Method and Madness: The Hidden Story of Israel's Assaults on Gaza (16 page)

 
65.
  United Nations General Assembly, “Follow-up to the Report of the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict” (A/64/L. 11) (2 November 2009). Shlomo Shamir, “UN General Assembly Adopts Goldstone Report,”
Haaretz
(6 November 2009).

 
66.
  Shlomo Shamir, “Israel: UN ‘detached from reality’ for adopting Goldstone report,”
Haaretz
(6 November 2009).

 
67.
  United Nations General Assembly,
Follow-up to the Report of the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict: Report of the Secretary-General
(A/64/651; 4 February 2010).

 
68.
  United Nations General Assembly, “Follow-up to the Report of the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict (II)” (A/64/L.48; 23 February 2010). The low vote count was probably due to a snowstorm that day.

 
69.
  “European Parliament Resolution of 10 March 2010 on Implementation of the Goldstone Recommendations on Israel/Palestine” (P7_TA-PROV(2010)0054); Leigh Phillips, “Despite Heavy Lobbying, EU Parliament Endorses Goldstone Report,”
euobserver.com
(10 March 2010;
http://euobserver.com/9/29650
); “EU Parliament Backs Goldstone Report,”
Jerusalem Post
(10 March 2010).

 
70.
  State of Israel,
Gaza Operation Investigations: An update
(January 2010); State of Israel,
Gaza Operation Investigations: Second update
(July 2010). For critical analysis of Israel’s original July 2009 report,
The Operation in Gaza, 27 December 2008–18 January 2009: Factual and legal aspects
, see Norman G. Finkelstein,
“This Time We Went Too Far”: Truth and consequences of the Gaza invasion
, revised and expanded paperback edition (New York: 2011), Chapters 3 and 4.

 
71.
  
Gaza Operation Investigations: An update
, paras. 100, 108, 137;
Gaza Operation Investigations: Second update
, paras. 10, 11, 37, 46, 60, 73, 74, 94, 102.

 
72.
  Amos Harel, “MESS Report: Gaza war probes are changing Israel’s defiant ways,”
Haaretz
(22 July 2010).

 
73.
  
Gaza Operation Investigations: Second update
, para. 105.

 
74.
  Ibid., paras. 150–56.

 
75.
  After the initial update,
Haaretz
editorialized that the Israeli investigations were “not persuasive that enough has been done to reach the truth,” but in a subsequent editorial
Haaretz
validated the second round of investigations and implied that it was time to close the book on the Goldstone Report. “Israel Is Being Evasive Again,”
Haaretz
(1 February 2010); “Thanks to the Critics,”
Haaretz
(27 July 2010). Both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch wholly dismissed the first round of investigations, while HRW stated after the second update that, although “some results” had been achieved, the Israeli investigations still “fall far short of addressing the widespread and serious allegations of unlawful conduct during the fighting.” Amnesty International, “Latest Israeli Response to Gaza Investigations Totally Inadequate” (2 February 2010); Human Rights Watch, “Military Investigations Fail Gaza War Victims” (7 February 2010); Human Rights Watch, “Wartime Inquiries Fall Short” (10 August 2010).

 
76.
  UN News Service, “UN Rights Chief Unveils Members of Independent Probe into Gaza Conflict” (14 June 2010).

 
77.
  
Report of the Committee of Independent Experts in International Humanitarian and Human Rights Laws to Monitor and Assess Any Domestic, Legal or Other Proceedings Undertaken by Both the Government of Israel and the Palestinian Side, in the Light of General Assembly Resolution 64/254, Including the Independence, Effectiveness, Genuineness of These Investigations and Their Conformity with International Standards
(21 September 2010). The Israel lobby defamed the eminent German jurist who chaired the committee, eventually forcing his resignation. Benjamin Weinthal and Jonny Paul, “Dershowitz: Goldstone follow-up commission head a ‘bigot,’”
Jerusalem Post
(2 November 2010); Benjamin Weinthal, “Tomuschat, Head of Goldstone Follow-up Committee, Resigns,”
Jerusalem Post
(3 December 2010).

 
78.
  
Report of the Committee
, paras. 42, 55.

 
79.
  Ibid., para. 101.

 
80.
  Ibid., paras. 40, 83. The committee reported that Israel convicted one soldier for the crime of looting, while a Hamas submission gave “examples of criminal proceedings . . . , including a case where a number of defendants were convicted and imprisoned.”

 
81.
  Amnesty International, “Time for International Justice Solution for Gaza Conflict Victims” (23 September 2010).

 
82.
  Hoffman and Gur, “Oron Calls”; Eitan Haber, “In Wake of Goldstone Report, Israel Must Launch Battle for Its Image,”
ynetnews.com
(17 September 2009;
http://tinyurl.com/y85me4a
).

 
83.
  Richard Falk, “The Goldstone Report: Ordinary text, extraordinary event,”
Global Governance
16 (2010), p. 173. A member of the Goldstone Mission noted “some 300” human rights investigations into Cast Lead, which were “remarkable in the unanimity of their findings against the IDF actions” (Desmond Travers, “Operation Cast Lead: Legal and doctrinal asymmetries in a military operation,”
An Cosantóir
, Irish Defense Forces Review (2010), p. 103). Some critics alleged that the Goldstone Report was more “vicious” than the human rights reports that preceded it (see Ethan Bronner, “Israel Poised to Challenge a UN Report on Gaza,”
New York Times
, 23 January 2010), but the contention lacked credibility. In fact, the Goldstone Report was in crucial respects the most cautious and conservative of the human rights reports on Gaza: whereas HRW explicitly denoted Israel’s use of white phosphorus in civilian areas a “war crime” (see Finkelstein,
“This Time,”
pp. 81–82), the Goldstone Report did not; whereas the Dugard Report concluded that “individual soldiers” might have been guilty of genocide, the Goldstone Report did not; and whereas Amnesty recommended a comprehensive arms embargo on Israel (and Hamas) (see Finkelstein,
“This Time,”
pp. 98–99), the Goldstone Report did not.

 
84.
  Moyers,
Journal
; “Will Goldstone’s Gaza Report Prove Him Just a Naive Idealist?,”
Haaretz
(23 September 2009); “‘My Father is a Zionist, Loves Israel,’”
Jerusalem Post
(16 September 2009); “Goldstone’s Daughter: My father’s participation softened UN Gaza report,”
Haaretz
(16 September 2009); “Tikkun Interview with Judge Richard Goldstone” (1 October 2009;
http://tinyurl.com/yhg3cfk
).

 
85.
  Anshel Pfeffer, “Goldstone: Holocaust shaped view on war crimes,”
Haaretz
(18 September 2009).

 
86.
  Amir Mizroch, “Analysis: Grappling with Goldstone,”
Jerusalem Post
(18 September 2009); Amir Mizroch, “What South African Jews Think of Richard Goldstone,”
Jerusalem Post
(1 October 2009); R. W. Johnson, “Who is Richard Goldstone?,”
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
(20 October 2009;
http://tinyurl.com/yha38ed
); Ashley Rindsberg, “UN’s Goldstone Sent 13-Year-Old Boy to Prison for Protesting Apartheid,”
Huffington Post
(19 November 2009;
http://tinyurl.com/yefdang
); Dershowitz, “Goldstone Investigation.” It must nonetheless be said that, in interviews and statements after the report was published, Goldstone seemingly backpedaled from its more damning conclusions and downplayed the extent of Israeli crimes; see, e.g., Richard Goldstone, “Justice in Gaza,”
New York Times
(17 September 2009), Richard Goldstone, “Who’s Being Unfair?,”
Jerusalem Post
(21 September 2009), Gal Beckerman, “Goldstone: ‘If this was a court of law, there would have been nothing proven,’”
Forward
(16 October 2009), “Tikkun Interview with Judge Richard Goldstone.”

 
87.
  Harold Evans, “A Moral Atrocity,”
Guardian
(20 October 2009).

 
88.
  Moyers,
Journal
.

 
89.
  Aluf Benn, “In Wake of UN Gaza Probe, How Can Israel Go to War Again?,”
Haaretz
(16 September 2009); Ari Shavit, “Watch Out for the Goldstoners,”
Haaretz
(8 October 2009). See also Gideon Levy, “Peres, Not Goldstone, Is the Small Man,”
Haaretz
(15 November 2009), and The Reut Institute,
Building a Political Firewall against Israel’s Delegitimization
(Tel Aviv: March 2010), paras. 40, 106.

 
90.
  “PM: Israel faces the ‘Goldstone threat,’”
Jerusalem Post
(23 December 2009).

 
91.
  Barak Ravid and Anshel Pfeffer, “Israel Seeks Obama Backing on Gaza Probe,”
Haaretz
(26 September 2009).

 
92.
  Yotam Feldman, “ICC May Try IDF Officer in Wake of Goldstone Gaza Report,”
Haaretz
(24 September 2009); Raphael Ahren, “Israeli Soldiers from South Africa Feel Heat of Prosecution Drive in Old Country,”
Haaretz
(22 November 2009).

 
93.
  Livni reportedly cancels UK visit, fearing arrest,”
Haaretz
(16 December 2009); Danna Harman, “Belgian Lawyers to Charge Barak and Livni for War Crimes,”
Haaretz
(23 June 2010).

 
94.
  Assaf Gefen, “Are We Hiding Something?,”
ynetnews.com
(8 February 2010; http://tinyurl.com/34zuvux).

  
1.
   Richard Goldstone, “Reconsidering the Goldstone Report on Israel and War Crimes,”
Washington Post
(1 April 2011).

  
2.
   
Report of the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict
(25 September 2009). See
Chapter 2
above.

  
3.
   Barak Ravid, “Netanyahu to UN: Retract Gaza war report in wake of Goldstone’s comments,”
Haaretz
(2 April 2011); “Lieberman Praises Goldstone for ‘Vindicating’ Israel,”
Jerusalem Post
(2 April 2011).

  
4.
   US Agrees: Israel did not commit Cast Lead war crimes,”
Jerusalem Post
(5 April 2011); Natasha Mozgovaya, “US Senate Urges UN to Rescind Goldstone’s Gaza Report,”
Haaretz
(15 April 2011).

  
5.
   Donald Macintyre, “Israeli Commander: ‘We rewrote the rules of war for Gaza,’”
Independent
(3 February 2010); Anshel Pfeffer, “IDF Officer: Gaza civilians risked to protect Israel troops during war,”
Haaretz
(3 February 2010).

  
6.
   Human Rights Watch,
“I Lost Everything”: Israel’s unlawful destruction of property during Operation Cast Lead
(New York: 2010).

  
7.
   Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center,
Hamas and the Terrorist Threat from the Gaza Strip: The main findings of the Goldstone Report versus the factual findings
(March 2010), pp. 3, 35; 95, 97; VIII, 57; 120; 315, 321–22.

  
8.
   Kim Sengupta and Donald Macintyre, “Israeli Cabinet Divided over Fresh Gaza Surge,”
Independent
(13 January 2009); Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI),
No Second Thoughts: The changes in the Israeli Defense Forces’ combat doctrine in light of “Operation Cast Lead”
(Jerusalem: November 2009), p. 28.

  
9.
   International Crisis Group,
Ending the War in Gaza
(5 January 2009), p. 19; International Crisis Group,
Gaza’s Unfinished Business
(April 2009), p. 19.

 
10.
  Guy Bechor, “Israel Is Back,”
ynetnews.com
(19 February 2010).

 
11.
  International Court of Justice,
Advisory Opinion on the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons
(1996), “Dissenting Opinion of Judge Weeramantry,” Chapter III, “Humanitarian Law,” section 10, “Specific rules of the humanitarian laws,” (a) “The prohibition against causing unnecessary suffering” (emphasis in original).

 
12.
  Yoram Dinstein,
Conduct of Hostilities under the Law of International Armed Conflict
(Cambridge: 2004), p. 117.

 
13.
  “Judge Goldstone’s Notes for the Panel on Civilians in War Zones,” paras. 29–35 (
maurice-ostroff.tripod.com/id315.html
).

 
14.
  Amnesty International,
Amnesty International’s Updated Assessment of Israeli and Palestinian Investigations into the Gaza Conflict
(18 March 2011).