For Israel-bashers, recantation is heresy
The reaction to Richard Goldstone’s recantation of his infamous report has been as instructive as it is predictable. The haters of Israel will not allow the facts to get in the way of the hate – even when the very author of the report they have used to foment that hate has now recanted his pivotal allegation and pulled the rug from under their feet.
In his article, Goldstone says he now accepts that Israel did not intentionally kill civilians in Gaza. The most terrible element of his report was the assertion that it had done so, turning Israel’s actions in Cast Lead from a justifiable defence of its citizens against attack into a monstrous and evil intention to kill the innocent, and thus opening up the suggestion it may have committed crimes against humanity. That is the blood libel against Israel which is used over and over again to delegitimise any Israeli military defence against attack and intended genocide, and thus make it unable to defend itself. And it is that diabolical inversion, for which Goldstone provided rocket fuel, which underpinned the thrust of his report.
That claim placed Israel on the same moral plane as the murderous terrorists whose aim is indeed to kill as many Israeli civilians as possible. It thus delegitimises not just Israel’s self-defence but Israel itself, and turns it into a moral pariah -- whose own eradication is therefore implicitly to be justified. For Goldstone now to recant this claim – and to say into the bargain that the UN Human Rights Council which commissioned him is prejudiced against Israel and thus by implication cannot ever be trusted as an impartial arbiter of such matters – not only vitiates his report but calls into question the UNHRC and all those in Britain, America and Europe who treat its lethal bullying of Israel and malevolent distortions of international law as unquestionably justified.
So this recantation, given the appalling consequences of what has now been withdrawn, is an event of considerable magnitude. For the Israel-bashers, it is a terrible blow to their whole platform of hate – such a blow, indeed, that they have to find ways of pretending it hasn’t happened. This requires the kind of brazen intellectual legerdemain which, for those whose attitude to Israel is based on lies and hatred, is second nature.
The UK government, for example, sees no reason why Goldstone’s recantation should cause it to abandon its endorsement of the Goldstone report. Not even the bits about deliberate killing of civilians and possible crimes against humanity. The Jerusalem Post reported:
The British government said that while Goldstone’s acknowledgment, and what he said in the opinion piece, is important, it was not the only report on the 22-day conflict.
And then its spokesman added:
...it was the actual report that set up a process that allowed for clarity and accountability into the conflict. Justice Goldstone makes clear in his recent comments that the Goldstone report would have looked differently if it had been produced now, on the basis of fresh evidence released by a committee of independent experts, tasked to follow-up on the Goldstone report. This latest insight into the events surrounding the Gaza conflict have come about because of the process that was set in train by his Fact Finding Mission,’ he said.
Can you believe this?! The British Foreign and Commonwealth Office is saying that it is only because Goldstone wrote his report that we now have the information that enables us to see that the report promulgated a falsehood -- and so therefore the report is still just as important!
Yesterday’s report in The Commentator contained a most revealing quote about the FCO position on Goldstone.
One diplomat told The Commentator that his [Goldstone’s] retractions would cause acute embarrassment to countries such as Britain that stand accused by Israel and its supporters of adopting a reflexively anti-Israeli position in order to placate oil rich Arab states in the Middle East, as well as Britain’s growing Muslim population.
In other words, nothing – certainly not the unravelling of a blood libel -- can be allowed to stop Britain continuing to make use of that libel and other untruths in the demonisation of Israel. Foreign Secretary William Hague was at it again yesterday, when he condemned Israel’s decision to approve more than 900 housing units for Israelis in the East Jerusalem suburb of Gilo and the retrospective approval given for further such construction in five other disputed terrritory areas. Said Hague:
This is not disputed territory. It is occupied Palestinian territory and ongoing settlement expansion is illegal under international law, an obstacle to peace and a threat to a two state solution.
'Occupied Palestinian territory’? But there is no Palestinian territory, because there is not, and never has been, a sovereign state of Palestine to own anything at all. It is in effect ‘no-man’s land’ – which is why the only neutral and accurate way to describe it is indeed ‘disputed territories’. Who can be surprised that the British Foreign Office still supports the falsehoods in the Goldstone report - even after its author has himself repudiated them -- when it is guilty of such legal, historical and moral illiteracy?
If the FCO is so desperate not to be exposed as peddling murderous falsehoods that it dismisses Goldstone’s recantation, how much more so for the NGOs which fed Goldstone the false information in the first place. The Israeli anti-Israel activists B’Tselem are even now still peddling false claims about the number of Gazan civilian casualties in Cast Lead -- seemingly regardless of the fact that Hamas itself has now finally admitted what the Israeli authorities said all along, that the majority of those killed were terrorists. In its final report on the Cast Lead casualties in 2009, B’Tselem claimed:
According to B'Tselem's research, Israeli security forces killed 1,387 Palestinians during the course of the three-week operation. Of these, 773 did not take part in the hostilities, including 320 minors and 109 women over the age of 18. Of those killed, 330 took part in the hostilities, and 248 were Palestinian police officers, most of whom were killed in aerial bombings of police stations on the first day of the operation. For 36 people, B'Tselem could not determine whether they participated in the hostilities or not.
As NGO Monitor has reported, however, not only did the Israeli military state that of 1166 Palestinian deaths, 709 were combatants – a ratio of combatant to civilian which was outstanding considering Hamas were using Gazan civilians as human shields -- but in a November 2010 interview in Al-Hayat Hamas Interior Minister Fathi Hamad finally acknowledged that, contrary to original Hamas claims that the vast majority killed during Cast Lead were civilians, in fact 600-700 Hamas members were killed.
Moreover, Fathi Hamad also admitted that the police officers killed on the first day of the operation, when Israel attacked the police headquarters, were also not civilians; the 250 police operatives killed there belonged to Hamas and other terrorist organizations. And yet in response to Goldstone’s retraction B’Tselem is still claiming:
However, it is imperative to note that in operation Cast Lead Israel killed 758 Palestinian civilians who did not take part in the hostilities, 318 of them minors.
Then there’s the strange case of the New York Times, which as CAMERA observes, despite having previously published Goldstone’s three previous op-eds appears to have turned this one down – simply because it vitiated the anti-Israel witch-hunt that passes for journalism at the New York Times. CAMERA reports:
The New York Times acknowledges that it rejected an Op-Ed submitted by Mr. Goldstone for publication on March 22, but claims it was different from the retraction that appeared in the Washington Post.
Ah! Doubtless the op-ed Goldstone submitted to the NYT was all about the vintage of the wines served in the UN’s restaurants – and only when that was turned down did he decide to retract his report’s blood libel for the Washington Post. As Camera goes on:
They [the NYT] did not seem to exhibit similar reluctance in publishing Mr. Goldstone's first Op-Ed on September 17, 2009. That column, titled ‘Justice in Gaza,’ criticized Israel for carrying out ‘disproportionate attacks’ on military targets and for ‘fail[ing] to adequately distinguish between combatants and civilians, as the laws of war strictly require.’ It also predicted that any investigation by Israel was ‘unlikely to be serious and objective’ – sentiments that are perhaps more in line with the New York Times’ overall approach to covering the Arab-Israeli conflict, which tends toward criticism of Israel.
And then there’s the Guardian. As expected, it too sought to play down the significance of Goldstone’s retraction. But in its editorial, it first referred to
Richard Goldstone's retraction of one of the claims of the report that he chaired – that Israel targeted civilians in the war on Gaza as a matter of policy
and praised him for his honesty; but then went on:
The report did not in fact claim that Israel set out deliberately to murder civilians. It said that Operation Cast Lead was ‘deliberately disproportionate’ and intended to ‘punish, humiliate and terrorise’.
But this is simply not true. The report said both. It stated, for example:
...the Mission finds that the conduct of the Israeli armed forces constitute grave breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention in respect of wilful killings and wilfully causing great suffering to protected persons and as such give rise to individual criminal responsibility. It also finds that the direct targeting and arbitrary killing of Palestinian civilians is a violation of the right to life.
Indeed that is why Goldstone said in his recantation:
The allegations of intentionality by Israel were based on the deaths of and injuries to civilians in situations where our fact-finding mission had no evidence on which to draw any other reasonable conclusion.
Oh dear. All that cognitive dissonance must be such a strain. To be fair, the Guardian also carries a piece by Jonathan Freedland who – despite also recycling the false ‘more than 700 non-combatants killed’ figure, makes the key point that the real villain of the piece is the UN Human Rights Council:
That sounds like an eminently respectable body – until you look at its record. A 2010 analysis showed that very nearly half of all the resolutions it had passed related to Israel: 32 out of 67. And guess which country is the only one to be under permanent review, on the agenda for every single meeting? Israel. There is only one rapporteur whose mandate never expires. No, it's not the person charged with probing Belarus, North Korea or Saudi Arabia, despite the hideous human rights records of those nations. It is Israel. The UNHRC, whose predecessor body was once, laughably, chaired by Libya, had originally asked Goldstone to probe just one side of the Gaza war: it was only the judge's own insistence that he investigate Hamas too that widened his remit. No wonder Goldstone says now of the body he served that its ‘history of bias against Israel cannot be doubted’.
We can laugh at an organisation so potty it would put a murderous tyrant like Muammar Gaddafi in charge of monitoring human rights around the globe. But in its belief that no country in the world behaves worse or matters more, a belief expressed by the sheer volume of attention it pays to Israel, it reflects a view that is alarmingly widespread.
Very true; and nowhere is it more widespread, of course, than in the pages of the Guardian.
And finally there is Goldstone himself. Lo and behold, he appears to be recanting his own recantation -- doubtless under enormous pressure from the Israel-haters, who simply cannot allow him to recant his own falsehoods. Indeed, from a report in Ha’aretz it appears the pressure seems to have got to him too rather badly. For in the Washington Post, he wrote:
If I had known then what I know now, the Goldstone Report would have been a different document
because he now believed that, on Israel’s part,
civilians were not intentionally targeted as a matter of policy.
Yet one day later he told Ha’aretz:
‘As appears from the Washington Post article, information subsequent to publication of the report did meet with the view that one correction should be made with regard to intentionality on the part of Israel...Further information as a result of domestic investigations could lead to further reconsideration, but as presently advised I have no reason to believe any part of the report needs to be reconsidered at this time.'
So first he claims Israel deliberately killed civilians and might therefore be guilty of crimes against humanity; then he says he now realises this was not the case and he would have written a different report had he known this at the time; now he says he nevertheless sees no reason to reconsider any part of his report.
How can this man have any credibility at all?
But he cannot unwrite what he wrote in the Washington Post. The fact remains that he has pulled the rug from under his own feet, and from under the feet of all who either helped promote or rode on the back of his vile assertions – NGOs such as Human Rights Watch, B’Tselem and the rest, along with the British government, the Guardian, New York Times, BBC and Uncle Tom Israel-basher and all.
However they squirm and dissemble and bully Goldstone back into line, the fact remains that he has shown the world that they were all willing parties to a blood libel – and if they attempt to use Goldstone’s report again, his own words can be thrown back in their faces. The lie has been rumbled. And that is ammunition that can be used.
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Melanie Phillips is a Daily Mail columnist. She also writes for the Jewish Chronicle and is a panellist on BBC Radio Four's Moral Maze. Her most recent book is 'The World Turned Upside Down: The Global Battle over God, Truth and Power', published by Encounter.
For a complete set of Melanie's articles click here
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Raymond Ocampo
April 6th, 2011 11:04pmYou Brits are a brave people, as proven throughout your history, most especially during the Battle of London and indeed all WW2. But your leadership, from the cringing, appeasing Neville Chamberlain to his present reincarnation, David Cameron, are unworthy of such a people. You are as frightened of the Islamics today as Chamberlain was of Hitler ... and you will reap a similar whirlwind when Islamic fury combines with Islamic contempt to make you see, once again, the tragic consequences of governmental cowardice, abetted by greed.
Truthtriumphs
April 6th, 2011 11:37pm"Shameless" is an understatement for the behaviour of our foreign secretary.
He will reap the whirlwind.
Richard
April 6th, 2011 11:47pmDIME 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 (military value?), 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!
It is shameful to condone this.
Goldstone has compounded his initial error of accepting the Israeli fiction that it was at war.
Jason from AZ
April 6th, 2011 11:47pmIs there still any sane people out there who take anything the UN Human Rights Commission or the Guardian publishes about Israel seriously?
Felicity Lawrence
April 7th, 2011 12:00amIn the interests of balance I urge readers to look at this:
http://www.counterpunch.org/cook04052011.html
Many thanks.
Sarah
April 7th, 2011 1:25amGoldstone denies intention to retract UN report
By JPOST.COM STAFF
04/06/2011 07:39
In AP interview, judge refutes Yishai's claims that he promised to seek nullification for his report on Operation Cast Lead in Gaza.
South African jurist Richard Goldstone denied Interior Minister Eli Yishai's claim that he planned to work to nullify his report on the the IDF's Operation Cast Lead in 2009, the Associated Press reported Wednesday.
Goldstone, in an interview with the Associated Press, said that Yishai had called to thank him for his Washington Post op-ed piece, but that the two never discussed the actual report. Goldstone said that he had responded to Yishai's thanks, telling him his utmost concern was for "truth, justice, and human rights."
Rip Van Winkle
April 7th, 2011 2:56amExcellent comment Raymond apart from "You Brits are a brave people". Brits are thick headed who are easily persuaded to follow leaders. They see a queue and ...
DavidSI
April 7th, 2011 3:12amRaymond, I agree with the broad sentiment of your post. However, I take issue with your characterization of Neville Chamberlain who was never "cringing" or "appeasing". He was a gentle man (two words) who did what he thought he should do to avoid a repetition of WW1 in which 800,000 British soldiers were killed and over 2 million wounded. That is not an ignoble ambition and certainly not one that should be characterized as “cringing”. I think that if he had recognized Hitler’s true ambition and murderous intent, he would have responded very differently.
The 2,800,000 British casualties of the First World War represented 5% of the British population (c. 49.5 million at the time). It is misleading to compare Chamberlain’s efforts, twenty years after that cataclysmic war, to avoid a further similar event with today’s self-serving, obsequious British liberal ‘elite’ who are as familiar with the notions of patriotism, duty or self-sacrifice as they are with the practice of honesty.
gary ashton
April 7th, 2011 4:17amraymond, spot on.
melanie - brilliant piece, thank you for speaking up.
JW
April 7th, 2011 5:03amFrom the Britain who gave the world Monty Python, we now have its government offering farce that wears thin. This is the pontificating land that didn't think twice about carpet-and fire-bombing entire German cities when its ox was being gored. Yet no where in Mein Kampf did Hitler vow to destroy Israel, as Hamas in Gaza vows against Israel. And this is also the land where Winston Churchill stated to Neville Chamberlain Britain (to paraphrase): "When faced with the choice of shame or war, it chose shame. It will now have both shame and war." Britain again chooses shame at Israel's expense, thinking it will insure its Arab oil supply and keep Finsbury Park quiet. It will have shame and war.
C.Gee
April 7th, 2011 8:05amFelicity Lawrence:
What does "balance" mean in context?
And how does the Jonathan Cook article provide it?
Or are you just pointing out that there is a lot of opinion out there for our delectation, in case we didn't know?
Dai of Edinburgh
April 7th, 2011 8:13amAs they say, if the truth gets in the way of legend, then keep printing the legend. However, where the liberal media is concerned,this should read 'If the truth gets in the way of our narrative then keep printing the lie'.
YG
April 7th, 2011 8:28amRichard,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WssrKJ3Iqcw
Another Richard, Colonel Richard Kemp, Former commander of British forces in Afghanistan said:
"...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".
Which gives me another reason why the British government is so obsessed with Israel. They do not want anybody to look at their dirty practices in Iraq, Afghanistan and now in Libya.
Derek BLADES
April 7th, 2011 8:30am"The haters of Israel will not allow the facts to get in the way of the hate ...."
I wonder who these "haters of Israel" are exactly. Just considering the contributors to this blog I would find it hard to classify any of them as Israel-haters. Most, like me, seem to accept that Israel is here to stay and wish it well within its (more or less) 1967 borders. Many of us criticise the present Israeli government stand on settlements and its deliberate sabotage of the peace process. But we are not alone here - the governments of the United States, the United Kingdom and member states of the European Union seem to agree. Are we all "Israel haters"? And how does extreme language of this kind help anyone?
Richard
April 7th, 2011 9:17am"However they squirm and dissemble and bully Goldstone back into line..."
Who has been dissembling and bullying Judge Goldstone?
...that smell...stinking hypocrisy?
Thomas
April 7th, 2011 9:21amIsrael 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 here such leeway with the norms of truth and justice? Who else would be absolved of their crimes so easily by the application of such evident double standards? If we do it, it's collateral damage. If they do it, it's a massacre reminiscent of the Nazis.
Roy
April 7th, 2011 9:46amIt needs a new generation to get to grips with the truth. Today the Israel haters have accumulated western favour by repeating the lies upon lies until it is taken for the truth. Take some comments to Melanie's blog, they wait to pounce with the inevitable repetitive drivel, to make out they are a majority. To wear down the opposition until they get tired of answering the obnoxious accusations. It will need a new administration or the one after that to have the guts to bring out and answer the lists of hidden truths. Truths that are continuously being smothered by the present office holders with their army of delusional fellow travelers.
Laurence
April 7th, 2011 9:58am@ Felicity Lawrence
Felicity, you rather miss the point: Melanie IS the balance and often the sole counterweight to a prevalent and pretty Manichean world view in which Israel is always the bad guy and the Palestinians are always innocent, oppressed, heroic freedom fighters.
Shaun Harbord
April 7th, 2011 10:51am"How can this man [Goldstone] have any credibility at all?"
Well, if you genuinely think that, where is the logic in then saying,"he cannot unwrite what he wrote in the Washington Post"? After all, if you really think he has no credibility at all, you cannot use his retraction because it, like his original Report that you despise, has no credibility and so cannot be relied upon.
Santorum
April 7th, 2011 10:56amIn her penultimate paragraph Melanie trots out the usual list of media outlets. Is she aware that anti-Semiticism lurks closer to home?
http://www.thejc.com/blogs/geoffrey-paul/a-view-grill-0
It would be interesting to hear her views on this.
Edward in the USA
April 7th, 2011 10:56amRichard asked:
"Who has been dissembling and bullying Judge Goldstone?"
His conscience.
YG
April 7th, 2011 10:57amThoms and Blades,
You are exactly the type of persons Melanie refers to.
Your response indeed
"requires the kind of brazen intellectual legerdemain which, for those whose attitude to Israel is based on lies and hatred, is second nature."
The Jewish people survived many evil enemies (including self hating frightened Jews), like yoursleves and like the British government.
We will survive.
Edward in the USA
April 7th, 2011 10:59amThe murder of 10 UN workers in response to the burning of a freaking BOOK by one man is the ultimate in "disproportionate response".
Rachel Miller
April 7th, 2011 11:01amThomas, please could you explain what Israel could have offered during diplomatic talks with Hamas? And what are your grounds for claiming that the launching of rockets into Israel do not meet 'the criteria for self-defence'?
I take it that you mean that the 2378 rockets and mortars launched indiscriminately into Israel during 2008 alone do not constitute enough of an act of aggression to justify Operation Cast Lead. How many attacks would justify such a response in your view?
Bear in mind that Hamas's aim, stated in its founding charter, is to destroy Israel and drive the Jews into the sea. Hamas are so committed to this aim that they regularly murder fellow Palestinians just for the crime of dealing with the Israelis. Given this mindset, and no sign of it changing, do you honestly think that Israel should ever trust any 'ceasefire' offered by Hamas?
And please don't forget, when thinking about this, that Hamas is only in the Gaza Strip because of Israel's previous gesture of concession in withdrawing from the territory. Israel made a gesture of conciliation and was repaid with aggression. In such circumstances, how prepared would you be to continue to negotiate with Hamas?
GT
April 7th, 2011 11:25amIt hasn't taken long for a narrative to develop from the Israel haters; an attempt to paint a new Goldstone portrait that still makes Israel look bad. Melanie you might want to observe all the claims of the Goldstone report condemning Hamas. It doesn't; not once is Hamas accused of war crimes in the entire report. Goldstone refered to Hamas as the 'governing authority' and the militants as 'armed groups'. The report only criticised Hamas for failing to police the conduct of the armed groups... it did NOT charge Hamas with actual war crimes. It was these nebulous armed groups which were accused of war crimes in the Goldstone report, Hamas never was.
Shaun Harbord
April 7th, 2011 11:45amFelicity Lawrence: excellent post. The Jonathan Cook article is good and balance is needed but, judging by some comments on here, not everyone realises that.
Mustapha Bunn
April 7th, 2011 11:46amDavid SI @ 3.12am ... agreed.
If Chamberlain had not come back from Munich with his "piece of paper" the 2nd World War would have started some months earlier and finished some years sooner ...and,no doubt,neither the vast majority of Jews would have survived nor would the state of Israel have been founded.Which would have probably pleased some correspondents on this blog.
YG
April 7th, 2011 11:52amLook at this brave young Muslim:
Amran Hussain, a British Muslim, speaking to the UN Human Rights Council last month:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZgtpuwFVYs&feature=player_embedded
There is hope with brave truth speaking Muslims who are not sharing the hate and lies of the dreadful coalition of left wing "Liberals", extreme Muslims and the cynical western governments.
Thomas
April 7th, 2011 11:57amC.Gee
April 7th, 2011 8:05am
Given the vitriol here about the alleged lack of balance at the BBC, it is startling to find that the concept of balance is not understood.
Maya
April 7th, 2011 12:12pmDerek BLADES
"Most, like me, seem to accept that Israel is here to stay and wish it well within its (more or less) 1967 borders"
Well, that's good to know.
But Israel existed from 1948-1967 within those borders. NINE miles wide at its narrowest point,able to be crossed by car/tank in about 10 minutes, and by aircraft in 2.They were virtually indefensible borders against an enemy nation, and the pre 1967 Israel was subject to constant infiltration by terrorists, and sniper attack from Syria etc.
http://www.zionism-israel.com/vic/Terror_before_1967.htm
Your 'wishing it well' unfortunately would be powerless in the face of an enemy bent on its destruction.And without an acceptance of the State of Israel as a Jewish state by her neighbours, it would be suicide for Israel to withdraw to those same borders which left her so insecure for 20 years. And that acceptance seems not to be on the cards at the moment.
Eugene
April 7th, 2011 12:28pmBritain was largely pacifist in the late 1930s; it took one man, Churchill, to change the mood and save the country. There isn't another like him on the horizon now.
Augustus
April 7th, 2011 12:40pmThe endless bombardment of Israel with rockets and mortar fire from probably the most overpopulated area on the planet received a lot less media attention than the
war of self-defense which Israel felt it necessary to wage. Israel's action was perfectly justified because the missiles were reaching ever further into Israel, and,
apparently, you can't conduct or think up a
better way of rocket research than test it out on live Jews. And it wasn't the first time that live Jews have been experimented with. But the world wasn't bothered about all those thousands of rockets, it only decided to make a fuss when Israel retaliated. And today Israel is still being fired on with rockets and mortars, but only restraint is demanded of Israel, while Hamas
gets rewarded with golden gifts for attacking Israel and wanting only to wage aggressive war against it. But increasing Jew and Israel hatred is the love-child born
from the marriage between the progessive West and Islam. It is, therefore, about time that more people stood up and shouted,
'I stand with Israel', because they deserve
our support, if only as a counter to those left-wing supporters of Islamic haters who carry placards which read, 'You Have Not Seen The Real Holocaust Yet!' And the answer to the question of who is guilty of war crimes can easily be answered, because Hamas have admitted, and images have confirmed, that civilians were press-ganged
into grouping themselves around the Gazan
combatants so Israel could be blamed for aiming at civilians. And Goldstone fell for
it!
Andy Gill
April 7th, 2011 1:14pmFantastic article. Israel's enemies have been thrown into blind panic as the UN propaganda machine unravels. The NGOs and the British Foreign Office are running about like a headless chickens.
Stew
April 7th, 2011 1:30pmWe love you Melanie but PLEASE get some new records.
Terry
April 7th, 2011 1:57pmMelanie, have you seen the video and news on Tangled Web where a Palestinian woman who had been treated in an Israeli hospital wanted to go back to it but was held up at a checkpoint...and then tried to explode the device she was wearing and had intended to detonate at the hospital?
Derek BLADES
April 7th, 2011 2:35pm@ Maya
You wrote "But Israel existed from 1948-1967 within those borders...... They were virtually indefensible borders against an enemy nation,..."
But Maya, if they were "virtually indefensible" how was it they were successfully defended?
Derek BLADES
April 7th, 2011 2:39pm@ YG
You have the impertinence to tell me that my "attitude to Israel is based on lies and hatred".
Be good enough to supply evidence of my lies or hatred of Israel.
Sam
April 7th, 2011 2:39pmI'm astounded by the lies told by "Richard" and "Thomas".
One suggests that Hamas offered a ceasefire. Lie!
The fact is that Hamas breached the ceasefire and was urged by both Israel and Egypt to stop firing rockets or else. They didn't so they got "else". The ceasefire was first breached in June 24th 2008, reported by the BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7470530.stm
Then we have a denial that action is NOT appropriate and wasn't proportional to the 8,000 rockets fired at Israeli citizens. After several warnings the response was dis-proportional in that the rockets could have been made to stop in days with a massive and justified bombardment of Gaza. Proprotionality is the effort required to achieve your goal. Instead Israel went in with restrained force.
The attack by Hezbollah on Israel, with the killing of soldiers, kidnap of soldiers and shelling of Israeli villages is a de facto Act Of War by the fact that it took place on Israeli territory.
The use of white phosphorus as flares and smoke is entirely legal.
There is a simple equation. Don't attack Israel and you suffer zero casualties. What is so hard to grasp?
Imshin
April 7th, 2011 2:51pmThomas: "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."
Interesting sort of prison that's inmates are armed up to their teeth and regularly attack their jailors. Armed to the teeth, I might add, with weapons brought in from the so-called jails other border - the one with Egypt. For some reason, the Egyptian brethren don't want anything to do with the Gazans. Anyone reasonable person would understand it was clearly the Egyptians responsibility to look after the Gazans, being their Arab and Muslim brothers, and not the Israelis whom they openly swear to annihilate?
Imshin
April 7th, 2011 2:57pmActually, Augustus, Gaza being "the most overpopulated area" in the world is probably as much a myth as the myth that Gazans are starving. Apparently Tel Aviv is far more densely populated than Gaza. Just so you should know. :-)
Anderson Benedict
April 7th, 2011 3:42pmNo new facts: http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2011/04/goldstone-report-israel-rights
Could we have a little less distortion on this blog please?
cyllan
April 7th, 2011 3:55pmgaza mortar destroys bus carrying 50 children back home 13 injured 1 serious, bus destroyed.
178 rockets launched from gaza to israel.
jew haters on this board rejoice
and keep blaming israel, you got blood on your hands
http://www.theisraelproject.org/site/c.hsJPK0PIJpH/b.672581/k.12D7/The_Israel_Project__Facts_For_A_Better_Future.htm?sid=147857600&auid=8113472
I love the UK
April 7th, 2011 4:42pmTo the UK haters out there, please leave the UK or never ever visit. We don't need any of your hatred go and live in your fantasy promised land.
Thomas
April 7th, 2011 4:44pmRachel Miller
April 7th, 2011 11:01am
You ask what Israel could have offered. For a start, Israel could have given an undertaking to observe the terms of any ceasefire it put its name to. It failed to do so during the previous ceasefire of June 2008.
The criteria for self-defence are necessarily vague: between a single shot and a full-scale invasion there must come a point when the victim is justified in taking measures to defend itself.
The ICJ has ruled on what would count as an armed attack by other than the armed forces of a state, that would justify the plea of self-defence (in its opinion on the case of Nicaragua, and confirmed in its opinions on Oil Platforms, on the Israeli Wall, and on the Congo): “the prohibition of armed attacks may apply to the sending by a State of armed bands to the territory of another State, if such an operation, because of its scale and effects, would have been classified as an armed attack rather than a mere frontier incident had it been carried out by regular armed forces.”
If we accept as reasonable Israel's contention that the likes of Hamas and Hizballah can be considered quasi-state organisations and therefore subject to the prohibition, it remains to say whether their attacks were serious enough to count as more than border incidents.
While any one rocket attack may not be serious enough, Israel may invoke the “pinprick” or “accumulation of events” theory. It is only a theory, but the ICJ did consider it in the case of Nicaragua and of the Congo, and found that the series of attacks must be “collective”, “cumulative in character” and attributable to a state (the last we are reasonably enough setting aside). - It would appear to be a theory more readily applicable by the Lebanon and Gaza to the series of assaults by Israel that culminate in periodic invasions. The theory would not in any case apply, because a ceasefire was in place until broken by Israel.
The use of force is subject to the constraints of proportionality and necessity. A state may only use the force necessary to repel an armed attack and its response must be proportional to the attack.
As Yoran Dinstein of Tel Aviv University has written, “it is not who fired the first shot but who embarked upon an apparently irreversible course of action thereby crossing the legal Rubicon. The casting of the die, rather than the actual opening of fire, is what starts the armed attack.”
Nor can Israel claim a right to armed reprisal. The 1970 Declaration on Principles of International Law... declares that “states have a duty to refrain from acts of reprisal involving the use of force.” Even in the days before the UN, reprisals were subject to the constraints of necessity and proportionality. So, even under earlier law, Israel's actions were not reprisal but aggression. The same goes for blockade.
Furthermore, Israel can't claim necessity. In the Caroline case (from an era when there was no prohibition on the use of force by states) it was found that there must be a “necessity of self-defence instant, overwhelming, leaving no choice of means and no moment of deliberation.”
It is not just the threats of Israeli politicians and generals that point to aggression and not defence. The UN definition of aggression includes that the conflict was planned beforehand, that the resort to force was unnecessary and disproportionate to the incident or incidents that allegedly caused the outbreak of hostilities, and that diplomatic methods had not been exhausted before hostilities were commenced.
There is also the further complication that in international law Gaza remains occupied territory as Israel maintains effective control.
You say that 2378 rockets and mortars were launched into Israel. I would be surprised if you could give a comparable figure for Israeli munitions fired into Gaza. To give some idea of relative scale: between 2005 and 2008, 11 Israelis were killed by rockets from Gaza, while 1250 Palestinians in Gaza were killed by Israeli fire, 222 of them children. You would have serious difficulty in proving the Hamas attacks aggression and not Israel's.
It is correct that the Hamas Charter, written by one individual several decades ago, is full of anti-Semitic and genocidal talk. Apologists for Hamas say that they intended to discard the Charter and replace it with something that reflects what they now hope to achieve – but that the demand from Israel and the US to do so caused them to refuse, to avoid loss of face. Whatever the truth of this, it does Hamas nothing but harm not to disown the Charter, especially as they have for many years now signalled their willingness to negotiate on the basis of the Green Line.
You ask why Israel should trust a ceasefire with Hamas: because, as Israel itself has acknowledged, Hamas has kept to the terms of previous ceasefires, unlike Israel.
You characterize Israel's withdrawal to the perimeter of Gaza as a gesture of conciliation. The cost of subsidising and defending a handful of settlers was deemed too great. The “demographic time bomb” required creative thinking – persuade the PA to assume “sovereignty” over the ghettoes in the West Bank and shut the Palestinians of Gaza in their ghetto and pretend they are no longer Israel's responsibility as occupying power. And the final reason for the withdrawal was spelled out by Dov Weisglas, advisor to Sharon and Olmert. He said that withdrawal was the “formaldehyde that's necessary so there will not be a political process with the Palestinians. When you freeze the process, he explained, “you prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state and you prevent a discussion about refugees, borders, and Jerusalem. Effectively, the whole package that is called a Palestinian state, with all that it entails, has been removed from our agenda indefinitely.”
N"L from Israel
April 7th, 2011 6:19pm@Thomas
As an expert on this subject said:
"At minimum I hoped that in the face of a clear finding that its members were committing serious war crimes, Hamas would curtail its attacks. Sadly, that has not been the case. Hundreds more rockets and mortar rounds have been directed at civilian targets in southern Israel. That comparatively few Israelis have been killed by the unlawful rocket and mortar attacks from Gaza in no way minimizes the criminality. The U.N. Human Rights Council should condemn these heinous acts in the strongest terms."
The expert BTW is R. Goldstone in his Op-Ed
in the WP.
So, I wonder, If thousands of war crimes were
executed against YOUR country, or YOUR town
what would the reaction be?
If you are a citizen of the U.K or U.S you don't have to answer. It is well demonstrated in Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan-far , far away from the border.
Grumpy true Zionist
April 7th, 2011 6:19pm'To the UK haters out there, please leave the UK or never ever visit. We don't need any of your hatred go and live in your fantasy promised land.'
would and have....but got close 'mishpocha' presently residing in your 'neck of the woods'....trying to salvage your national health
but thanks for the offer anyhow
Truthtriumphs
April 7th, 2011 6:27pmDrek BLADES
April 7th, 2011 8:30am
"The haters of Israel will not allow the facts to get in the way of the hate ...."
Just so.
"I wonder who these "haters of Israel" are exactly. Just considering the contributors to this blog I would find it hard to classify any of them as Israel-haters."
Here are some:---
Yourself...in spot no.1
Richard, Herzen, Victoria, Celato, Tilly, Aelle, Thomas and others....of course, I suspect that some are yourself writing under other names, to give the illusion of widespread concensus.
"Are we all "Israel haters"? And how does extreme language of this kind help anyone?"
Yes. It helps you in your obsessive quest to poison people's minds in your aim to eliminate Israel from the family of nations, through lies, distortions and delegitimisation.
In all your scribblings, you have never had a good word to say about Israel.
I reming you of Martin luther King's famous dictum:--
Anti-Zionism is inherently anti-semitic, and ever will be so.
That's you, Blades.
Truthtriumphs
April 7th, 2011 6:29pmThomas
April 7th, 2011 9:21am
"Israel claimed to be acting in self-defence....etc."
Why don't you just say that Jews should oblige their enemies, and lie down and die at their enemies whims, as they have done for 2,000 years, instead of defending themselves, as is a universal right?
Instead, you dress up your hatred in self righteous cant....every one of your statements is an outrageous lie, culminating in the obscene comparison of the survivors of Nazism, to the Nazis themselves.
I remind you that such a comparison is explicitly described as anti-semitic, by the EU directive anti-semitism.
Edward in the USA
April 7th, 2011 6:34pmI love the UK said:
"To the UK haters out there, please leave the UK or never ever visit. We don't need any of your hatred go and live in your fantasy promised land".
I don't think you have anything to fear from those who live outside the UK for the bombers of 7/7/05 were from your midst.
Rafi
April 7th, 2011 6:42pmFor responses to some of the common lies about Israel:
http://www.liesaboutisrael.org/
The delegitimization of Israel must stop if there will ever be peace.
N"L from Israel
April 7th, 2011 6:43pmLet's remember Fallujah, Iraq, end of 2004:
Fallujah suffered extensive damage to residences, mosques, city services, and businesses. The city, once referred to as the "City of Mosques", had over 200 pre-battle mosques of which 60 or so were destroyed in the fighting. Many of these mosques had been used as arms caches and weapon strongpoints by Islamist forces. Of the roughly 50,000 buildings in Fallujah, between 7,000 and 10,000 were estimated to have been destroyed in the offensive and from half to two-thirds of the remaining buildings had notable damage.
60 schools were also destroyed.
Operation Phantom Fury was the bloodiest battle involving US troops since the height of the Vietnam war.
While pre-offensive inhabitant figures are unreliable, the nominal population was assumed to have been 200,000–350,000. One report claims that both offensives, Operation Vigilant Resolve and Operation Phantom Fury, created 200,000 internally displaced persons who are still living elsewhere in Iraq. Reports claim that up to 6000 civilians died throughout the operation.] While damage to mosques was heavy, Coalition forces reported that 66 out of the city's 133 mosques had been found to be holding significant amounts of insurgent weapons.
After the battle, there were also reports about use of white phosphorous by the coalition forces.
Now the question: The above is above and beyond to what happened in Gaza,yet
No UN committee or organization had spend
even a meeting on the subject. anyone care to explain why?
Maya
April 7th, 2011 6:44pmDerek BLADES
"But Maya, if they were "virtually indefensible" how was it they were successfully defended?"
You really need another history lesson.
Do you deny that Israel was in a constant defensive mode 1948-1967 against a permanent threat from its neighbours?
The Israelis who lived near any border lines were in constant fear of infiltration.
And the 9 mile wide corridor is a proven fact. Do you deny it?
The 6 day war is regarded by many (not only Israelis) as being miraculous- against the natural expectation. It was a miracle Israel survived.
And the 1973 Yom Kippur war proved that the threat was not over.
Gareth
April 7th, 2011 7:29pmExcellent article, Melanie, but to my mind there is another side to all this. Throughout the history of jihad, muslims have never made any distinction between combatants and non-combatants, nor have they ever observed anything resembling the Geneva Convention. That being so there is no reason why any group of people being attacked by muslims should worry about civilian casualties. I suggest Israel should have cut off the water supply to the Gaza strip, and kept it off.
Fernando
April 7th, 2011 7:39pmThomas wrote:
"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."
I have also read your other comment elaborating on this...and not only is a lie, it is a laughable lie...No democracy on Earth would tolerate round the clock bombing of its civilians for years. NONE.
Of course Cast Lead was an act of self-defense, and a very restrained one at that.
"There had been a ceasefire and a ceasefire was on offer"
Another lie. On Dec. 19 2008 (8 days before Cast Lead)
Hamas declared the "truce" officially over. During the six-month "truce", 223 rockets and 139 mortar shells were fired into Israel from Gaza.
"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."
See above for the refutation of this particular lie.
And anyway, the notion that Israel is somehow obliged to negotiate with a genocidal terrorist gang is equally bogus.
"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."
Actually, during Cast Lead, the IDF behaved with what was probably the most scrupulous Jus in Bello EVER undertaken by ANY army.
Sam
April 7th, 2011 8:02pm@Thomas, why are you STILL repeating the lie about breaking the ceasefire.
It was broken by Hamas on the 24th June 2008, six-days after the ceasefire was first brokered.
Do you acknowledge that? - or call ME a liar! Note that the BBC report proves YOU are telling a lie.
cyllan
April 7th, 2011 8:10pmI LOVE UK SAYS
"To the UK haters out there, please leave the UK or never ever visit. We don't need any of your hatred go and live in your fantasy promised land".
you are either rich, work in the public sector, politics, or are unemployed.
in which case I WOULD LOVE THE UK TOO.
Ben-Tsiyon (ha rishon)
April 7th, 2011 8:41pmSo, that's 'I love the UK''s answer to those of us who rightly condemn Britain for its hypocrisy and its bigotry and hostility towards Israel, leave or never visit. I wonder if he has the same message for the blatantly and demonstrably hostile Islamist extremists in the UK and their 'liberal' radical side-kicks ! His reference to
"your fantasy promised land" provides the answer to that.
Another Joshua
April 7th, 2011 9:10pm"So first he claims Israel deliberately killed civilians and might therefore be guilty of crimes against humanity; then he says he now realises this was not the case and he would have written a different report had he known this at the time; now he says he nevertheless sees no reason to reconsider any part of his report.
How can this man have any credibility at all?"
Not Goldstone. Gallstones. Now all is clear.
Augustus
April 7th, 2011 10:11pmThis may be slightly OT, but it's certainly a damn shame that Israel has to devote so much of its money and resources
to protect itself from its neighbours, because this tiny land benefits the whole world with its technologies and skills. For example, at the Weizmann Institute they have developed a way of harnessing
immune system cells to revive and repair damaged nerve fibres. Other medical breakthroughs include the miniscule camera-in-a-tablet used for internal diagnosis, ultrasound for destroying tumours, and Israel's highly effective disaster relief operations. Then there is the discovery of the Bti bacterium
that kills certain flies and harmful mosquitoes. This has already saved millions of livers
and is an environment friendly
intervention. Most remarkable is
that the discoverer, Dr Yoel Margalith is a holocaust survivor from Belsen.
In many fields Israel is so far ahead of the pack that other countries have no chance of catching up. One interesting project involves avoiding collisions between aircraft and migratory birds. It involved the study of the flight paths of birds, and the system is now
also used by both the Turkish and Jordanian airforces. Israel has more engineers per capita than any country on earth, and innovation in computers and IT
is particularly impressive.This encompasses software, operating systems, storage and retrieval systems, firewall technology,
plus a host of mobile phone applications. So, despite its small size and many enemies, Israel is bursting with creative energy, and making a huge contribution to the global quality of life worldwide. Israel-bashers please note!
E Riley
April 7th, 2011 10:22pmThe Goldstone commission’s findings on deliberate attacks on civilians is one of at least seven broad findings (which comprise hundreds of specific incidents) that raise issues about Israel’s conduct. These other key findings include: (1) Israel’s illegal siege on Gaza, which constitutes a form of collective punishment and so violates the Fourth Geneva Conventions; (2) The political institutions and buildings of Gaza cannot be lawfully considered part of the “Hamas terrorist infrastructure” and so Israel’s attacks on them are unlawful; (3) Israel taking insufficient measures to protect the Palestinian civilian population; (4) “indiscriminate” attacks (as distinct from “deliberate” attacks) killed many civilians without any credible military rationale for those actions; (5) Israeli use of weapons, such as white phosphorous and flechette missiles, which, although not banned under current international law, were used in ways that do violate the laws of war; and (6) Israel’s deliberate destruction of civilian infrastructure, including industrial plants, food production facilities, sewage treatment plants, and water installations; this destruction has no military justification (for example, Israel’s “wanton destruction” of Mr. Sameh Sawafeary’s chicken coops, killing all 31,000 chickens inside despite there being no military activity in the area) and could constitute a crime against humanity.
Goldstone’s op-ed pointedly excludes discussion of all of these very serious charges of possible war crimes and possible crimes against humanity, so it’s odd that FM Lieberman and his hasbara “excreta” (his word, not mine) think Israel is somehow absolved of all responsibility. One cannot avoid the impression that Israel’s unconditional supporters still haven’t actually read the report
E Riley
April 7th, 2011 10:28pmGoldstone had not recanted his report, he is only one member and since recently spoke of his love for Israel his bias now excludes him from further comment.
GaryL
April 7th, 2011 10:42pmThomas wrote -
"You say that 2378 rockets and mortars were launched into Israel. I would be surprised if you could give a comparable figure for Israeli munitions fired into Gaza. To give some idea of relative scale: between 2005 and 2008, 11 Israelis were killed by rockets from Gaza, while 1250 Palestinians in Gaza were killed by Israeli fire, 222 of them children. You would have serious difficulty in proving the Hamas attacks aggression and not Israel's."
It's odd to classify aggression by whether one party to a conflict is able to aim their weapons or not. So I could shoot a gun at you for days on end as long as I don't hit you and it wouldn't be called aggression. Why not measure it by the number of days of disturbance, or the acres where fear occurs.
Jerry
April 7th, 2011 11:27pmThomas wrote,"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."
Today, Thurs. April 7, Hamas hit a commuter bus inside Israel with an anti-tank rocket, injuring two, a thirteen-year old critically. After that Hamas sent 45 additional rockets into Israel. Two were taken out by the Iron Dome anti-rocket system because they were headed directly for the city of Ashkelon. Then Hamas quickly declared a ceasefire.
Thomas, you completely misunderstand Hamas, whether on purpose or by lack of facility in these matters.
GT
April 8th, 2011 12:30amThis Goldstone story is a good example to teach ones children about the risks of telling lies. Once a lie is propagated the liar has to keep maintaining the lie else sooner or later they get caught out.
The central plank of the Goldstone Report was that Hamas was a civilian (defacto) government which had no direct involvement in the armed attacks against Israel.
Goldstone went to great lengths in his report to create a large and very distinct separation between Hamas and the 'armed groups' or 'resistance' launching rocket & other attacks against Israel. This was necesssary for the Goldstone crew because if Hamas was responsible for the attacks against Israel then any Israeli military response against Hamas was legally justified by the laws of armed conflict. If Hamas was behind the rocket attacks Israel had every right under international law to attack the Hamas Police, destroy Hamas infrastructure etc etc.
The Goldstone panel carefully isolated & excluded Hamas from the 'resistance' attacking Israel by painting Hamas as a strictly civilian political organisation that acted as the defacto governing authority. But the legal quandary there was that if Hamas was not involved in the armed attacks against Israel then Hamas could not have committed any war crimes. So the report completely exonerated Hamas of war crimes as a consequence of the panels ardent quest to accuse Israel of as many different crimes as they could.
The portrayal of Hamas as lily white was the most absurd aspect of the report, but for legal imperatives it had to be done if Israel was to stand accused.
The interesting corollary to all this is that Goldstone is now accusing Hamas directly of war crimes, seemingly forgetting he wilfully exonerated Hamas of war crimes in his report and why he needed to do so. He's been caught out by his own lies and looks to be digging a deeper hole for himself every time he opens his mouth..
eh-oop
April 8th, 2011 1:35am‘…as presently advised I have no reason to believe any part of the report needs to be reconsidered at this time.' So here we have the report’s lead author denying that the proof that there was no intentionality underlying civilian deaths, something that he has accepted, warrants any change in his commission’s report. Absurdity speaks for itself.
If that’s a coded Goldstone bleat that bringing about one change in the report at this stage amounts to mission impossible because he can’t persuade his colleagues on the commission or because the anti-Israel majority in the UNGA won’t let him, then it would be more honest if he'd just admit that he won’t be undoing the harm he has done by accepting the UNHCR’s biased mission and by accepting colleagues on the commission who had declared their animus towards Israel in advance.
But he may mean that he’s going to, first, revisit the pro-Israel evidence that his commission ignored in order to refute the other charges, such as the one about Israel not doing enough to protect Gaza’s civilian inhabitants. Perhaps he sees a better chance of getting a larger number of nations to reject the report on the basis that there’s even more that’s wrong with it.
Either way he’s blown his chances of an easy life from this time on. But his historic reputation and any chance he has of ending-up on the side of the angels might still matter to him.
Derek
April 8th, 2011 2:34amAugustus at 10.11pm
We used to sing that we would build Jerusalem in England. We should start to sing it again and more widely. Israel shows us the way out of our present deplorable condition. We should defend her as if we were defending ourselves.
Kermack
April 8th, 2011 7:16amGary L - if you shot at a gun at me for days I'd assume that your intention is to hit me and you may eventually succeed. I would therfore do my utmost to prevent that....
Jerry
April 8th, 2011 8:14amThomas wrote, "The criteria for self-defence are necessarily vague: between a single shot and a full-scale invasion there must come a point when the victim is justified in taking measures to defend itself."
As long as the criteria that are applied to the State of Israel differ one iota from those applied to Hamas, your arguments are specious. Your argument counts any successful Israeli defense as disproportionate. In other words, self-defense is not permitted to Israel until someone other than Israel agrees.
"Appropriate Force" as you probably know, but did not bother to mention, is defined as that which is necessary to halt the aggression. Thus, Israel is justified in any level of force that is required to halt the attacks. Period!
An attack on a yellow school bus by someone yielding an anti-tank rocket is a casus belli. Should you disagree with that assessment, then you have taken sides on the wrong side.
Furthermore, you state that Israel withdrew from Gaza because it served them well to do so. Under that assessment, there is nothing Israel could do that would satisfy you short of capitulation. When you define the conflict as a zero-sum game, I choose the Jews. Not only must Israel protect itself from Iran, Hamas and Hizb'Allah, but from the likes of you as well! Your permission is not required nor sought!
Thomas
April 8th, 2011 10:21amIt is curious to find the BBC cited here of all places as the ultimate authority.
After rejecting for months Hamas proposals for a ceasefire, ISrael accepted in June 2008.
The Intelligence and Terrorism Information Centre at the Israel Intelligence Heritage and Commemoration Centre:
"Hamas was careful to maintain the ceasefire. The lull was sporadically violated by rocket and mortar shell fire, carried out be rogue terrorist orgnanizations. At the same time, Hamas tried to enforce the terms of the arrangement on the other terrorist organizations and to prevent them from violating it."
Ehud Barak himself admitted that the ceasefire was working.
The number of rockets launched dropped to next to none as Hamas succeeded in curbing other groups.
Yuval Diskin told the Israeli cabinet that Hamas was "interested in renewing the the relative calm with Israel." He told them that Hamas would renew the truce if Israel lifted the siege on Gaza, stopped its military attacks, and extended the truce to the West Bank. The cabinet authorized a military incursion into Gaza and other military action.
According to a former IDF commander in Gaza, Shmuel Zakai, Hamas would have accepted a bargain in which it would halt the fire in exchange for easing of Israeli policies that kept a choke hold on the economy of the Strip.
Note that at no point during the ceasefire did Israel honour its side of the bargain.
It is striking that everyone who has objected to what I said assumes without question that Israel only ever retaliates. It is unspoken, presumably because taken as self-evident, that Israel is the peace-loving victim simply trying to enjoy what is its own.
It is as if the Native Americans in their reservations were to be branded the aggressor.
It is also worthy of notice that the repeated killings of Palestinian civilians by the IDF merit no comment here, but every crime by Hamas itrumpeted loud and long as evidence that they are genocidal maniacs whom Israel cannot negotiate with.
(The argument that the IDF's slaughter is okay because it is simply better at aiming its weapons is a perfect example of the moral turpitude of those who feel they must defend Israel's every action.)
I love the UK
April 8th, 2011 11:49amcyllan asks...you are either rich, work in the public sector, politics, or are unemployed.
Well i'm certainly not rich nor a politicial however, I'm not going to stand back and watch some UK bashing. Were not perfect but it's a damn fine country to live in.
Reuven
April 8th, 2011 12:27pmWith reference to Goldstone's latest comment - to Haaretz - that his original report still holds, only compounds the feeling that this man is not fit to settle a neighborly dispute, let alone judge Israel in a defensive war against terrorists.
GaryL
April 8th, 2011 3:31pmKermack
April 8th, 2011 7:16am
Gary L - if you shot at a gun at me for days I'd assume that your intention is to hit me and you may eventually succeed. I would therfore do my utmost to prevent that....
That's obvious, except to Thomas. He classifies aggression by the number of successful hits, without bothering his irrational mind with who fired first, nor how many shots they fired before any counter response.
Thomas - "To give some idea of relative scale: between 2005 and 2008, 11 Israelis were killed by rockets from Gaza, while 1250 Palestinians in Gaza were killed by Israeli fire, 222 of them children. You would have serious difficulty in proving the Hamas attacks aggression and not Israel's."
Tim
April 8th, 2011 4:19pmI don't presume to know the intricacies of Middle East politics well enough to know if Melanie's commentaries are courageous and clear-sighted, or boringly propagandist. What I do know is that the Israelis have an astonishing capacity for being irritating, and forfeiting whatever support they might conceivably deserve. Their behaviour over the settlements make any overt backing for Israel politically untenable. If Israel doesn't care about world opinion (as would seem to be the case), then maybe it (and Melanie Phillips) should stop complaining when it fails to get as much political support from the world as it thinks it deserves.
Gábor Fränkl
April 8th, 2011 4:50pmTim, your views are not punctual or exact. I assume the reason you hold this opinion is the fact that you believe the politically correct world that the Palestinians (so-called) are a distinct and separate people. This is clearly not the case. Therefore, Israel is not "occupying" anything, as even prominent international law - contrary to countries opposing Israel in the West like Britain and fellow travellers say out of purely political motives - professors, those who wrote and "moulded" relevant Security Council resolutions maintain, Tim.
I am not arrogant, just try to highlight those - imv "winnig" aspects for Isarel's case - which are deliberately hidded by interested parties in this conflict. And yes, sadly, your country and its media empire lock stock and barell is part of it.
JOHN ROOSEVELT
April 8th, 2011 7:43pmRichard: as long a Hamas fuels the flames of jihadisn there can be no movement towards peace whatsoever. This is a simple fact. If you think jihadism does not inform Arab nationalism in a crucial way, tell us why you think so. If not, stop bleating about Israel not playing nicely...Nothing can nor will change unless the conflict is de Islamified...and that will never happen.
So, you better prey that rag tags "democrats" like the "rebels of Libya, succeed in selling chemical weapons to Hamas...If not, Israel will have no choice but to send these "liberators" to the vestels...and so they should.
Your moral quackery does nothing for peace and most of all nothing for the welfare of those you apparently support.
You need a new strategy, comrade.
Thomas
April 9th, 2011 10:33amDiplomatc despatches are sometimes more enlightening than hasbara:
Major General Yoav Galant said that Hamas needed to be "strong enough to enforce a ceasefire".
He told the Americans: "Israel's political leadership has not yet made the necessary policy choices among competing priorities: a short-term priority of wanting Hamas to be strong enough to enforce the de facto ceasefire and prevent the firing of rockets and mortars into Israel; a medium priority of preventing Hamas from consolidating its hold on Gaza; and a longer-term priority of avoiding a return of Israeli control of Gaza and full responsibility for the wellbeing of Gaza's civilian population."
Adam B.
April 10th, 2011 2:43pmTim writes, about an entire people:
"the Israelis have an astonishing capacity for being irritating" - the implication being that they bring the hatred meted out on them on themselves.
Tim, that is sheer bigotry.
JOHN ROOSEVELT
April 11th, 2011 7:11amE. Riley: can you tell us what is NOT illegal - under International Law - about the Palestinians' - Hamas and other groups' - uncontended deliberate targeting of Israeli civilians?
Levin
April 11th, 2011 10:37amThe Goldstone Chronicles:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/08/opinion/08iht-edcohen08.html?_r=2&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha212