The report consequently examined human rights abuses, war crimes, possible crimes against humanity and other atrocities committed by the Israeli military and Palestinian factions, particularly Hamas, in Gaza and the West Bank. The report examines 36 attacks in Gaza and other acts of aggression in the West Bank and Israel before, during and after Israel’s war on Gaza at the end of 2008 and the beginning of 2009.
The mission conducted 188 interviews, reviewed 10,000 pages of documents and 1,200 photographs. Israel refused to allow the investigators into the country. So the Human Rights Council paid for Israeli witnesses, including a mayor and Israeli victims, to give testimony in Geneva.
The report, issued on Sept. 15, 2009, blisters Hamas and the Israeli military, accusing both of war crimes. But most of the blame falls on Israel for its disproportionate use of force and cursory concern for civilian lives. Rocket attacks by Hamas against random Israeli targets are severely criticized But the harshest language applies to Israeli acts against the civilian population in Gaza. Israel's assault on Gaza, the report states, was "a deliberately disproportionate attack designed to punish, humiliate and terrorize a civilian population, radically diminish its local economic capacity both to work and to provide for itself, and to force upon it an ever increasing sense of dependency and vulnerability."
Israel condemned the report before it was written, calling the fact-finding mission prejudiced against Israel from the start. Israel refused to cooperate with investigators. Once the report was issued, Israel said it failed to take into account Hamas' attacks or that Israel was acting in self-defense.
The Obama administration refused to endorse the report, hewing to Israel's official line. Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, described the mission's mandate as "unbalanced, one sided and basically unacceptable. We have very serious concerns about many of the recommendations in the report. We will expect and believe that the appropriate venue for this report to be considered is the Human Rights Council and that is our strong view."
Goldstone--who lead war crimes prosecutor for former Yugoslavia and Rwanda and whose credibility is beyond doubt--said that "a culture of impunity in the region has existed far too long,” as he presented the report on Sept. 29. "The lack of accountability for war crimes and possible crimes against humanity has reached a crisis point; the ongoing lack of justice is undermining any hope for a successful peace process and reinforcing an environment that fosters violence." He added that the mission was "highly critical of the pusillanimous efforts by Israel to investigate alleged violations of international law and the complete failure of the Gaza authorities to do so."
The lack of accountability for war crimes in the Middle East, Goldstone said, has “reached a crisis point,” undermining any hope of peace.
Israel, Palestinians and the United States, for different reasons, each proved Goldstone's point in turn as they rejected the report. The Palestinian Authority did so in early October, under pressure from the United States. But Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' reputation suffered a severe blow for toeing the American line, and by mid-October he had reversed his objections to the report. President Obama, by refusing to endorse the report, was contradicting the stance he took in Cairo and Ankara when he delivered speeches to the Arab and Muslim world from cities, stressing accountability and human rights in nations' conduct.
Two reactions sum up the divide between those who oppose the Goldstone report and those who accept it as a legitimate investigation.
Writing in Commentary, the ultra-conservative Jewish monthly, Max Boot began:
After reading the Goldstone Report on human-rights abuses committed during the Gaza War (December 27, 2008–January 19, 2009), all I can say is, it’s a good thing that the United Nations wasn’t around during World War II. I can just imagine its producing a supposedly evenhanded report that condemned the Nazis for “grave” abuses such as incinerating Jews, while also condemning the Allies for their equally “grave” abuses such as fire-bombing German and Japanese cities. The recommendation, no doubt, would have been that both sides be tried for war crimes, with Adolf Hitler in the dock alongside Franklin Roosevelt. Actually, that may be giving the UN more credit than it deserves. To judge by the evidence before us, the likelihood is that the UN in those days would have devoted far more space to Allied “abuses” than to those of the Axis and would have recommended that FDR stand alone before the world court.And Dan Fleshler, writing at Realistic Dove:
I’ve just finished reading the Goldstone report. As the Forward notes, it “blisters with specificity.” It is upsetting. I don’t know exactly what happened in the Gaza Strip during “Operation Cast Lead” last winter. I do know that Israel will have a difficult time discrediting the report by citing the UN’s past transgressions, or insisting that Israel went out of its way to avoid civilian casualties, or explaining how the report neglected to include the “context” for Israel’s actions. White phosphorus provides its own context.The normal track for the report is to be debated at the Human Rights Council and its recommendations enacted at the International Criminal Court. The United States was not likely to let it get that far. The formal name of the report is "Human Rights in Palestine and Other Occupied Arab Territories: Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict."
