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| Independent Inquiry Is Unavoidable |
| If unanswered, report will convict Israel of Gazan 'war crimes' |
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Yehonathan Tommer (tommery06)  |
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Published 2009-11-10 22:28 (KST) |
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The Goldstone report, alleging Israel committed war crimes during the IDF's military offensive "Cast Lead" in the Gaza Strip last January, unleashed, as expected, a storm of international hate and criticism that an appalled Israel is finding hard to douse.
The report has now moved from the Human Rights Council in Geneva to the United Nations General Assembly where it was adopted and is most probably headed for the United Nations Security Council.
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FROM THE SECTION |
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| Israel has argued that the report is a biased and distorted indictment of its justified right to self defense; that it exonerates Hamas from all responsibility for its provocations and persistent terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians; and that it whitewashes the organization of its war crimes against Israeli citizens and its own population during the offensive.
Israel's accusations are justified. Yet neither its angry dismissal of the report as "born in sin" nor any amount of self righteous protest against its 'findings' by a panel of countries guilty of atrocities and abysmal human rights violations has swayed international opinion in its favor.
The IDF's own continuing criminal investigations of alleged misdemeanors by Israeli soldiers against Gazan civilians and property during and after the military offensive has been seized upon as confirming such suspicions.
Criminal investigations, leading to convictions, don't point to suspected war crimes having been committed.
Lost opportunity
In Israel the government was taken to task for refusing to cooperate with the Human Rights Council as Justice Richard Goldstone urged. It thus forfeited an opportunity to present and document its version of the events and army action during the IDF offensive and withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.
Israel's input is unlikely to have drastically toned down the Report's conclusions, as the government said at the time, because of the panel's virulent anti-Israel position. But it would have underscored the underlying complexity of the Israel-Palestinian conflict which is a far cry from the simplistic black and white streaks in which Israel and Hamas are respectively painted in many parts of the world.
The Goldstone Report was the subject of a symposium last week against growing voices in Israel calling for an independent inquiry to investigate the Gazan offensive and the allegations raised in the Report.
Professors Moshe Halbertal and Avi Sagi, two of the authors who drafted the IDF's military code of ethics in 1992 recently added their voices to the demand, Haaretz reported. They each wrote in separate articles that while they strongly disagreed with the conclusions of the Goldstone Report, an independent Israeli probe was inescapable.
Pertinent questions
Haaretz military correspondent, Amos Harel, said at the symposium that Israel had thrown tremendous force into the Gaza offensive but had demonstrated restraint but had woefully mishandled the legal fallout. Military investigations in Israel are excessively long in reaching their conclusions, he said, and the whole apparatus needed overhauling.
Surveying the military and political situation leading up to the Gazan invasion, which he said had been necessary, Harel noted that the government's objectives had changed along the way. No-one has given satisfactory answers as to why the government took eight years to end the intolerable and continuous terrorist rocket and artillery fire into its towns bordering the Gaza Strip and why political and diplomatic options had not been explored before deciding on a military offensive.
Daniel Taub, deputy legal adviser in the Israel Foreign Ministry said at the symposium that military operations have become increasingly difficult as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has grown more complex and the boundary has blurred between civilians and combatants.
The fundamental rules of warfare dating from the 18th century, he said, have not been adjusted to modern warfare where non-government organizations and armed groups have subverted legally constituted governments in their control over territory.
The Goldstone Report, said Taub, reflects an increasing politicization of the international legal arena and its institutions which muster an automatic majority opposed to Israel. The Jewish state, he said, has found itself unprepared to meet this situation.
Political Science Professor Ze'ev Sternhell said the harsh Report comes as "no surprise." It should be seen in the context of Israel's forty-year old occupation of the territories and Palestinian people and as "part of a continuing process of delegitimizing Israeli control."
Criticized for ignoring Hamas's reprehensible behavior, Sternhell replied that if Israel wants to remain true to its moral principles, the government has to authorize an independent probe and discredit the allegations raised against its soldiers and officers.
He also rhetorically questioned whether the Gazan offensive had been a 'war of necessity' and whether the price of insecurity paid by Israeli civilians in Sderot and other bordering communities had been necessary.
The Goldstone Report has deepened existing divisions between the Palestinian Authority and Arab states supporting a peaceful diplomatic settlement of the conflict with Israel. Efforts by militant elements in the Arab and Muslim world to punish Israel in the Security Council further distance the region from peace at a time when diplomatic negotiations with the Palestinians are at an impasse because of their internal divisions and American efforts to persuade Israel to accept a settlements freeze.
Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister Barak are adamantly opposed to an independent inquiry.
Ultimately, the government will have to find an elegant way to comply with the Goldstone recommendations to avoid becoming a pariah state.
An independent inquiry will also help to block the report from debate in the United Nations Security Council where America's veto is not automatic. It could also reduce threatened legal action in individual countries and litigation in the International Court of Justice against detained IDF officers indicted for war crimes.
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©2009 OhmyNews
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