The Goldstone Report – A Study in Bias
September 17, 2009 by Amitabh Tripathi
Israel
is appalled and disappointed by the report published on 15 September
2009 by the United Nations Human Rights Council’s Gaza Fact Finding
Mission. The Report unfairly describes Israel’s defense of its citizens
as war crimes, while ignoring the deliberate strategy of Hamas to
operate from within or behind the civilian population.
By casting doubts over Israel’s basic motivation for launching its
operation against the Hamas, the report dismisses the eight-year-long
barrage of 12,000 rockets endured by Israel’s civilians, and questions
Israel’s basic right to protect its citizens. Indeed, the Report blames
Israel for even being rocketed, by terming the attacks as ‘reprisals’.
As sobering as the thought may be, if I were a terrorist, I would welcome this
Report. It has made a terrorist’s work a lot easier, and has made the work of his potential victims a lot more difficult.
Consequently, the message broadcast by this Report to the new world order is – “terrorism pays”.
Israel was not, however, surprised. The Goldstone Report is – more than
anything else – a political statement, rather than a legal analysis.
This outrageous report was produced by the UN’s new Human Rights
Council, a body whose obsession with Israel has led it to produce more
resolutions condemning Israel than those referring to all other
countries combined!
When a UN organ that is mandated to deal with human rights issues
throughout the globe, dedicates more time to Israel than all other
trouble-spots put together, this is can be nothing other than an agenda
set by political and non-professional motives.
In its blind zeal to demonize Israel, the HRC has gone as far as to
produce a document that undermines every other democracy that is
struggling to defend itself against terrorist attack.
But what else can be expected from a body whose membership includes
such renown guardians of human rights as Cuba, Saudi Arabia, Nicaragua
and Pakistan, Qatar, to name but a few.
And it should come as no surprise that the mandate designed by the HRC
for the Goldstone mission was also one-sided and prejudicial. In
it, the HRC”strongly condemned the ongoing Israeli military
operation … which has resulted in massive violations of the human
rights”, and dispatched “a fact finding mission to investigate all
violations of international human rights law and international
humanitarian law by the occupying Power, Israel, against the
Palestinian people”. Besides making no mention whatsoever of possible
Palestinian violations, it first established Israel’s guilt, and then
sent Goldstone to gather up some evidence. As the Queen said to
Alice: “Verdict first, evidence later”.
Israel can at least take comfort in the fact that the democratic
minority of HRC members – states such as Switzerland, Canada, Korea,
Japan, France, the UK, Germany, Italy, Netherlands and other EU members
– refused to support the politically motivated resolution establishing
the Mission.
Also telling is the fact that many distinguished human rights leaders,
including Mary Robinson, refused to lead the Mission, because it was,
in her words “guided not by human rights but by politics”.
The four members appointed by the HRC to take part in the Mission are
on record declaring their opinion that Israel is guilty, even before
they were chosen. This is most glaringly seen in the two letters
published by Mission member Christine Chinkin, even as the fighting in
Gaza was raging. In them, she accused Israel of “repeated breaches of
international human rights” and declared that “Israel’s bombardment of
Gaza is not self-defence – it’s a war crime.”
The methodology of the Mission was no less biased. The unprecedented
holding of live telecast hearings demonstrated that political
considerations overruled legal prudence. The Mission ignored the
fact that any Palestinian living in Gaza would never dare mention a
word against the Hamas in such testimony, for fear of his life. The
fact that all the witnesses were prescreened and selected, and none
were asked obvious questions relating to any Palestinian terrorist
activity or the location of weaponry and terrorists in civilian areas
only supports concerns that they were part of an orchestrated political
campaign.
The course of the questioning was similarly stilted. For example, when
hearing Palestinian witnesses, the Mission forgot to ask the most basic
questions, such as “Why do you say the victims of the Israeli strikes
you witnessed were “innocent non-combatants” while official Gaza
announcements praised them as members of Hamas combat units killed in
action?!”
In light of the above, the Report’s attempt to present Israel’s
internationally respected justice system as unable to examine the
actions of its own military is not only ignorant of the facts, but also
highly insulting to the citizens of the only truly democratic state in
the Middle East.
To date, Israel has opened investigations into over 100 allegations
regarding the conduct of its forces during the Gaza Operation.
While most of these investigations were closed because the allegations
were found to be baseless, 23 criminal investigations were indeed
initiated and are still under way.
Tragically, as a result of this report, terrorists throughout the world
are now strengthened in their belief that a law abiding democratic
state can be ‘handcuffed’ by the Human Rights Council, and be prevented
from carrying out appropriate and necessary actions to protect its own
citizens.
This then would be the appropriate time to clarify the issue, and
provide support for democratic states legally engaging in self-defense
against terrorist entities. Israel has the right and the obligation to
protect its citizens, while fully respecting international law.
Last 5 posts by Amitabh Tripathi
- New Government’s Iran dilemma – May 9th, 2009
- Political Islam in the offing – April 25th, 2009
- What will be the message of general elections? – April 8th, 2009
- War on Terror and has turned into war between Obama and Osama – March 31st, 2009
- India is under secular emergency – March 30th, 2009