B'tselem: Goldstone report is wrong

[shira]

The UN Human Rights Council and the Goldstone Report are either biased or mistaken in some of their fundamental accusations against Israel, according to B'tselem human rights group director Jessica Montell. She said the council was wrong in its gravest accusations against Israel. These include the claim that Israel intentionally targeted the civilian population rather than Hamas, and the "weak, hesitant way that the report mentions Hamas's strategy of using civilians ."

<snip>

"There's no question that the HRC, which mandated the Goldstone , has an inappropriate, disproportionate fixation with Israel," she said. She added that the council was "a political body made up of diplomats, not human rights experts, which means that the powerful states are never going to come under scrutiny the way the powerless will. So China, Russia and the US will never have commissions of inquiry, regardless of how their crimes rank relative to Israeli crimes."

<snip>

Montell's call for an Israeli investigation is aimed at an Israeli audience, but reflects deep unease both in Israel and abroad over the report's conclusions. Even the international magazine The Economist, which has stridently criticized Israeli actions in the West Bank and Gaza in the past, said the report's conclusions were unfairly critical of Israel. "The report takes the very thing it is investigating as its central organizing premise," the magazine opined just days after the mid-September publication of the report. "Israeli policy in Gaza, it argues, was deliberately and systematically to inflict suffering on civilians, rather than Hamas fighters. Israel's assertions that, in the difficult circumstances of densely populated Gaza, it planned its military operations carefully and with constant legal advice are taken by the report as evidence not of a concern to uphold international law but of a culpable determination to flout it," the magazine said.

Meanwhile, political commentators such as Tom Gross have blasted the Human Rights Council itself in the wake of the Goldstone Report, saying the council shows little concern for human rights "unless they can blame them on Israel." "The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one of the least bloody of the dozens of conflicts ongoing around the world. More Palestinian civilians have been killed by Fatah, Hamas, and the Lebanese army in recent years than by Israel. "Not that the UN Human Rights Council cares about casualties unless they can blame them on Israel. The council has adopted more resolutions and decisions condemning Israel than all the other 191 UN member states combined. In three years, it has issued 25 resolutions against individual states: 20 of them targeted Israel," he told The Jerusalem Post this week.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1254163545977&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

[bemildred]

1. Tsk.

---

With the outbreak of the second intifada, however, IDF and government lawyers "said the situation is now an armed conflict, and you don't have to open criminal investigations in an armed conflict. They'll open an investigation on theft complaints or beatings at a checkpoint - things that have no operational connection. But when it comes to gunfire, there are no automatic investigations."

This is a mistake, Montell believes, since "the laws of war are laws. We are asking the IDF to investigate Cast Lead according to the laws of war."

However, even while she acknowledged that international law "is uneven, not applied uniformly, and of course allows all the biases of the system to come into play," Montell urged Israelis not to vilify Judge Richard Goldstone himself, or his intentions.

"Goldstone is not the HRC. It's absurd to talk about a lifelong Zionist and Jew and supporter of Israel as someone with a bias against Israel," she said.

[shira]

2. you're entitled to your beliefs, just not your own facts

[bemildred]

3. I'm entitled to quote from the OP too, right?

I mean, I didn't change anything.

Mostly I did that because the headline is so at variance with the rest of it, that sort of thing gets my notice. It seems to me that Ms Montell has a right to have her views represented accurately. She does not in fact say that the report is wrong, she says parts of it are wrong, and she has some positive things to say about it too, and some nice things to say about Mr Goldstone.

[shira]

4. sure, but...

1. It's not just parts she says is wrong - it's the major or most significant parts
2. those major and significant parts are an indictment on Goldstone - as you saw in the 24 page MFA document and Goldstone's arrogant public announcements ever since the release of the report - he isn't an innocent lamb here who deserves the benefit of the doubt

[bemildred]

5. That is not what she says.

Your are entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts. What she says, the words she uses, her quoted statements, are facts.

[shira]

10. you're minimizing her statements - the tone, context, and main conclusion of the report changes...

....if it were up to her. It's not just little parts here or there, but the most significant parts that have major implications throughout the entire report.

I realize she wants to go light on Goldstone, but unless the UNHRC held him captive and threatened to torture him unless he put together that monstrocity, he's responsible for it, he owns it, and he's still defending that garbage in all his public statements.

I know you'd like to think she offers up a mild critique of the report (and Goldstone) and maybe she feels the same way, but she has in effect slammed the entire report.

And BTW, I agree with her that Israel should conduct its own independent investigation (maybe put the retired Aharon Barak of their Supreme Court in charge of a commission).

[bemildred]

18. I changed nothing. Anybody can read it for themselves. nt

[shira]

19. so Goldstone covering for Hamas and intentionally libeling Israel is okay...

...therefore, Goldstone doesn't deserve all the harsh criticism he's getting.

That's what we should get out of this article - and you're fine with that?

[bemildred]

20. I changed nothing. Anybody can read it for themselves. nt

[azurnoir]

6. From B'Tselems site

15 Sept. '09: Human Rights groups in Israel in response to Goldstone Report: Israel Must Investigate 'Operation Cast Lead'

With the publication of the Goldstone Committee report today, human rights organizations in Israel are studying the report and its conclusions, and they call upon the Israeli Government to take the report seriously and to refrain from automatically rejecting its findings or denying its legitimacy.

Already it is clear that the findings of the report - written after gathering extensive information and testimonies from Israeli and Palestinian victims - will join a long series of reports indicating that Israel's actions during the fighting in Gaza, as well as the actions of Hamas, violated the laws of combat and human rights law.

Human rights organizations in Israel believe that the State of Israel must conduct an independent and impartial investigation into these suspicions and to cooperate with an international monitoring mechanism that would guarantee both the independence of that investigation and the implementation of its conclusions. The organizations have written to Israel's Attorney General to demand that he establish such an independent body to investigate the military's activities during “Cast Lead”, but he rejected their request.

The groups expect the Government of Israel to respond to the substance of the report's findings and to desist from its current policy of casting doubt upon the credibility of anyone who does not adhere to the establishment's narrative.

Organizations on this statement: Association for Civil Rights in Israel, Adalah, Bimkom, B’Tselem, Gisha, HaMoked, Physicians for Human Rights – Israel, The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel and Yesh Din.

http://www.btselem.org/english/press_releases/20090915.asp

[Violet_Crumble]

7. It doesn't surprise me that JPost would use misleading headlines like the one for this OP n/t

[azurnoir]

8. After reading the article and the discussion here

I decided to go straight to the source and well........

[oberliner]

9. Headline at link is: 'Israel at fault for not probing self'

I don't think that is misleading at all.

[Violet_Crumble]

11. Was that the original article title?

If not, I wonder why a misleading title was given to it when it was posted...

[shira]

12. the headline has changed since i posted the OP

not that it matters - when the Goldstone Report's main conclusions are said to be wrong, that pretty much means the entire report - pieced together dishonestly in order to arrive at such a conclusion - is wrong. The Betselem director didn't just point out little problems, but major ones that show the Report as a whole to be fatally flawed.

[Violet_Crumble]

13. Actually, I took another look and the misleading headline was there....

Click on the link and if yr using IE look right up at the top LH corner where there's a title bar. It says: 'B'Tselem says Goldstone report is wrong|Israel|Jerusalem Post'...

So the person who posted the OP got the article title correct and the headline was definately misleading...

[oberliner]

14. Not getting that when I click on the link

Are you seeing this:

'Israel at fault for not probing self'
By HAVIV RETTIG GUR

If so, are you also seeing the other title somewhere else on the page?

I'm confused because I am seeing the title I listed above, not the one cited in the OP.

Perhaps JPost had that title originally and changed it themselves because they determined it was not an accurate reflection of the content of the article?

[Violet_Crumble]

15. Yr not looking at the title bar in yr browser, that's why...

It's as far to the top left of yr screen as you can go and it doesn't include the name of the author of the article. The title bar shows that it was the original title of the article and that original title was misleading...

[oberliner]

16. Well, good on JPost for changing it then! nt

[Violet_Crumble]

17. I won't join you in the praise of post editing of sloppy journalism n/t