Let’s face it, as Weasel Zippers says, Israel and the Jews are always guilty until proven innocent, and even then that is not good enough for most of her detractors. The Goldstone Report was an”Alice in Wonderland” type of fiasco with its “sentence first, trial later” attitude towards Israel. To all those Western nations whose default position is to “blame Israel first”, I say today it is Israel, tomorrow it will be you. Thanks a lot Judge Goldstone – now do the honorable thing and go off your self. As Scott Johnson from Powerline blog writes “The South African jurist Richard Goldstone is a fool and a knave. He lent his name to a lengthy report issued under the auspices of the United Nations Human Rights Council. The report accused Israel of massive war crimes in the war Israel waged against Hamas in 2008-2009, commenced by Israel after Hamas and friends had fired more than 12,000 rockets at Israel (every one of which was criminal).
by Tovah Lazaroff and Yaakov Katz
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu called on the United Nations Saturday night to disavow the Goldstone Report alleging war crimes by the IDF in Gaza two years ago after its author said he had erroneously accused Israel of intentionally targeting civilians.
“The fact that [South African jurist Richard] Goldstone backtracked must lead to the shelving of this report once and for all,” Netanyahu said in a statement to the press.
Israel had refused to cooperate with Goldstone’s fact-finding mission into its military operation in Gaza in December 2008 and January 2009, known as Operation Cast Lead, and rejected the September 2009 report, which accused Israel and Hamas of war crimes and possible crimes against humanity and suggested that the matter be referred to the International Court of Justice if Israel did not hold follow-up investigations into the matter.
Israel charged that the report, which focused largely on its actions in Gaza, was biased and flawed. But it has held investigations into Operation Cast Lead.
“Everything we said has proven true,” Netanyahu said on Saturday night.
“Israel did not intentionally harm civilians. Its institutions and investigative bodies are worthy, while Hamas intentionally fired upon innocent civilians and did not examine anything,” he said.
The absurdity here, Netanyahu added, was that the UN Human Rights Council, the body that called for the report, had Libya as a member.
“It’s time to throw this report into the dustbin of history,” he said.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who held that post during Operation Cast Lead, said that Goldstone should send his new conclusions to the same international forums “in which he published his twisted and nonfactual report.”
“Only that way can there be a partial correction of the damage that was caused,” he explained.
Both Netanyahu and Barak spoke after Goldstone published an opinion piece in Friday’s The Washington Post in which he said: “If I had known then what I know now, the Goldstone Report would have been a different document.”
Goldstone said the fact-finding mission’s allegations that Israel took actions which intentionally led to the death and injury of civilians, were based on the information available to him at the time.
Investigations conducted by the Israeli military into those incidents, which have been recognized by the UN, “indicate that civilians were not intentionally targeted as a matter of policy.” Goldstone noted in particular the work of the UN Human Rights Council’s panel, which monitors compliance with the report and delivered its own assessment of the matter to the council in its March session.
[…]
Benayahu said that the IDF made some mistakes during the operation and has investigated all of them.
He warned, however, that Hamas and Hezbollah were already establishing their military infrastructure inside population centers and that the world needed to be prepared for the consequences in the event of a future war with Israel.
“We knew how to locate the mistakes even before we heard the name Richard Goldstone.
We did this for Israel and the Jewish people, and not for the world,” he said.
Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said on Channel 2’s Meet the Press that he was not surprised by Goldstone’s statements.
“We had no doubt that the truth would come out eventually,” said Lieberman.
Goldstone actually came to the same conclusions that the two follow-up committees to the Goldstone committee came to, he said, namely that Israel’s court system acted objectively and professionally in investigating allegations of war crimes.
In addition, both Goldstone and the follow-up committees agreed that Hamas had done nothing to address allegations of war crimes or human rights violations that the Goldstone report accused them of during Operation Cast Lead.
[…]
Read the rest: Netanyahu: Throw Goldstone Report on the dust bin of history
Tags: Goldstone Report, Richard Goldstone, Tovah Lazaroff, Yaakov Katz
