they used his name from his firs report for their anti-Israel slant, but now they won't publish his retraction. This tells us all we need to know about the NYT.

O-Dog

Some points

1. You surely can't deny that Israel's refusal to participate contributed to the one-sided nature of the report that you so opposed at the time. Israel's non-cooperation does deserve some share of the blame for the negative PR it received as a result of the report.

2. Goldstone has not recanted the entire report, only elements of it/the tone. While he now thinks that Israel didn't actually target civilians, he does, as far as I know, still believe Israel was guilty of recklessness in its response to Hamas mortars and rocket fire. Has he recanted his view that Cast Lead was a disproportionate response to the attacks from Hamas? Does he think that the flattening of civilian residental areas was appropriate (even if residents were warned in advance), or the use of white phosphorous in built up areas for example? Does he still feel that the objective of Cast Lead was the punish to Gazan population for supporting/giving cover to Hamas? This is not clear.

I was a staunch critic of Cast Lead at the time, but I never specificially thought that Israel deliberately targeted civilians or in any way aimed to kill civilians. However, I did feel that Israel's heavy-handed response resulted in far too many unnecessary civilian deaths.

Prologue

It is not Israel who will pay the price, it is the West; the fat, slugglish, freeloading, lazy West; the West that just wants to live off the dole, earn nothing, and not be bothered. It wouldn't have mattered what Goldstone said in his original report, the world wants to blame Israel, because it's easier that way. If they side with the bullies, then maybe the bullies won't bother them. The price we will pay for our cowardice, laziness, and stupidity will be staggering.

Augustus

What is most disturbing is that such an absurd and biased report commissioned by the UN should have influenced so much public opinion and put Israel for so long in such a negative
light. At least Goldstone admits
in the article that Hamas were 'committing serious war crimes', and that they have since his report continued with
these 'heinous acts' and should be condemned 'in the strongest terms'. But the question still remains: Why did he take all the innuendos and accusations against Israel so readily as fact without proof?

Mladen Andrijasevic

'NYT refused to publish Goldstone retraction'

http://www.ynet.co.il/english/articles/0,7340,L-4051762,00.html

Yedioth Ahronoth reported Monday that a source close to Goldstone stated that in the past few days the judge had approached the editor of the New York Times opinion pages requesting to post the article he wrote in the paper – and was told his article was rejected.

The editor gave no explanation as to why the article was rejected, but the source believes this was due to the newspaper's political agenda.

Woodey (Peter)

Re: Derek BLADES - "The thrust of Melanie's latest attack on the United Nations is that the Goldstone commission should have accepted Israel’s statements without question because Israelis are nice people and disregarded anything said by Hamas because they are terrorists."

This is only partially true; many Israelis are nice people. However, the main reason to doubt Israel's enemies is that they have been shown to be unreliable in the past. (Take, for example, the "Massacre of Jenin").
The media and Israel's detractors are usually hungry for such stories and are quick to believe and publish. (You must admit, on the 16th September 2009, you yourself used paragraph 1684 of the Goldstone Report to attack Melanie when she commented on some of the report's flaws). When, eventually, the truth is shown to be less dramatic, any corrections are not heavily reported.
The good news for the anti-Israeli propagandists is that the media (and people like you, Derek) never seem to learn. They can cry wolf as often as they like and you will always want to believe them.

Anne Wotana Kaye 1

Richard Goldstone is of the same ilk as Gerald Kauffman, and as such should just be ignored. His psychological problems cause him to be 'needy' and he cries out to be accepted by an Establishment to which he can hardly belong. A case of neither fish nor fowl.

imnokuffar

Great Melanie, simply great.

Bob from Virginia

Who was it who said propaganda allows you to believe what you want to believe. Nobody who did not want to be fooled by the Goldstone Report was. While those looking to hate Israel where just given an additional pack of lies to go with those they already collected.

BTW here are my rules for lying:
1)find someone who wants or needs to to believe the lie.
2)Make sure the person does not know the truth or is willing to forsake it.
3) keep the lie as close to the truth as possible. This will lead to confusion.
4)Repeat the lie as often as possible.
5) Deliver the lie in supportive terms, i.e. "I'm saying this as an objective observer concerned about innocent life", or "I'm saying this because I'm concerned about the welfare of everyone concerned", "I'm really your best friend", etc, etc.

Herzen

It has not been customary to accept such as random rockets fired across a border (even persistently) as sufficient to warrant war in self-defence rather than something more limited such as border skirmishing or incursion.

Hamas had offered an extension of the ceasefire. This was confirmed by the Israeli security services to the Israeli cabinet. So Israel cannot claim to have pursued every other possiblity before resorting to war, as is required before a state can claim to act in self-defence. The ceasefire was working and an extension was on offer.

The former head of the IDF's legal department has explained how Israel successfully influences the consensus on what is acceptable under international law. He said Israel acts in contravention of the law and does it so often that its practices somehow become acceptable (this tactic is only available to friends of the US).

By dint of repetition, Israel might eventually persuade the world that its assaults on the Lebanon and Gaza are wars of self-defence. As yet, it remains the case that they are no such thing.

Herding refugees into a ghetto, closing the gates on them, and calling them a "hostile entity" does not exempt Israel from its responsibilities as occupying power, nor does it justify war as a response to resistance from the ghetto's inhabitants, nor does it make collective punishment other than a crime.

Israel's assault on Gaza was not war it was a crime. Goldstone's agonising over the laws of war is beside the point, as was pointed out when he first accepted the job. The killing of civilians was unlawful. Talk of "collateral damage" or "human shields" is simply an obscenity, as is all the chatter here about Israel being traduced because it didn't mean for civilians to get killed.

mandelson

The BBC has an article about this with thinly veiled Jewish Conspiracy smear "Palestinian writers are disappointed and make it clear that they believe Israeli and Jewish pressure caused the about-face, but a Dubai-based daily warns that the matter is not closed.":

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12958287

Linda Sax

His new comments are self-serving not truth-serving. He should have admitted that he was simply employing an outstretched arm to the United Nations of Organized Islamic Countries, the UNOIC, rather than tell the truth about a tiny isolated free and successful nation. Now that he doesn't work for that bastion of organized criminals a different story serves him better.

Gareth

Why are intellectuals so monumentally stupid? (I presume Goldstone regards himself as having some intellect).

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Herzen: "It has not been customary to accept such as random rockets fired across a border (even persistently) as sufficient to warrant war in self-defence rather than something more limited such as border skirmishing or incursion."

Please cite the examples from which this custom you would like us to relate to derives.

Empress Trudy

He wanted to the be the author of the 21st Century's "Protocols" and he succeeded.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Herzen: All Hamas needs to do to change the situation in Gaza for the better is to call Israel's bluff:

- recognise its right to exist as Jewish state.
- excise the Jew hatred and calls for genocide against the Jews in its Charter.
- agree to negotiate in good faith, together with fatah - for a full and final settlement of the conflict.
- agree to do so without preconditions.

If Israel refuses to negotiate at after that, it will have no excuses..

This would be the first stepping stone to the bulding of some kind of mutual good faith and reconciliation.

Nothing else will improve the tendency of a state under seige to react violently to violence commited against it, however sympathetic you may be to the cause.

This is a simple fact of life and you would do well to start focussing on it if your are serious about improving the life of those who live in Gaza.

jzsnake

I can't even look at the man w/o becoming nauseous.

particularly peeved at misdeeds

@ BLADES

All this is, of course, speculation because as long as Israel continues with its illegal settlement ??????

You need to check the evidence, miser blades, yes miser not mister, as a mister wouldn't take what wasn't his....

Go check who's land is who's, you only need to look at certain UN articles, you only need to look at deeds of purchase, you only need to look at established points in law, you seem so very predisposed to a violent nature perhaps you are hamas lover ? whatever your problem you are in no way offering a solution so I suggest you go and forgive yourself for whatever misdeeds you have committed, better still seek forgiveness for your sins

wonderer

As Christine Chinkin and others had publicly criticised Israel prior to their appointment, Israel was right not to co-operate with Goldstone's inquiry.

When Lord Hoffman's link with Amnesty International was revealed, the first House of Lords decision in the Pinochet case was considered flawed and the case had to be reheard.

The circumstances are analogous.

rippon

Every now and again many liberal Jews seem to liberate themselves and allow their conscience, rather than their fear, to lead them. However, many seem unable stick to their more universalist inclinations for too long where Israel is concerned. The risk of being defined as a "self-hating Jew" with all the ramifications of such an accusation is a real and frightening prospect for them. You have to be in this position to understand the power of this terror.

Just weeks ago, Israeli military intelligence announced it had created a special unit to monitor, confront, and possibly hunt down, individuals and bodies suspected of "delegitimizing" Israel abroad. In light of this, perhaps quite a few of the faint-hearted felt standing up to Israel was not worth it."

...
...

full article here:
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11895.shtml

Truthtriumphs

Rippon.

"The risk of being defined as a "self-hating Jew" with all the ramifications of such an accusation is a real and frightening prospect for them. You have to be in this position to understand the power of this terror."

You mean they might be subjected to criticism by the likes of Melanie or the Jewish Chronicle?
What a terrifying prospect!

Steve

Rippon,

I assume that you believe that articles published by a site calling itself 'Electronic Intifada' are scrupulously balanced. If so you are clearly a simpleton.

DavidSI

Rippon provides a link to a blog which claims that "Just weeks ago, Israeli military intelligence announced it had created a special unit to monitor, confront, and possibly hunt down, individuals and bodies suspected of "delegitimizing" Israel abroad."
The blog that makes those claims is just that … a blog. It provides no links to any articles, news etc which substantiate its claims. There are no other news articles online which back up that claim.
Question: “Do you believe that Israel would create a special unit to hunt down individuals suspected of delegitimizing Israel?” For Rippon, Carl, Blades etc, the answer is almost certainly ‘Yes!’. Next question …”If you believe that to be true, do you think that the Israelis would announce the formation of such a special unit?”
There is a level of willing liberal credulity that exists which I find depressing. Rumors become facts no matter how improbable or unfounded they are. No context or inquiry is ever deemed necessary by the left (Is the “Special Unit” a military unit or a team of lawyers? Is it their brief to kill dissenters or to serve writs on them? Does “hunt down” mean covert tracking and assassination or legal enquiry?). Lies are commonplace (e.g. Victoria’s accusations that an Israeli army unit had killed a Palestinian baby girl some two weeks ago).
There has been an awful loss of both Israeli and Palestinian life since 1948 (Israel has lost proportionately more of its population since 1948 than Britain lost during WWll. The scale of Palestinian casualties and suffering is similar*). I am sorry to see the success of the liberal left’s efforts to delegitimize Israel through lies, distortion and perverted imbalance and believe that it must share some degree of liability for the outcome/result.
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_casualties_of_war
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_casualties_of_war

C.Gee

mandelson:

It appears that “Goldstone was got at by Zionists” is going to be the defense of his meretricious report. See rippon’s contemptible comment, which takes this idea and runs with it into the offices of the Elders, who are busy at work on a new Protocol against progressive Jews.

rippon:

Are you so ignorant of the Jewish conspiracy meme that you blithely present an almost self-parodying version of it here? Zionists are now terrifying their dissenting “universalist” brethren by psychological pressure, eh ? They’ll visit Normie Finkelstein in his suburban home - make him an offer he can’t refuse? Are you sure Tony Judt died of natural causes? (By the way, the term used for socialist Jews was “cosmopolitan” in the days when it was the right, not the left, which despised them).

Your sourcing to the electronicintifada says everything. We know, as they say, where you are coming from. I have my hazmat suit.

Grumpy true Zionist

Our World: Richard Goldstone and Palestinian statehood
By CAROLINE B. GLICK
04/04/2011 22:50 (JPost)

read read - we can,yes we will prevail over evil/lies/distortions and those that seek to harm us

Derek BLADES

DavidSI asks Rippon

“Do you believe that Israel would create a special unit to hunt down individuals suspected of delegitimizing Israel?”

The Israeli government's creation of such a unit is described on the Haaretz Newspaper site. Go to http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasite/spages/1221360.html

Gershon

Herzen tells us that "It has not been customary to accept such as random rockets fired across a border (even persistently) as sufficient to warrant war in self-defence rather than something more limited such as border skirmishing or incursion."

You obviously have no understanding of anything military. What Israel did in Cast Lead was not even close to war, but was indeed a limited border incursion.

Richard

Gershon
April 5th, 2011 8:47am
Gabriela Shalev, Israel's Permanent Representative to teh UN to teh UN Gereal Secretary: "The government of Israel, as of this morning, has decided to exercise its right to self-defence...in acordance with the inherent right of every State to self-defence as enshrined in Article 51 of the Charter of the UN."

"a limited border incursion"! You are a one!

BalaamsAss

Thanks to Goldstone's recanting in the future Israel can act without restraint against Hamas and the other terror groups. The world will not be listening to the howls from the Palestinian propaganda machine. It has 'cried wolf' too often.

wonderer

@Derek BLADES
April 5th, 2011 8:07am
I'm not enough of a linguist to read the Hebrew article you linked to, so I applied Google Translate to it and this produced an English text that was pretty opaque. However, I saw nothing in there about "hunting people down" either directly or by implication.

Grumpy true Zionist

tell you what 'richard' old boy

you won't want to be anywhere around the vicinity, in the event of a real war.....of the type that Israel has had to fight,on many occasions, for its very existence

no sirree- Cast Lead was an extremely limited engagement, made all the more complex by the enemies use of human shields, as well as storing and firing missiles/mortars/rpg's from apartments/mosques/school yards whatever

big difference now is that, you and your ilk, can no longer play the ole 'goldstone report' violin, what with hamas coming out and saying that more than half of those killed (spurious numbers claimed in any case) in gaza were hamas fighters, and now the whole kit n' kaboodle being held up as factually incorrect...as far as the IDF is concerned

no sirree

Augustus

Hamas appears to be proud of creating civilian deaths. How else would you describe this statement by it's spokesman, Fathi Hamad in 2008: "For the Palestinian people death became an industry at which women excel and so do all people on this land. The elderly excel, the Jihad fighters excel, and the children excel. Accordingly,
Palestinians created a human shield of women, children, the elderly, and the Jihad fighters against the Zionist bombing machine, as if they were saying
to the Zionist enemy: We desire death, as you desire life."

Perverted, or what?

Thomas

On the grounds of evidence produced by the IDF in investigating its own actions, Judge Goldstone has "recanted" on one provisional conclusion made in his report.

It is surely wild to infer from this that all the evidence accumulated by him and by many others can now be disregarded. There is simply too much of it for this to be credible.

As has been pointed out, the whole exercise was an illegal act of aggression. All the damage done was criminal. The killing and wounding was criminal.

It is depressing how many tens of thousands of Palestinians have been slaughtered "legally" or "in error" by Israel with the full support of its highly moral claque.

Ducking and weaving by Judge Goldstone does not change this.

Gershon

@Derek BLADES
April 5th, 2011 8:07am

The link you provided describes nothing of the sort. Go away and learn Hebrew.

rippon

Haaretz.com

* Home
* News
* Diplomacy & Defense

* Published 00:42 04.04.11
* Latest update 00:42 04.04.11

Judge Goldstone defends role, but feels distressed
Former judge complains that close friends kept away from him and some family members even had reservations about his cooperation with the UN Human Rights Council.

By Natasha Mozgovaya

Judge Richard Goldstone told associates several months ago that ever since publication of his report on Operation Cast Lead in Gaza, he has been in great distress and under duress.

He complained that close friends kept away from him and some family members even had reservations about his cooperation with the UN Human Rights Council.
...
...

full article here:
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/judge-goldstone-defends-role-but-feels-distressed-1.353915

Augustus

For the sake of truth, and the removal of doubt, let's be clear about the difference between white phosphorus smoke grenades, and large incendiary weapons containing white phosphorus (WP bombs). The latter are very dangerous weapons which burn fiercely and can set clothing on fire. The former are used as tactical devices to provide smokescreen cover against troop movements etc. The former are not in violation of any Geneva treaty,
and have been used by many armies, and it is those smoke grenades which were used in Cast Lead. If they had been WP
bombs many more people would have died.

wonderer

@DavidSI
April 5th, 2011 2:30am. Thank you. That was one of the best blog comments I've ever read.

Ian Townson

During Operation Cast Lead did the IDF kill 1,400 Palestinians (including over 300 children) or not? Did they also destroy hundreds of homes in the process?

Ian Townson

During Operation Cast Lead did the IDF kill 1,400 Palestinians (including over 300 children) or not? Did they also destroy hundreds of homes in the process?

George

This brilliant and competent testimony was viciously ignored by the UNHRC .Watch:
Struck off the record:

http://www.unwatch.org/site/apps/nlnet/content2.aspx?c=bdKKISNqEmG&b=1313923&ct=7536409

Edward in the USA

Ian Townson asked:
"During Operation Cast Lead did the IDF kill 1,400 Palestinians (including over 300 children) or not? Did they also destroy hundreds of homes in the process?"

Really?

What uniform do Hamas fighters wear to distinguish themselves from REAL civilians?

Did Hamas use human shields to shield operations HQ and weapons caches - with the cruel intention to sacrifice lives?

Are 18 years olds with AK47s "children"?

Did more Germans than British die in WW2 and if so, does that make the British the aggressors?

Thomas

Israel claimed to be acting in self-defence:

The rocket attacks were not sufficient to meet the criteria for self-defence according to the law Israel claimed to be relying on. It was not self-defence.

There had been a ceasefire and a ceasefire was on offer - Israel had not exhausted diplomacy before resorting to force, as is required by the law it claims to be relying on. Again, it was not self-defence.

In its use of force it avowedly implemented a doctrine that explicitly disregarded the reasonable care for civilians required by the laws of war it claimed to be observing. Its actions cannot be defended as self-defence.

Israel cannot wash its hands of its responsibilites as occupier simply by locking the prison door and allowing the prisoners to elect prisoner councils. The population of Gaza was under its care as occupying power. Raining destruction on them is not self-defence. Blockading them is not self-defence. It is the collective punishment of a ghetto.

But Goldstone has recanted. One of his conclusions about the IDF has been shown to be wrong (?) - by an IDF investigation!

Who else but the US and its allies like us and Israel would be afforded such leeway with the norms of truth and justice here? Who else would have their crimes smothered in such a load of what the old fire and brimstone preachers called Stinking Hypocrisy? If we do it, it's collateral damage. If they do it, it's a massacre reminiscent of the Nazis.

Anth

This seems to be the English version of the Haaretz article about the military unit :

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/military-intelligence-monitoring-foreign-left-wing-organizations-1.350713

Read it for yourself and draw your own conclusion. The reporter points out that the project is controversial enough to concern officials of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, who fear the Army is "overreaching itself".

rippon

"Goldstone says he won't seek nullification of Gaza war report"

What are the implications of this?

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/goldstone-says-he-won-t-seek-nullification-of-gaza-war-report-1.354376

Si, N

Shouting John Roosevelt says, 'Blades would do well to change his little, if not monotonous, ditti and start discussing genuine ways to stop the suffering and how to start the healing'.

Perhaps if the so-called friends of Israel started acting like true friends we might make some head way. The so-called friends of Israel need to acknowledge that their pal is extremely ill and needs to be told straight - just as Goldstone did before the so-called friends of the malady-ridden state made his life so unliveable that he was forced into this pathetic retraction of SOME of the reports findings (the report's original accusation that Israeli soldiers committed war crimes still stands, as does criticism of Israel's use of unconventional weapons such as white phosphorus, the destruction of property on a massive scale, and the taking of civilians as human shields). JR needs to understand that their can be no 'healing' when the so-called friends keep cheering the patient on to ever more demented acts of depravity?

Doug R

@Thomas, you allege that the rocket attacks were not sufficient to meet the criteria for self defence. What utter rubbish.

It's apologists like you who deny and denigrate the sovereign right of self defence to Israel no matter how they are attacked.

You say that a ceasefire was on offer. Why should there have been any Palestinian attacks in the first place?!

From the outset you embark upon a delegitimization of Israel's response to unprovoked attacks from the terrorist controlled entity in Gaza. No criticism of the attacks upon Israel is anywhere to be found in your rhetoric. This itself speaks volumes.

"Land for peace" has indeed become "territory for terrorism".

For decades the great sham of the Middle East Peace Process has dragged on. And this despicable scam has consisted of only one policy, only one platform and only one plan. Pressuring Israel for more concessions.

Year in and year out, new peace conferences were declared and new plans for peace were hammered out. All of them had one thing in common, they carved up Israel for a non-existent peace.

Concessions & gestures to the Palestinians have consistently been met with increased intransigence with each Israeli concession being met by new Palestinian demands.

The Palestinian side has not made a single concession not even a tiny one such as Hamas & Fatah removing the complete and utter destruction of the Jewish people from their Charters.

Israel ceded Gaza in good faith for peace. It got anything but in return. All Jewish synagogues were desecrated and vandalized. The Jews had even taken their dead from cemeteries with them as they knew from past experience what would happen to those left behind.

Former Jewish towns and villages were turned into Palestinian terrorist training camps and also used to launch tens of thousands of missiles/mortars into neighbouring Jewish villages.

The populace of Gaza also showing their true face by the election of a terrorist entity sworn to destroy their Jewish neighbours and to replace Israel with an Islamic state of "Palestine".

The massive influx of weapons into Gaza and the thousands of missile, mortar and other terrorist attacks from the terrorist ruled enclave resulted in Israel being forced to impose a blockade on Gaza as another means of protecting its own civilians against murder and terror. Again Israel was condemned for defending itself on the World stage.

Indeed it took 10,000+ Palestinan missiles being launched from Gaza at Jewish civilians before Israel even responded.

Of special note is that during the many thousands of Palestinian missile attacks the International community, the United Nations and the World's media responded with a thunderous silence which was only broken when Israel eventually decided to respond militarily.

Then the World reacted immediately and vociferously - to condemn Israel.

Condemning Israel for defending its own people through either military action or imposing a blockade evades any responsibility on behalf of those who elected Hamas & who launched the attacks which led to the military response and security measure.

Calling it "collective punishment" of the Gazan population just won't wear and absolves the Gazan Palestinians, including Hamas, of any responsibility for their actions. This is totally unacceptable.

To the contrary, it is the residents of Sderot who are "collectively punished" as they trusted the Palestinians to deliver on "land for peace" when Israel withdrew from Gaza, only to be rewarded with many thousands of Palestinian missile attacks upon its civilian poplation instead.

Thousands of young Jewish kids in Sderot suffer from trauma knowing that they only have 15 seconds to find cover before one lands. They live and go to school in bomb shelters. I know, your argument will be that they haven't killed many people. Well, each missile was intended to kill as many innocent Jewish civilians as possible. Perhaps not enough Jews have been killed for people like you.

Israeli kids have suffered collective punishment for one reason only - being Jews. They either live or attend school in bomb-shelters with 15 seconds notice of a missile strike. All because Israel trusted the Palestinians to deliver on their promise of 'land for peace'. Instead of receiving "land for peace" they got a "living hell" from a territory whose populace went on to elect a terrorist entity sworn to destroy them.

Arab apologists dismiss the significance of the Palestinian missiles while pouring contempt upon the Jewish victims of these attacks by ridiculing the relatively small number of fatalities caused by the Palestinian missiles.

Every one of the 10,000+ Palestinian missiles launched from Gaza was intended to kill/injure/maim as many Jewish civilians as possible. If one missile had killed one Israeli over 10,000 would have been casualties, but that still wouldn't have been enough for some or bothered others.

The fact that these casualties did not ensue is not Israel's fault & the fact that not enough Jews have been killed for Arab apologists is obviously problematic to those who hate the Jewish people for one reason or another.

The widespread psychological trauma upon thousands of Jewish children due to Palestinian kassem & grad missile attacks has been considerable. It's also led to dozens of fatalities & several hundred injuries. Katyusha rockets, like those used by Hezbollah, have also been fired from Gaza at Beersheba, Ashkelon & Ashdod.

It was the same with the missiles fired at Jewish civilians from the Lebanon. Each projectile was loaded with shrapnel in order to maim or kill as many as possible. Some 100,000 Israelis were either evacuated or moved to bomb shelters during the Lebanese conflict.. Just as in Gaza, the World was more concerned with the civilian casualties in the Lebanon conflict where Arab civilians were again purposely used as human shields with weapons being fired from civilian areas.

The blame extended to Israel for defending itself against unprovoked missile attacks was totally disproportionate to any international criticism employed against the Arab/Islamic terrorists firing missiles at Jewish civilians.

As regards to your comments surrounding "occupation", I'll treat them with the contempt that they deserve. The Jews have their own claim to this territory spanning thousands of years. Illegally occupying your own land is a contradiction in terms. It is indeed disputed territory but was called Judea before being renamed the West Bank for good reason. It's not for nothing that the Arab agenda for a state of Palestine is predicated upon the entire ethnic cleansing of the Jewish population. It's akin to the Hamas and Fatah charters and in line with the PLO's phased plan. Enough said.

DBL

To all those who think Israel used "disproportionate force" in its attack on Hamas in Gaza: What, exactly, do you think would be proportionate force? Exactly what military actions do you think Israel should have taken in order to defeat Hamas? As for the Turkish boats trying to break the embargo on bringing military supplies into Gaza, exactly what force should the Israeli Navy use to block those boats? In each case, please be precise.

I suspect that you can't and won't answer my questions because most of you believe that Israel has no right to defend itself and so any force it uses is illegal. Too bad you aren't honest enough to admit t it.

Thomas

Doug R
April 7th, 2011 10:32am
I have provided answers on the 6th April thread.

Thomas

DBL
April 10th, 2011 7:12am
A ceasefire had been in place, a new ceasefire was offered. Israel's action was aggression.

Israel's blockade is illegal. The boats attacked were not bringing military supplies. The attack in international waters was illegal.

Adam B.

Thomas, Israel's partial blockade is not illegal, and I invite you to inform me which legal body has declared it to be so. Such a contention is wishful thinking on your part. The boarding of the Mavi Marmara was not illegal either - (again, who has ruled that it was?) and it was a ship "bringing" absolutely nothing. There was not one item of aid on that boat. There were, however, several members of the IHH, a jihadist organization which supports the Taliban in Afghanistan (currently killing British troops), who chanted antisemitic slogans and decared their intention to cause violence even before sailing.

Thomas

Adam B.

DBL: "As for the Turkish boats trying to break the embargo on bringing military supplies into Gaza, exactly what force should the Israeli Navy use to block those boats?"

Me: "The boats attacked were not bringing military supplies."

Adam B.:"it was a ship "bringing" absolutely nothing. There was not one item of aid on that boat."

...We thank you, as ever, for your valuable contribution to the debate.

Adam B.

Thomas

Israel's blockade is not illegal. Nor is it illegal for Israel to search ships going to Gaza. Again, I ask you, what source do you use to make your "illegal" accusation? Or is this just your own highly partisan "legal" opinion?

Adam B.

By the way, if it's illegality you're looking for, I'm sure you have no problem condemning the war crime of deliberate targeting of civilians by both Hamas and Fatah?

Your accusations of "illegality" are selective in the extreme.

Stephen Cooper

Goldstone has the integrity to recant and admit he was wrong. That is a lot more than any politician and most journalists would do. He ought to be praised for his courage, not condemned.