AlterPolitics

Steven Rosen, former director of foreign-policy issues at AIPAC — the right-winged Israel Lobby powerhouse — once told Jeffrey Goldberg:

“You see this napkin?” he said. “In twenty-four hours, we could have the signatures of seventy senators on this napkin.”

Well apparently, a ‘dirty napkin’ — of sorts — was passed around this week in the form of a new U.S. Congressional resolution condemning the Goldstone Report — the 574 page UN Human Rights Council’s investigative report on Israel’s Gaza incursion — which accuses Israel and Hamas of committing war crimes.   And the authors / signatories to the Congressional resolution are being taken to task on the factual merit of nearly each and every assertion within its contents.

You just gotta love this guy, Justice Richard Goldstone!  He has been directly involved in investigating some of the most horrific crimes against humanity over the last quarter century, and has been awarded some of the world’s most prestigious awards for his efforts.  He is not going to sit back and let a bunch of sleazy ‘lapdog’ U.S. politicians defame his work and his integrity as they pander to the Israel Lobby.

Goldstone’s response is apparently floating around Capitol Hill right now.  I got a copy (courtesy of Michael Goldfarb of the Weekly Standard) which you can view below.  By the way, I’ve inserted the relevant parts of the Congressional Resolution before each of Goldstone’s responses so that you’ll understand what exactly he was responding to:

RESOLUTION

Calling on the President and the Secretary of State to oppose unequivocally any endorsement or further consideration of the `Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict’ in multilateral fora.

GOLDSTONE:

Here are some comments on this resolution in an effort to correct factual errors:

RESOLUTION

Whereas the resolution pre-judged the outcome of its investigation, by one-sidedly mandating the `fact-finding mission’ to `investigate all violations of international human rights law and International Humanitarian Law by . . . Israel, against the Palestinian people . . .particularly in the occupied Gaza Strip, due to the current aggression’;

GOLDSTONE:

That is why I and others refused the original mandate – it only called for an investigation into violations committed by Israel. The mandate given to and accepted by me and under which we worked and reported reads as follows:

“. . .to investigate all violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law that might have been committed at any time in the context of the military operations that were conducted in Gaza during the period from 27 December 2008 and 18 January 20089, whether before, during or after”.

That mandate clearly included rocket and mortar attacks on Israel and as the report makes clear was so interpreted and implemented. It was the report with that mandate that was adopted by the Human Rights Council and that included the serious findings made against Hamas and other militant Palestinian groups.

RESOLUTION

Whereas the mandate of the `fact-finding mission’ makes no mention of the relentless rocket and mortar attacks, which numbered in the thousands and spanned a period of eight years, by Hamas and other violent militant groups in Gaza against civilian targets in Israel, that necessitated Israel’s defensive measures;

GOLDSTONE:

This is factually incorrect. Chapter XXIV of the Report considers in detail the relentless rocket attacks from Gaza on Israel and the terror it caused to the people living within their range. The finding is made that they constituted serious war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity.

RESOLUTION

Whereas the `fact-finding mission’ included a member who, beforejoining the mission, had already declared Israel guilty of committing atrocities in Operation Cast Lead by signing a public letter onJanuary 11, 2009, published in the Sunday Times, that called Israel’s actions `war crimes’;

GOLDSTONE:

The member concerned, Professor Christine Chinkin of the London School of Economics, in the same letter, together with other leading international lawyers, also condemned as war crimes the Hamas rockets fired into Israel.

RESOLUTION

Whereas the mission’s flawed and biased mandate gave serious concern to many United Nations Human Rights Council Member States which refused to support it, including Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cameroon, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, the Republic of Korea, Slovakia, Slovenia, Switzerland, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland;

GOLDSTONE:

The mandate that was given to the Mission was certainly not opposed by all or even a majority of the States to which reference is made. That is factually incorrect. I am happy to provide further details if necessary.

RESOLUTION

Whereas the mission’s flawed and biased mandate troubled many distinguished individuals who refused invitations to head the mission;

GOLDSTONE:

This too is factually incorrect. The mandate that had been rejected was the one I rejected. Mary Robinson, for example, has written in support of the mandate given to and accepted by me.

RESOLUTION

Whereas the report repeatedly made sweeping and unsubstantiated determinations that the Israeli military had deliberately attacked civilians during Operation Cast Lead;

GOLDSTONE:

The words quoted relate to the decision we made that it would have been unfair to investigate and make finding on situations where decisions had been made by Israeli soldiers “in the fog of battle”. This was a decision made in favor and not against the interests of Israel.
I do not consider that it is fair or just to label the findings as “sweeping and unsubstantiated determinations”.

RESOLUTION

Whereas in the October 16th edition of the Jewish Daily Forward, Richard Goldstone, the head of the `United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict’, is quoted as saying, with respect to the mission’s evidence-collection methods, `If this was a court of law, there would have been nothing proven.’;

GOLDSTONE:

What I had explained to The Forward was that the Report itself would not constitute evidence admissible in court of law and that investigators would have to investigate which allegations they considered relevant. That, too, was why we recommended domestic investigations into the allegations. The remark as quoted is both inaccurate and taken completely out of context.

RESOLUTION

Whereas the report, in effect, denied the State of Israel the right to self-defense, and never noted the fact that Israel had the right to defend its citizens from the repeated violent attacks committed against civilian targets in southern Israel by Hamas and other Foreig Terrorist Organizations operating from Gaza;

GOLDSTONE:

It is again factually incorrect to state that the Report denied Israel the right of self-defense. The report examined how that right was implemented by the standards of international law. What is commonly called ius ad bellum, the right to use military force was not considered to fall within our mandate. Israel’s right to use military force was not questioned.

RESOLUTION

Whereas the report largely ignored the culpability of the Government of Iran and the Government of Syria, both of whom sponsor Hamas and other Foreign Terrorist Organizations;

GOLDSTONE:

This is the first suggestion that I have come across to the effect that we should have investigated the provenance of the rockets. It was simply not on the agenda, and in any event, we would not have had the facilities or capability of investigating these allegations. If the Government of Israel has requested us to investigate that issue I have no doubt that we have done our best to do so.

RESOLUTION

Whereas the report usually considered public statements made by Israeli officials not to be credible, while frequently giving uncritical credence to statements taken from what it called the `Gaza authorities’, i.e. the Gaza leadership of Hamas;

GOLDSTONE:

This is a sweeping and unfair characterization of the Report. I hope that the Report will be read by those tasked with considering the resolution.

RESOLUTION

Whereas in one notable instance, the report stated that it did not consider the admission of a Hamas official that Hamas often `created a human shield of women, children, the elderly and the mujahideen, against [the Israeli military]‘ specifically to `constitute evidence that Hamas forced Palestinian civilians to shield military objectives against attack.’;

GOLDSTONE:

Again, this is an unfair and selective quotation taken our of context.

RESOLUTION

Whereas Hamas was able to significantly shape the findings of the investigation mission’s report by selecting and prescreening some of the witnesses and intimidating others, as the report acknowledges when it notes that `those interviewed in Gaza appeared reluctant to speak about the presence of or conduct of hostilities by the Palestinian armed groups . . . from a fear of reprisals’;

GOLDSTONE:

That Hamas was able to shape the findings or that it pre-screened the witnesses is devoid of truth and I challenge anyone to produce evidence in support of it.

Finally, I note that there is not a word to record that notwithstanding repeated pleas to the Government of Israel, it refused all cooperation with the Mission. Amongst others, I requested the views of Israel with regard to the implementation of the mandate and details of any issues that the Government of Israel might wish us to investigate.

____________________________________________________________

He responded to just about every single point raised by the Congressional Resolution — effectively demonstrating how each was factually incorrect.  If this weren’t about crimes against humanity, I’d probably find this ‘dirty napkin’ episode hilarious.