Method and Madness: The Hidden Story of Israel's Assaults on Gaza (7 page)

Goldstone plainly did not publish his recantation because “we know a lot more today.” What he calls new information consists
entirely
of unverifiable assertions by parties with vested interests. The fact that he cannot cite any genuinely new evidence to justify his recantation is the most telling proof that none exists. What, then, happened? Ever since publication of his Report, Goldstone has been the object of a relentless smear campaign. Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz compared him to Auschwitz “Angel of Death” Josef Mengele, while the Israeli ambassador to the United States excoriated the Goldstone Report as even worse than “Ahmadinejad and the Holocaust deniers.”
³⁵
Goldstone was not the only one who came under attack. The UN Human Rights Council appointed the eminent international jurist Christian Tomuschat to chair a follow-up committee mandated to determine whether Israeli and Hamas officials were investigating the Goldstone Report’s allegations
. Deciding that Tomuschat was insufficiently pliant, the Israel lobby hounded and defamed him until he had no choice but to step down.
³⁶

Many aspects of Goldstone’s recantation are perplexing.

Goldstone is reputed to be very ambitious.
³⁷
Although he was savaged after publication of his Report, the tide began to turn in his favor this past year. In Israel, the newspaper
Haaretz
editorialized that it was “time to thank the critics for forcing the IDF to examine itself and amend its procedures. Even if not all of Richard Goldstone’s 32 charges were solid and valid, some of them certainly were.”
³⁸
In the US,
Tikkun
magazine honored Goldstone at a gala 25th anniversary celebration. In South Africa, distinguished personalities, such as Judge Dennis Davis, formerly of the Jewish Board of Deputies, publicly denounced a visit by Alan Dershowitz because, among other things, he had “grossly misrepresented the judicial record of Judge Richard Goldstone.”
³⁹
It is puzzling why an ambitious jurist at the peak of a long and distinguished career would commit what might be professional suicide, alienating his colleagues in the human rights community and throwing doubt on his judicial temperament, just as his star was again on the rise.

Throughout his professional career, Goldstone has functioned in bureaucracies and has no doubt internalized their norms. Yet, in a shocking rupture with bureaucratic protocol, he dropped his bombshell without first notifying his three colleagues on the original delegation or anyone at the United Nations. Did Goldstone fear confronting them beforehand because he knew that he didn’t have grounds to issue a recantation and could not possibly defend it? If so, his worries proved well founded. Shortly after publication of his recantation, all three of Goldstone’s colleagues—Christine Chinkin, Hina Jilani and Desmond Travers—issued a joint statement unequivocally affirming the Report’s original findings: “We concur in our view that there is no justification for any demand or expectation for reconsideration of the report as nothing of substance has appeared that would in any way change the context, findings or conclusions of that report.”
⁴⁰

In his
Washington Post
op-ed, Goldstone alleges that it was new information on the killings of the al-Samouni family and the revised Hamas figure of combatants killed that induced him to recant. But just two months earlier at Stanford University he matter-of-factly addressed these very same points without drawing any dramatic conclusions. No new evidence surfaced in the interim. In his recantation, Goldstone also references a UN document in order to issue Israel a clean bill of health on its investigations. But this document was much more critical of Israeli investigations than he lets on.
⁴¹
It is as if Goldstone were desperately clutching at any shred of evidence, however problematic, to justify his recantation. Indeed, he rushed to acquit Israel of criminal culpability in the al-Samouni deaths even before the Israeli military had completed its investigation.

A few days before submitting his op-ed to the
Washington Post
, Goldstone submitted another version of it to the
New York Times
.
⁴²
The
Times
rejected the submission apparently because it did
not
repudiate the Goldstone Report. The impression one gets is of Goldstone being pressured against his will to publish a repudiation of his Report. To protect his reputation and because his heart is not in it, Goldstone submits a wishy-washy recantation to the
Times
. After the
Times
rejects it, and in a race against the clock, he hurriedly slips in wording that can be construed as a full-blown repudiation, thus ensuring that the
Post
will run what is now a bombshell. The exertion of outside pressure on Goldstone would perhaps also explain the murkiness of his op-ed, in which he seems to be simultaneously recanting and not recanting the Report, and his embarrassing inclusion of irrelevances, such as a call on the Human Rights Council to condemn the slaughter of an Israeli settler family—two years after Cast Lead in an incident unrelated to the Gaza Strip—by unknown perpetrators.

The eminent South African jurist John Dugard is a colleague of Goldstone’s. Dugard also headed a fact-finding mission that investigated Cast Lead. The conclusions of his report—which contained a finer legal analysis while Goldstone’s was broader in scope—largely overlapped with those of the Goldstone Mission: “the purpose of Israel’s action was to punish the people of Gaza,” it said, adding that Israel was “responsible for the commission of internationally wrongful acts by reason of the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
⁴³
In a devastating dissection of Goldstone’s recantation in the
New Statesman
, Dugard concluded: “There are no new facts that exonerate Israel and that could possibly have led Goldstone to change his mind. What made him change his mind therefore remains a closely guarded secret.”
⁴⁴
Although Goldstone’s secret will perhaps never be revealed and his recantation has caused irreparable damage, it is still possible by patient reconstruction of the factual record to know the truth about what happened in Gaza. Out of respect for the memory of those who perished during Operation Cast Lead, we must preserve and protect this truth from its assassins.

THE MASSIVE DESTRUCTION
Israel inflicted during Operation Cast Lead was designed in part to exacerbate the effects of its illegal and inhuman blockade. “I fully expected to see serious damage, but I have to say I was really shocked when I saw the extent and precision of the destruction,” the World Food Program director for the Gaza Strip observed after the assault. “It was precisely the strategic economic areas that Gaza depends on to relieve its dependency on aid that were wiped out.”
¹
Israel targeted critical civilian infrastructure, such as the only operative flour mill and nearly all of the cement factories, so that Gaza would be ever more dependent on Israeli whim for staples and would not be able to rebuild after a cease-fire went into effect.
²

A year and a half after Cast Lead, major humanitarian and human rights organizations uniformly attested that the people of Gaza continued to suffer a humanitarian crisis on account of the Israeli siege: “Contrary to what the Israeli government states, the humanitarian aid allowed into Gaza is only a fraction of what is needed to answer the enormous needs of an exhausted people” (Oxfam); “The blockade . . . has severely damaged the economy, leaving 70 to 80 percent of Gazans in poverty” (Human Rights Watch); “Israel is blocking vital medical supplies from entering the Gaza Strip” (World Health Organization); “The closure is having a devastating impact on the 1.5 million people living in Gaza” (International Committee of the Red Cross).
³

On 31 May 2010, a humanitarian flotilla en route to Gaza carrying some 10,000 tons of supplies and 700 passengers came under attack in international waters by Israeli commandos. By the end of the night-time Israeli assault, nine passengers aboard the flagship
Mavi Marmara
had been shot dead. Eight were Turkish citizens, one was a dual US-Turkish citizen. The details of the massacre are in an important respect beside the point. The consensus among human rights and humanitarian organizations was and remains that the Israeli blockade of Gaza constitutes a form of collective punishment in flagrant violation of international law. Israel accordingly had no right to use force to enforce an illegal blockade.
⁴
Israel’s concomitant claim that its attack on the
Mavi Marmara
was an act of self-defense also does not pass legal muster. A tenet of law establishes that no legal benefit or right can be derived from an illegal act (
ex injuria non oritur jus
). Consequently, Israel cannot claim a right of self-defense that arises because of its illegal blockade. On the other hand, the passengers aboard a convoy in international waters carrying humanitarian relief to a beleaguered population had every right to use force in self-defense against what was, in effect, a pirate raid.
⁵

Still, it bears notice that Israel’s explanation for the deaths has been refuted by authoritative accounts of what transpired. The official Israeli account would have it that peaceful commandos armed only with “paintball rifles” were “ambushed” and “lynched” by a phalanx of “radical anti-Western,” “machete-wielding,” “bloodthirsty” “
jihadists
,” and that the Israelis used armed force only “as a last resort” in “self-defense.”
⁶
In fact, Israeli combatants in inflatable boats abutting the
Mavi Marmara
opened fire with tear gas, smoke and stun grenades, and perhaps plastic bullets, and helicopters hovering above then opened fire with live ammunition before any commando had rappelled on deck;
⁷
the passengers—none of whom were linked with a terrorist organization at the time of the attack
⁸
—did not even prepare for injuries
⁹
and neither possessed firearms nor discharged ones they seized;
¹⁰
captured Israeli commandos were given medical care and then escorted for release;
¹¹
and, far from firing with restraint and only in self-defense, the Israeli commandos killed the nine passengers by shooting all but one of them multiple times—five were shot in the head, and at least six were killed in a manner consistent with an extra-legal, arbitrary and summary execution.
¹²

Even if, for argument’s sake, one credits Israel’s right to block passage of a humanitarian flotilla, its account still makes little sense. The question remains, “why, on a supposedly peaceful interception, its commandos chose to board the ship by rappelling from a military helicopter, in the dark, in international waters,” in a fashion practically designed to induce panic.
¹³
Israel could have chosen—as Israeli officials readily acknowledged—from an array of relatively benign options, such as disabling the propeller, rudder or engine of the vessel and towing it to the Israeli port at Ashdod, or physically blocking the vessel’s passage.
¹⁴
Furthermore, a quasi-official Israeli report issued after the commando raid repeatedly emphasized that “throughout the planning process” Israeli authorities at all levels anticipated that “the participants in the flotilla were all peaceful civilians” and “seem not to have believed that the use of force would be necessary.” They had “expected” the commandos to meet “at most, verbal resistance, pushing or punching,” “relatively minor civil disobedience,” “some pushing and limited physical contact.” The Israeli report quoted the commandos themselves testifying that “we were expected to encounter activists who would try to hurt us emotionally by creating provocations on the level of curses, spitting . . . but we did not expect a difficult physical confrontation”; “we were expected to encounter peace activists and therefore the prospect that we would have to use weapons or other means was . . . nearly zero probability.”
¹⁵
But if it didn’t expect forceful resistance, why didn’t Israel launch the operation in broad daylight, indeed, bringing in tow a complement of journalists who could vouch for its nonviolent intentions? An operation launched in the blackness of night would appear to make sense only if Israel wanted to sow confusion as a prelude to a violent assault, and in order to obscure from potential witnesses its methods of attack. But to what end? In fact, multiple factors converged to make a violent commando raid Israel’s preferred modus operandi.

In recent years, Israel has conducted a succession of bungled security operations. In 2006, it suffered a major military setback in Lebanon. It tried restoring its deterrence capacity—i.e., the Arab-Muslim world’s fear of it—during Cast Lead. However, the assault evoked not awe at Israel’s martial prowess but disgust at its lethal cowardice. Then, in early 2010, Israel dispatched a commando team to assassinate a Hamas leader in Dubai but, although the mission was accomplished, the unit ended up seeding a diplomatic storm on account of its amateurish execution. Israel was now desperate to restore its derring-do image of bygone years. What better way than an Entebbe-like commando raid?
¹⁶

Among the vessels comprising the humanitarian flotilla, the resort to violent force was most egregious in the assault on the
Mavi Marmara
. Some two-thirds of the 600 passengers on this vessel were Turkish citizens, while the core contingent was alleged to be “a front for a radical Islamist organization, probably with links to the ruling party in Turkey,” making the
Mavi Marmara
a yet more tempting target.
¹⁷
Recall that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has become increasingly outspoken in his criticism of Israel and in his determination to carve out an independent foreign policy. The flotilla represented, for Israel, a unique opportunity to cut the Turkish upstart down to size; a sleek (if bloody) commando raid would remind Ankara who was in charge.

The use of violent force was also Israel’s response of last resort to stem the increasing number of vessels destined for Gaza. It initially allowed shipborne humanitarian supplies to pass through, no doubt hoping that the spirits of the organizers would eventually peter out as public interest flagged. When this didn’t happen, the Israeli navy rammed and intercepted vessels en route to Gaza.
¹⁸
But the ships kept coming. Is it so surprising that Israel would then turn to violent force? After Israel prevented a humanitarian ship from reaching Gaza in early 2009, a British-led delegation “worried” out loud to US embassy officials in Beirut “that the Israeli government would not be as ‘lenient’ in the future should similar incidents occur.”
¹⁹
If the assault on the flotilla couldn’t have shocked those in the loop, it also didn’t shock seasoned observers of the Israeli scene. The “violent interception of civilian vessels carrying humanitarian aid,” Israeli novelist Amos Oz reflected, was the “rank product” of the Israeli “mantra that what can’t be done by force can be done with even greater force.”
²⁰

As it happened, Israel’s assault on the
Mavi Marmara
turned into yet another botched operation. The once vaunted Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has become, as political scientist John J. Mearsheimer put it, “the gang that cannot shoot straight.”
²¹
It is hard to exaggerate the cost—at any rate, in Israeli eyes—of this latest mis-adventure. Although Israeli
hasbara
desperately sought to spin the raid as an “operational success”
²²
and the commandos as untarnished heroes, few were taken in. Israeli pundits deplored the “disgraceful fiasco” and “national humiliation,” in which “deterrence took a bad blow.”
²³
“The magic evaporated long ago, the most moral army in the world, that was once the best army in the world, failed again,” Gideon Levy half mocked. “More and more there is the impression that nearly everything it touches causes harm to Israel.”
²⁴

The Naval Commandos comprise Israel’s “best fighting unit”;
²⁵
they had rehearsed the attack for weeks, even constructing a model of the
Mavi Marmara
.
²⁶
Nonetheless, when 30 of these commandos faced off against an equal number of civilian passengers possessing only makeshift weapons, three of them not only allowed themselves to be captured, but photographs of them being
nursed
went viral on the Web. Israeli soldiers—and commandos above all—are not supposed to be taken alive, especially after the capture in 2006 of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit turned into a national trauma.
²⁷
One widely quoted
Mavi Marmara
passenger who disarmed the commandos recalled afterwards, “They looked like frightened children in the face of an abusive father.”
²⁸

A cohort of “frightened children” is not the image Israel wants to project to foe or friend of its fighting force. “The claim made by the IDF spokesman that the soldiers’ lives were in danger and they feared a lynching,” a
Haaretz
military analyst understatedly opined, “is hardly complimentary to the men of the elite naval units.”
²⁹
The image also cannot give much comfort to Israel’s own population. Will it, after so many military misadventures, grow jittery of the IDF’s ability to subdue a seemingly endless list of ever more potent enemies? “It’s one thing for people to think you’re crazy,” an Israeli general rued, “but it’s bad when they think you’re incompetent and crazy, and that’s the way we look.”
³⁰
The results of a 2010 poll in the Arab world showing that only 12 percent of the Arab public believed Israel was “very powerful” while fully 44 percent believed it was “weaker than it looks” validated, and probably exacerbated, the anxieties of Israelis.
³¹
Each disastrous mission ups the stakes. At some point, Israel must launch a yet more spectacular (and lethal) operation to compensate for its long string of military failures. The only question is, not
if
, but
when
and
where
.
³²

Despite the irretrievable loss of human life—indeed,
because
of it—the historic achievement of the Freedom Flotilla should not be lost from sight. A nonviolent, international grassroots initiative proved able to force the hands of the world’s mightiest states. In an abrupt volte-face on the morning after the flotilla bloodbath, Western leaders, such as US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and British Foreign Secretary William Hague, discovered individually, and the United Nations Security Council discovered collectively, that Israel’s siege of Gaza was “unsustainable” and had to be lifted.
³³
In fact, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu himself had to concede the existence of the Israeli siege and the necessity of terminating it.
³⁴
The prison gates of Gaza have so far been pried open only a few inches at most,
³⁵
but those inches manifest the latent power of a mass nonviolent movement built on the simple truth that the siege is inhuman and unjust.