|
Korean Job Discussion Forums
"The Internet's Meeting Place for ESL/EFL Teachers from Around the World!"
|
| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
Hater Depot
Joined: 29 Mar 2005
|
 Posted: Tue Oct 20, 2009 3:34 pm Post subject: Judge Goldstone on Goldstone report |
 |
|
Link
| Quote: |
I begin with my own motivation, as a Jew who has supported Israel and its people all my life, for having agreed to head the Gaza mission. Over the past 20 years, I have investigated serious violations of international law in my own country, South Africa, in the former Yugoslavia, in Rwanda and the alleged fraud and theft by governments and political leaders in a number of countries in connection with the United Nations Iraq Oil for Food program. In all of these, allegations reached the highest political echelons. In every instance, I spoke out strongly in favor of full investigations and, where appropriate, criminal prosecutions. I have spoken out over the years on behalf of the International Bar Association against human rights violations in many countries, including Sri Lanka, China, Russia, Iran, Zimbabwe and Pakistan.
I would have been acting against those principles and my own convictions and conscience if I had refused a request from the United Nations to investigate serious allegations of war crimes against both Israel and Hamas in the context of Operation Cast Lead.
AS A Jew, I felt a greater and not a lesser obligation to do so. It is well documented that as a condition of my participation I insisted upon and received an evenhanded mandate to investigate all sides and that is what we sought to do.
I sincerely believed that because of my own record and the terms of the mission's mandate we would receive the cooperation of the Israeli government. Its refusal to cooperate was a grave error. My plea for cooperation was repeated before and during the investigation and it sits, plain as day, in the appendices of the Gaza report for those who actually bother to read it. Our mission obviously could only consider and report on what it saw, heard and read. If the government of Israel failed to bring facts and analyses to our attention, we cannot fairly be blamed for the consequences. Those who feel that our report failed to give adequate attention to specific incidents or issues should be asking the Israeli government why it failed to argue its cause. |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
bacasper
Joined: 26 Mar 2007
|
| Posted: Tue Oct 20, 2009 6:56 pm Post subject: |
|
|
I was struck by Goldstone's conclusion that the IDF and Israeli commanders must stand trial:
| Quote: |
| The Mission had also investigated in some detail the effects on the civilian population in Southern Israel of the sustained rocket and mortar attacks from Palestinian armed groups in Gaza. The Mission had also found that the attack on the only remaining flour producing factory, the destruction of a large part of the Gaza egg production, the bulldozing of huge tracts of agricultural land, and the bombing of some two hundred industrial facilities, could not on any basis be justified on military grounds. Those attacks had nothing to do with the firing of rockets and mortars at Israel. �These attacks amounted to reprisals and collective punishment and constitute war crimes�, he said. The Government of Israel had a duty to protect its citizens, but that in no way justified a policy of collective punishment of a people under effective occupation. The Mission had recommended that the Security Council should require Israel to report to it within six months on the investigations and prosecutions it was carrying out and that it should set up a body of independent experts to report to it on the progress of the Israeli investigations and prosecutions as well as those undertaken by the relevant authorities in Gaza with regard to crimes committed by the Palestinian armed groups. In both cases, if within the six month period there were no good faith investigations conforming to international standards, the Security Council should refer the situation or situations to the International Criminal Court Prosecutor. |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
bacasper
Joined: 26 Mar 2007
|
| Posted: Tue Oct 20, 2009 6:57 pm Post subject: |
|
|
If there were any doubt before about the collaborationist nature of the PA, it is dissolved now.
After Goldstone, Hamas faces fateful choice
Ali Abunimah, The Electronic Intifada, 8 October 2009
The uproar over the Palestinian Authority's (PA) collaboration with Israel to bury the Goldstone report, calling for trials of Israeli leaders for war crimes in Gaza, is a political earthquake. The whole political order in place since the 1993 Oslo accords were signed is crumbling. As the initial tremors begin to fade, the same old political structures may appear still to be in place, but they are hollowed out. This unprecedented crisis threatens to topple the US-backed PA leader Mahmoud Abbas, but it also leaves Hamas, the main Palestinian resistance faction, struggling with fateful choices.
more at link |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Reggie
Joined: 21 Sep 2009
|
| Posted: Tue Oct 20, 2009 11:11 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Once the Muslim Brotherhood takes control of Egypt, the people of Gaza will surely want to jump on the pan-Islamic bandwagon for the benefits of freedom of movement, educational opportunities, commercial opportunities, and mutual defense. Someday, the morons in Hamas, the PA, and Israel will regret how they let the situation get this out of hand as they watch their power slip away. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Hater Depot
Joined: 29 Mar 2005
|
| Posted: Wed Oct 21, 2009 5:49 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Reggie wrote: |
| Once the Muslim Brotherhood takes control of Egypt, the people of Gaza will surely want to jump on the pan-Islamic bandwagon for the benefits of freedom of movement, educational opportunities, commercial opportunities, and mutual defense. |
Please tell me this is a joke. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
ddeubel
Joined: 20 Jul 2005
|
| Posted: Tue Oct 27, 2009 4:44 am Post subject: |
|
|
I've spent many hours over the last few weeks listening to the evidence and testimony myself. Here is just one testimony, about the Al Samouni massacre (the IDF hurds them into a building and then bombs the hell out of them. Then executes some of the others after who protest ). Stuff right up there with Karazadic and even the S.S. No exaggeration.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KNPAiyO8i8
I really think that we have to keep the focus on this. There are people in Israel who can turn things around and make change. Let's press....not for hates sake or revenge but for the truth...
DD
http://eflclassroom.com |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
|
| Posted: Tue Oct 27, 2009 4:22 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| ddeubel wrote: |
| I've spent many hours over the last few weeks listening to the evidence and testimony myself. Here is just one testimony, about the Al Samouni massacre (the IDF hurds them into a building and then bombs the hell out of them. Then executes some of the others after who protest ). Stuff right up there with Karazadic and even the S.S. No exaggeration. |
I can't watch the youtube video, as youtube seems down right now. But I do recall reading about this particular massacre at the time. It made my blood run cold. 
| Quote: |
| I really think that we have to keep the focus on this. There are people in Israel who can turn things around and make change. Let's press....not for hates sake or revenge but for the truth... |
I don't really see anything coming of it. The IDF apologists always use the deflection that accusations are purely being made for 'hates sake' as you say, and many Israelis cling onto that, because the alternative (that the accusations are in fact very true) are not something they want to contemplate. I've heard many a lecture from Israelis (nice but naive Israelis) about what a moral and careful army the IDF is. So very careful not to hurt civillians. At great cost to themselves in fact! The most moral in the world!
It may be that there 'are people in Israel who can turn things around and make change' but they need a mandate. I don't see them getting one. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
|
| Posted: Tue Oct 27, 2009 4:34 pm Post subject: |
|
|
I've just watched the video. So awful. Dozens of family members dead - one lad killed because he asked the soldiers why they were targetting his dad. So they shot him dead in front of his dad. I couldn't keep listening to it.
Here is one of the reports from the time. I remember one of the things that shocked me most about this and other incidents was that the IDF would not let ambulance workers near the injured and dying for days. People died unnecessarily because they couldn't be treated for their injuries. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmEncqLqaVY&feature=related
Here is the little boy he talks about in his testimony - now 8, then 6 - crying in his hospital bed because of his wounds and his mental trauma. He spent 4 days laying among his family's corpses.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruyRM0R8i0g&feature=related
I think if ordinary Israelis really understood what goes on in the occupied territories, and what happens during these operations, most of them would want to do something about it. But the great free press that the apologists always wax lyrical about, never properly reports what goes on. There are a handful of dedicated journalists who work for the Haraatz (like Amira Hass), tirelessly trying to tell their countrymen what's really going on, but no-one seems to read them. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
ddeubel
Joined: 20 Jul 2005
|
| Posted: Tue Oct 27, 2009 5:11 pm Post subject: |
|
|
I know it is frustrating...how the people, the witnesses don't have a voice. It gets smeared and twisted or not even left with a trace.
I just felt that I had to hear the witnesses myself. Hear their words (even if translated) and see their faces and eyes and pain. This is my attempt to remain "human" through this all.
Just like I have a copy of Lanzmann's documentary Shoah always available - one day, these will be there as testimony, voice and remembering. I will remember - these words of Wiesenthal are just as important for these victims as those of Jews. We are all god's people.
DD
http://eflclassroom.com |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
|
| Posted: Tue Oct 27, 2009 5:56 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| ddeubel wrote: |
| II just felt that I had to hear the witnesses myself. Hear their words (even if translated) and see their faces and eyes and pain. This is my attempt to remain "human" through this all. |
I understand this. I've made myself watch documentaries or written/spoken testimony of horrible crimes, especially from WWII, for this very reason. I watched the horrendous footage of Gaza as it happened for this reason, because a tragedy denied is a tragedy compounded.
I kept reading things like this, because I knew I'd want people to at least acknowledge my own children's suffering, if ever they were so horribly unfortunate as these:
| Quote: |
My three-year-old son Sammy walked into my room uninvited as I sorted through another batch of fresh photos from Gaza.
I was looking for a specific image, one that would humanize Palestinians as living, breathing human beings, neither masked nor mutilated. But to no avail.
All the photos I received spoke of the reality that is Gaza today � homes, schools and civilian infrastructure bombed beyond description. All the faces were either of dead or dying people.
I paused as I reached a horrifying photo in the slideshow of a young boy and his sister huddled on a single hospital trolley waiting to be identified and buried. Their faces were darkened as if they were charcoal and their lifeless eyes were still widened with the horror that they experienced as they were burned slowly by a white phosphorus shell.
It was just then that Sammy walked into my room snooping around for a missing toy. �What is this, daddy?� he inquired.
I rushed to click past the horrific image, only to find myself introducing a no less shocking one. Fretfully, I turned the monitor off, then turned to my son as he stood puzzled. His eyes sparkled inquisitively as he tried to make sense of what he had just seen.
He needed to know about these kids whose little bodies had been burned beyond recognition.
�Where are their mummies and daddies? Why are they all so smoky all the time?�
I explained to him that they are Palestinians, that they were hurting �just a little� and that their �mummies and daddies will be right back.�
The reality is that these children and thousands like them in Gaza have experienced the most profound pain, a pain that we may never in our lives comprehend.
|
Breaking Gaza�s Will: Israel�s Enduring Fantasy
I guess that's why I also read a little from Anne Frank's diary from time to time. Not only to acknowledge her, and her short life, and what she went through, but also out of respect for her father, who lived a long life with only the memory of his children. It's why I watched a horrendous film on Rwanda not so long ago.
I also feel a duty to read the testimony of journalists whose own humanity compels them to report on injustice and attrocity - even at great personal risk. If they've done so much to investigate such human misery, I ought to at least spend a little of my time to read what they have to say. In the context of the I/P conflict that would be such admirable people as Amira Hass (a woman of great conviction who went to live in the occupied territories) and Gideon Levy.
Of course you can't grieve for every victim and acknowledge every attrocity. But for time to time I have to remind myself of how easily we humans can become worst than beasts, and try to contribute to a collective consiousness that aims to safeguard against that darker side of society.
Last edited by Big_Bird on Tue Oct 27, 2009 6:13 pm; edited 2 times in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
|
| Posted: Tue Oct 27, 2009 6:09 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Here is a recent article by Amira Hass, quite relevant to this thread I think.
Amira Hass / The one thing worse than denying the Gaza report
| Quote: |
On Friday an Israel Defense Forces soldier called to protest the publication of another story in Haaretz which in his words, tainted not only the troops' image but also his Sabbath day.
The soldier was referring to Gaza resident Zinat Samouni's account of how soldiers killed her 46-year-old husband and their 4-year-old son Ahmed - just two of the 29 people of the same family the army killed between January 4 and 5.
The soldier, who said he participated in the fighting, said he didn't believe the women's statements were true, though he did believe soldiers "scrawled stupid things on the walls, and that's really not right."
Advertisement
This is a common Israeli solution - in this case, to admit to the graffiti's existence, but downplay its seriousness or view it as everyday Israeli high jinks.
Everything else can be denied. It can always be said that photographs of civilians killed were fabricated. The Palestinians' accounts can be dismissed as lies, intrigues of Hamas, embellishment or, at best, facts taken out of context since Gazans are, after all, afraid of what Hamas would do to them if they told the truth.
Jurists will argue over the meaning of international law and will suggest contradicting analyses. Politicians will justifiably note that the United States does not have commissions of inquiry thrust upon it by the United Nations. Others will say that if Judge Richard Goldstone was reliable enough to be a prosecutor in the International Criminal Court cases on Yugoslavia and Rwanda, and his Pakistani colleague Hina Jilani was fit to participate in the international investigation into Darfur, there is no reason to suddenly cast doubt on their credentials now that they are examining Israel's deeds in Gaza. The Goldstone Commission's findings are in line with what anyone who didn't shut his or her eyes and ears to witness testimony already knows.
B'Tselem, Breaking the Silence, the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Haaretz and the international media - to Israelis, these have all fallen into the trash bin of the mendacious Palestinians. In the best case, they have become trapped in their own pure-hearted naivete, and in the worst, into collaborating with efforts to besmirch Israel and bolster prejudices against it. Like the Serbs of yore, we Israelis continue thinking it's the world that is wrong, and only we who are right.
Israel struck a civilian population that remains under its control, it didn't fulfill its obligation to distinguish between civilians and militants and used military force disproportionate with the tangible threat to its own civilians. Air Force drones and helicopters fired deadly missiles at civilians, many of them children; the Tank Corps and Navy shelled civilian neighborhoods with weapons not designed for precision strikes; soldiers received orders to fire on rescue crews; others fired on civilians carrying white flags; and others killed people in or near their homes. Troops used Gazans as human shields, soldiers detained civilians in abusive conditions, the army used white phosphorus shells in dense civilian areas and, on the eve of withdrawing, destroyed wide residential, industrial and agricultural areas.
There is only thing worse than denial - the admission that the IDF indeed acted as has been described, but that these actions are both normal and appropriate |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
|
| Posted: Tue Oct 27, 2009 6:11 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Goldstone's daughter on Judge Goldstone and his report:
Goldstone's daughter: My father's participation softened UN Gaza report
| Quote: |
"My father took on this job because he thought he is doing the best thing for peace, for everyone, and also for Israel," Nicole Goldstone told Army Radio.
She added that her father wrestled with the decision to take on the task. "It wasn't easy [for him]," Nicole Goldstone said. "My father did not expect to see and hear what he saw and heard." |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Hater Depot
Joined: 29 Mar 2005
|
| Posted: Fri Oct 30, 2009 6:42 am Post subject: |
|
|
http://harpers.org/archive/2009/10/hbc-90006003
| Quote: |
3. What�s your opinion of the overall U.S. reaction to the report?
The Obama Administration said that Israel should carry out an investigation into its actions, and that�s an enormously important statement for the U.S. to make. In the view of the fact-finding mission the core message of the report is that there has to be an end to impunity to commit war crimes.
4. Critics have also said that Hamas deliberately inserted its fighters among civilians and that doing so increased the civilian toll. Did you find that to be the case?
We found no evidence that Hamas used civilians as hostages. I had expected to find such evidence but did not. We also found no evidence that mosques were used to store munitions. Those charges reflect Western perceptions in some quarters that Islam is a violent religion. Gaza is densely populated and has a labyrinth of makeshift shanties and a system of tunnels and bunkers. If I were a Hamas operative the last place I�d store munitions would be in a mosque. It�s not secure, is very visible, and would probably be pre-targeted by Israeli surveillance. There are a many better places to store munitions. We investigated two destroyed mosques�one where worshippers were killed�and we found no evidence that either was used as anything but a place of worship.
There is a sinister and foolish notion among certain proponents of insurgency warfare that to fight an insurgency means that civilians will inevitably be killed. But if you give the state authority to be indiscriminate with the lives of civilians in pursuing insurgents, it plays into the hands of the insurgents. Dead bodies are grist to the insurgents� mill: if the dead are on your side they represent insurgent victories and if the dead are on their side then they have martyrs. |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
ValeriusS
Joined: 10 Nov 2009
|
| Posted: Thu Nov 12, 2009 2:54 pm Post subject: What should Obama do? |
|
|
Obama administration does everything in its power to sweep the Goldstone report under the rug. But some Israelis feel this position isn't pro-Israel enough. Here's a link to an interesting site sharing this opinion:
http://samsonblinded.org/news/us-and-israel-hostile-neutrality-14513 |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
