Human Rights in Palestine and Other Occupied Territories:
The Report of the United Nations Fact Finding
Mission on the Gaza Conflict
The title of the so-called "Goldstone Report" tells you what the UN "fact finders" were looking for. They couldn't completely ignore the years of increasingly long-range and accurate Hamas rockets and mortars terrorizing nearly a million Israelis and couldn't completely ignore Hamas's use of civilians as shields, so next best was to equate aggressor and defender, arsonist and fireman.
With excruciating evenhandedness, "the mission concluded that actions amounting to war crimes and possibly in some respect crimes against humanity were committed by the Israel Defense Forces." At the same time, according to The Washington Post, "Goldstone said there was no question that the Palestinian firing of missiles and mortar shells into Israel 'was deliberate and calculated to cause loss of life and injury to civilians and damage to civilian infrastructure.' The mission 'found that these actions also amounted to serious war crimes and also possibly crimes against humanity.'"
Israel and Hamas, Hamas and Israel-no difference. Which, from the Hamas point of view, is a huge victory. Hamas knows it commits war crimes and does so deliberately. Killing Jews and "liberating Palestine" through blood and revolution are in the Charter. Hamas knows it uses human shields. If Israel aborts a mission because it sees civilians, Hamas wins; if Israel carries out the mission and kills civilians, Hamas wins. The Goldstone report also noted that Hamas and Fatah torture and assassinate one another-but Hamas and Fatah already know that and no one else really cares. Their behavior is calculated, designed and deliberate.
On the other hand, Goldstone cited an Israeli mortar shell that went through the door of a mosque, and said, according to The Washington Post, "there was no evidence to suggest that the mosque had been occupied by militants or had been used to store weapons." It may have been an Israeli mistake, but Americans and Israelis know for absolute fact that mosques are arsenals as well as houses of prayer. Hamas knows it as well, with less regard. Only a month ago, Hamas destroyed the Ibn Taymiyeh Mosque in Gaza. Hamas militiamen surrounded the mosque of a non-compliant preacher and were met with mortars and automatic rifle fire by his supporters. Hamas troops returned fire and the ensuing battle lasted three days and included suicide bombers.
How lovely for Hamas to have Israel excoriated as if it was Hamas, while Hamas behaves like Hamas with no penalty.
The Israeli government declined to cooperate with the mission, knowing facts would not be allowed to interfere with conclusions already written. That is the nature of all UN panels, the International Criminal Court and Spanish judges invoking "universal jurisdiction." And it is tempting simply to denounce the report-as the government of Israel has done and with which we concur. But there is a "kicker": The report demands that Israel investigate these alleged "war crimes," and "recommends" that "international bodies" consider prosecutions if Israel does not do so within six months.
It makes a similar recommendation about Hamas, of course. Do you think Hamas cares?
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