Fighting the Goldstone Process at the UN
Update: And don't miss Ronald Radosh's take on the Goldstone Report, as well.
A UN General Assembly vote in November gave Israel (and the Palestinians) three months to investigate “serious violations of international … law committed during the conflict in Gaza that broke out in late December 2008.” Israel has now submitted to the UN a 46-page update on its investigations of possible wrongdoings in the war.
The update refutes some of the specific charges of the Goldstone Report, which accuses Israel in particular of war crimes in Gaza, and was the impetus behind the General Assembly vote in the first place. But the document is mainly concerned with establishing that Israel is a responsible democracy whose military is capable of credibly investigating itself, and does so in ways similar to the American, British, Canadian, and Australian militaries.
There is much irony in this, considering the nature of the General Assembly’s vote. Registering 114 in favor, 18 against, and 44 abstentions, in addition to giving Israel and the Palestinians their three-month assignment, it endorsed the Goldstone Report and “requested Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to send [it] to the Security Council.”
It’s not only that Israel had already been investigating the war (as the 46-page update details) since two days after it ended, while the Palestinian side had not (and still has not) even begun to do so. It’s also that the 114 ayes were not a parade of accomplished democracies that one would count on to uphold international law or investigate violations of it themselves. Of the 114, the only two full-fledged Western democracies are Portugal and Switzerland. The 114 also include the likes of Cuba, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Zimbabwe.
As for the 18 nays — who opposed requiring Israel (and the Palestinians) to submit a report to the General Assembly, or endorsing the Goldstone Report — most are democracies such as Australia, Canada, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and the United States. Among the 44 abstainers are democracies like Belgium, Denmark, France, Japan, New Zealand, Sweden, and the UK.
In other words, the reason Israel had to submit a document to the UN maintaining that it is a democracy that does not intentionally kill civilians, takes alleged infractions seriously, and investigates them authentically is because dictatorships that make up the bulk of the General Assembly demanded that it do so.
Thus, the barbarian onslaught on Israel that might be called the “Goldstone process” continues. It began even before Judge Richard Goldstone got into the picture with eight years of shelling Israeli civilian targets by Hamas and other terror organizations from Gaza. When Israel finally moved to defend itself a year ago in what it dubbed Operation Cast Lead, it fought well and dealt Hamas a serious (albeit temporary) blow. Having lost that battle, the nondemocratic side turned to its ally, the UN, to hit back at Israel.
Specifically, it was the Organization of the Islamic Conference that asked the notoriously anti-Israeli UN Human Rights Council in Geneva to send a delegation to Gaza, and thus the Human Rights Council Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict (aka Goldstone Commission) was born. As Alan Dershowitz details in a scathing critique of the Goldstone Report, this mission’s mandate was skewed against Israel from the start. All four of its members — including the leader, Richard Goldstone, a prominent South African jurist and war-crimes investigator — had previously made or signed public statements indicting Israel’s military operation in Gaza. They were “commissioned” to condemn Israel, they were predisposed to do so, and they did.
Currently, an intense controversy is raging at the highest level of the Israeli government on whether to appoint a judicial panel to investigate the army’s investigation. Those in favor, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, say that even though the army is preparing a massive, 1000-page, point-by-point refutation of the Goldstone Report, the UN won’t settle for the army’s self-investigation and it won’t suffice to keep Israel out of international legal hot water. Fiercely opposing a judicial panel with anything but limited powers are Defense Minister Ehud Barak, the chief of staff, and others who fear treating the army as untrustworthy, putting it in the dock, and damaging its morale.
As Israel’s 46-page update points out, the military justice systems of democracies like the U.S., UK, Canada, and Australia, which are similar to Israel’s, “have been accepted worldwide as sufficient for investigating alleged violations.” The difference, however, is that Israel is a geopolitically isolated democracy that is forced to fight against parties that have the backing of a 57-country colossus like the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC). With its anti-Western compatriots such as Cuba and North Korea, and the many weak dictatorships that are under its thumb, the OIC knows it can use the UN to strike back at Israeli successes on the battlefield.
Israel’s fellow democracies have so far given it some support — quiet, tepid, but better than nothing — in resisting the Goldstone process. They could continue to do so by vetoing or voting down further UN moves against Israel, possibly even including attempts to get it indicted by the International Criminal Court at The Hague. The alternative is to allow the Goldstone process to turn Israel’s gains in the Gaza war into a loss and seriously hamper its ability to fight terror in the future.
All that can be said of the UN is that the inmates are running the asylum, all the way from the IPCC to blue-helmeted UN rapists (er, I mean troops) to the mis-named Human Rights Council and to the General Assembly itself. The UN makes the pre-war League of Nations look good by comparison.
It’s a terrible farce that Israel has to prove its democratic credentials, its army’s ability to investigate itself credibly, to a lynch party featuring Iran, North Korea, and the rest.
The Goldstone Report will be counted in history with the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, albeit with the stamp of approval provided by the UN – something the Protocols never had. It applies to Israel a standard applied to no other nations, certainly not the thuggish nations that dominate the international community. And, as the vote itself confirmed, one shouldn’t count on the “enlightened” nations of Europe to stand with Israel as a fellow democracy. For many in Europe have already aligned their long term interests with the Euro-Arab alliance, and its politicians are ever sensitive to their growing Muslim constituencies. For them, Jews – and Israel – count for little.
Even the US is weakening in its commitment. The Administration’s priority is, after all, “outreach” to the Muslim world and resetting relations with them. Obama himself in his recent Tampa town hall appearance couldn’t bring himself to disavow the calumnies displayed by a pro-Palestinian questioner about Israel and its “occupation”. Clearly such attitudes are going mainstream even here.
David, it is time that the alternative to be utilized. An Alliance of Democracies to keep the peace. One segment would be the anglosphere, namely the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and India. Another segment would be those countries who deserve better from the EU (hello Greece, Spain, Italy, Ireland)joined to those countries which were behind the iron curtain. The third segment would be the Pacific Tigers, such as Taiwan, Korea, and Singapore.
All the rest are subject to preparatory regimes, until such time as those countries can demonstrate on their own that they know what they are doing.
So, David, would you communicate that to your audience in Israel, so that they know they are not alone in taking on those who follow in the footsteps of Yassir Arafat’s uncle who was the Mufti
of Jerusalem, and who preceded that piece of filth.
It’s very lonely for Israel and it’s subject to discriminatory treatment. The only silver lining I can see in the Goldstone phenomenon is that Israelis will be even more wary of taking yet another chance with yet another territorial withdrawal, this time from the West Bank which has even more, considerably more, security importance than Gaza.
Having spent time in the middle east I have seen both sides. War is a nasty business and one should never fight to lose or stay even. Israel is our only friend in the region. Beguiled by the self hating academic elite only because Israelis are western and have similar values to us. As a people, they are educated, liberal (in the good sense), and productive.
Many say that Israel is the center of gravity for middle east conflict. I believe that they are a temporizing force that keeps Sunnis and Shiites from annihilating each other.
Just as the western world could not fathom what it would be like if suddenly the US ceased to exist, I would be horrified to think of a middle east without Israel. It would be a thousand years of darkness with ape***t Muslims running amok and unchecked.
Dick Goldstone is synonymous with vermin, whose behavior parallels that of Benedict Arnold.
The “West” is engaged in an other-worldly, leftist-myistical journey to self-destruction. Israel serves as a mini-side trip on their way. Orwellian. Mob-psychology. Whatever.
Who can Israel rely on to come to the side of sanity when all are insane?
This article didn’t generate a lot of heat because,again, we are talking about the UN and UN “actions”.
Only the dreamers, and/or the schemers(derogatory)find value in the UN.
Therefore, this is another so what, who cares- ’cause I need to have respect for an opinion in order to consider it. I think you might find that quite a few people share my attitude concerning the UN.
JUDGE GOLDSTONE, A JEWISH JURIST, DID AN EXCELLENT JOB.
Judge Goldstone is Jewish. He was appointed by a proper process. The Judaists do not like that he spoke out the truth about Israel’s war crimes.
They have a right to disagree with the Judge,but to attack him personally is shameless. I think Judaists (who think they are Jews) are extremely aggressive, vicious people who think that everybody should be subservient to them. To harass and abuse those who are critical of them (such as Finkelstein, Kevin McDonald, Goldstone) and to try to get them fired or otherwise harm them is a repugnant, shameless and uncivilized behavior on the part of the Judaists.