101. For excerpts from the Goldstone report go to Post 79.
Goldstone's sudden U-turn from the findings of a four men U.N. fact-findings mission in response to the 2008 Israel/Gaza conflict, as were published in what is known as "the Goldstone report' has surprised many.
Goldstone is reported to have said that :(quote): 'If I had known what I know now the report would have been quite different' . His shift is apparently attributed to the findings of a follow up report by a United Nations Committee of independent experts chaired by Mary McGowen Davis, a former New York judge and what is 'recognized' therein about Israeli military investigations. McGowen Davis is in fact deeply critical of those investigations - their leniency, lack of transparency and flawed structure. Her report - stymied by lack of access to Israel, Gaza and the West Bank - contains no new information that might buttress a change of heart. On the core issue of intentionality, it declares (quote): 'There is no indication that Israel has opened investigations into actions of those who designed, planned, ordered and oversaw Operation cast Lead(Israel's code name for their onslaught of Gaza). It (Israel) has not adequately answered the Goldstone report's allegations about the 'design and implementation of the Gaza operations' or its 'objectives and targets'. Victims on both side McGowen maintains, cannot expect genuine accountability and no justice. In short there is a mystery here. Goldstone has moved but the evidence has not. That raises the issue of whether Goldstone has buckled under pressure so unrelenting it almost got him barred from his grandson's bar Mitzvah in South Africa.Is this more a matter of judicial cojones than coherence ? Goldstone has been relentlessly targeted and vilified by Israel and the Zionist lobbies over the last year or so as a self-hating Jew, hypocrite, traitor and despicable. He is declining media-interviews. Goldstone expresses 'confidence' that that the Israeli officer responsible for the killing of 29 members of a Palestinian family will be properly punished. Yet McGowen Davis report is critical of this investigation and notes that no decision had been made as to whether or not the officer would stand trila. It also notes that more than a third of the 36 Gaza incidents identified in the Goldsone report are 'still unresolved or unclear'. There have just been two convictions - and the one for the credit card theft brought a more severe sentence then the use of a Palestinian child as a human shield. Israel is now celebrating what it calls a vindication. It has now invited Goldstone to come to Israel and is demanding nullification of the report, even though Goldstone is only one of the four authors. But the facts remain: 1400 plus Palestinians dead, 13 Israelis killed, the wholesale devastation of houses, schools and hospitals in Gaza.
Commnent from The New York Times
Goldstone's sudden U-turn from the findings of a four men U.N. fact-findings mission in response to the 2008 Israel/Gaza conflict, as were published in what is known as "the Goldstone report' has surprised many.
Goldstone is reported to have said that :(quote): 'If I had known what I know now the report would have been quite different' . His shift is apparently attributed to the findings of a follow up report by a United Nations Committee of independent experts chaired by Mary McGowen Davis, a former New York judge and what is 'recognized' therein about Israeli military investigations. McGowen Davis is in fact deeply critical of those investigations - their leniency, lack of transparency and flawed structure. Her report - stymied by lack of access to Israel, Gaza and the West Bank - contains no new information that might buttress a change of heart. On the core issue of intentionality, it declares (quote): 'There is no indication that Israel has opened investigations into actions of those who designed, planned, ordered and oversaw Operation cast Lead(Israel's code name for their onslaught of Gaza). It (Israel) has not adequately answered the Goldstone report's allegations about the 'design and implementation of the Gaza operations' or its 'objectives and targets'. Victims on both side McGowen maintains, cannot expect genuine accountability and no justice. In short there is a mystery here. Goldstone has moved but the evidence has not. That raises the issue of whether Goldstone has buckled under pressure so unrelenting it almost got him barred from his grandson's bar Mitzvah in South Africa.Is this more a matter of judicial cojones than coherence ? Goldstone has been relentlessly targeted and vilified by Israel and the Zionist lobbies over the last year or so as a self-hating Jew, hypocrite, traitor and despicable. He is declining media-interviews. Goldstone expresses 'confidence' that that the Israeli officer responsible for the killing of 29 members of a Palestinian family will be properly punished. Yet McGowen Davis report is critical of this investigation and notes that no decision had been made as to whether or not the officer would stand trila. It also notes that more than a third of the 36 Gaza incidents identified in the Goldsone report are 'still unresolved or unclear'. There have just been two convictions - and the one for the credit card theft brought a more severe sentence then the use of a Palestinian child as a human shield. Israel is now celebrating what it calls a vindication. It has now invited Goldstone to come to Israel and is demanding nullification of the report, even though Goldstone is only one of the four authors. But the facts remain: 1400 plus Palestinians dead, 13 Israelis killed, the wholesale devastation of houses, schools and hospitals in Gaza.
Commnent from The New York Times
