UN endorses the Goldstone Report

The Saint

Nice copy and paste job. However, if you aren't going to bother doing your own replies and resort to copy and pasting I will not reply to you since I have been considerate enough to do my own research.

Shin Bet wrote: »

[/B]The Report accuses Israel of discriminating against its non-Jewish citizens by not providing shelters to protect Arab towns and villages from the rocket attacks. ( 1709, 1711(1)). In fact, the relevant decision of the Government of Israel made no such discrimination, and provided all municipalities up to seven kilometers from the fence with a budget to cover the building of shelters. Municipalities located further away from the fence, which included non-Jewish villages as well as the Jewish cities of Be'er Sheva and Ashqelon, did not qualify for this funding. ]

Can you provide a source for this please? With just a quick Google though I have found some reports of the disparity in the provision of public bomb shelters between Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs.

"Most Arab towns do not have public bomb shelters or alarm systems. For example, there is not a single public bomb shelter in Nazareth, while there are 523 bomb shelters in the neighboring city of Upper Nazareth. We counted 600 bomb shelters in Karmiel and zero bomb shelters in the neighboring local council of El-Shagur," Mossawa's media coordinator, Hanan Haddad said yesterday.
Source

The roughly 1.2 million Arab citizens of Israel -- one-fifth of the population -- do not serve in the army, now engaged on the northern and southern borders. They have slim representation in parliament, and receive scant government support for the kind of bunkers and warning systems that have been well used in other northern Israeli cities since the fighting began.
Source

Here's a report that goes into more depth and compared nearby cities (Israeli Jew and Arab Israeli) which illustrated the disparity in the provision of bomb shelters between the two communities. Unfortunately I can't copy and paste the statistics as the document doens't allow it but you can look yourself. I also don't think this whole topic is really an issue as it is not even mentioned in the conclusion to the Goldstone report and wouldn't have any impact on its outcome.

Shin Bet wrote: »

The Report repeatedly misrepresents historical facts, particularly in the context of 'explaining' Israel military operations. It states that Operation "Hot Winter" was launched by Israel in February 2008 following a rocket attack towards the city of Ashkelon that caused 'light injuries' ( 196). In fact, Roni Yihye, aged 47, a student at Sapir College, was killed after sustaining massive wounds to his chest.

They are two seperate incidents. Roni Yihye was killed in Sderot, not in Ashkelon to which the report refers. Who ever researched what you pasted didn't do a very good job.

About 50 Qassam rockets were fired towards the Negev, one of which struck a parking lot near Sapir Academic College, killing 47-year-old student Ron Yahye[18]. Hamas, the Popular Resistance Committees and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad carried this rocket barrage. In addition, they fired for the first time six Iranian built Grad missiles (also known as Katyushas, which actually refers to the original launcher) at the industrial city of Ashkelon. While only a few people were lightly injured, this longer distance attack on a larger Israeli city had a major psychological effect. The Israeli Prime Minister and several other minister vowed a tough response.[19] The IAF retaliated with more airstrikes in Jabalia camp and the northern part of Gaza Strip. About seven killed in the attacks, most of whom were militants, however a six month-old baby was also killed after a missile struck a house in the camp.[20]

The Goldstone Report states:

In February 2008, a rocket attack from Gaza hit the Israeli city of Ashkelon causing light injures.

Pretty consistent no?

Shin Bet wrote: »

Similarly it states that Operation "Days of Penitence" was launched in September-October of 2004, in retaliation for the firing of rockets against the town of Sderot and Israeli settlements, but fails to mention the deaths of Yuval Abebeh (aged 4) and Dorit Benisian (aged 2) of Sderot, killed by a Kassam rocket fired into Gaza while playing in the street. In both cases Hamas claimed responsibility for the attacks.

The report doesn't say that it was in retaliation for these attacks. It stated that "According to the Israeli Government, it was launched in retaliation for the firing of rockets against the town of Sderot and Israeli settlements inside the Gaza Strip." The report does not mention every death that occured during this time. If the report mentioned and went into the details of every death on both sides the report would be three times longer. Im sure there'd be plenty of Palestinians that would argue that their situations weren't specifically mentioned in the report. It's a section on the historical context of the situation, not something that is the basis of the findings that needs to go into excruciating detail. Bit of a red herring tbh.

Shin Bet wrote: »

The description of Israel's military courts system (1599-1600) contains numerous errors and inaccuracies. For example, its description of the appeals process relies on provisions which were amended in 2004 and are no longer in force today.

Sorry, this is a bit too vague but I guess that happens when you copy and paste someone elses work. I can't even find the Military Justice Law that they are talking about online. But with the shoddy research already shown I hold judgement on this one.

Shin Bet wrote: »

In support of its assertion that the Gaza Strip is to be regarded as occupied territory, even following the withdrawal of all Israeli forces and all 9000 Israeli civilians in the Disengagement Initiative in 2005, the Report cites as authority UN Security Council Resolution 1860 (footnote 163 to 277). But this resolution makes no such assertion. In fact, in the negotiations prior to the adoption of this resolution, a Libyan draft which sought to insist that Gaza was still occupied was specifically not adopted by the members of the Security Council.

Perhaps the report was refering to the part of the resolution which states that:

Stressing that the Gaza Strip constitutes an integral part of the territory occupied in 1967 and will be a part of the Palestinian state

This would appear to indicate the widely held belief that Gaza and the West Bank are inextricably linked and cannot be taken in isolation of one another. Therefore if the West Bank and Gaza are a single unit and most of that unit is still occupied then Gaza, by default, remains occupied. Furthermore, the same footnote citing that resolution also cites a Human Rights Council resolution that states:

1. Strongly condemns the ongoing Israeli military operation carried out in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, particularly in the occupied Gaza Strip, which has resulted in massive violations of the human rights of the Palestinian people and systematic destruction of Palestinian infrastructure;

2. Calls for the immediate cessation of Israeli military attacks throughout the Palestinian Occupied Territory, particularly in the occupied Gaza Strip, which to date have resulted in the killing of more than nine hundred and injury to more than four thousand Palestinians, including a large number of women and children, and the end to the launching of crude rockets against Israeli civilians, which have resulted in the loss of four civilian lives and some injuries;

3. Demands that the occupying Power, Israel, immediately withdraw its military forces from the occupied Gaza Strip;

The idea of Gaza still being occupied is also the position the worlds guardian of International Humanitarian Law, the Red Cross that stated in a position paper sent to Israel that:

"Israel will retain significant control over the Gaza Strip, which will enable it to exercise key elements of authority. Thus ... it seems at this stage the Gaza Strip will remain occupied for the purposes of international humanitarian law."

Similarly, Israeli human rights group, Bt'selem states that:

According to international humanitarian law, occupation is created when, as a result of an armed conflict,onestateacquires“effectivecontrol” of territory beyond its sovereign borders. According to the Hague Regulations of 1907:

Territory is considered occupied when it is actually placed in the authority of the hostile army. The occupation extends only to the territory where such authority has been established and can be exercised

.
From the moment that a piece of territory is occupied, the “laws of belligerent occupation,” as set forth in the Hague Regulations and the Fourth Geneva Convention, apply.

The Goldstone report also points this out in the subsequent paragraphs than was cited. Taken together what the Goldstone report stated regarding the occupation, irrespective of the interpretation of UN resolution 1860, was accurate.


**Edit**
Just noticed that you've been reprimanded for copying and pasting. I just checked your reply to me and it seems that too is a blatant rip off from another source. Naughty. You're not doing your arguement any favours, especially when what you're copying isn't very accurate in the first place.

The Saint

Didn't respond to this. Thought I was part of my previous response since it was in quotes. I'm not going to spend much time on this here though as it seems I'm not responding to the author and most of it doesn't address the questions I asked.

Shin Bet wrote: »

[/B]
The Fact-Finding Mission was established by the Human Rights Council in Resolution S-9/1 adopted on 9 January 2009. Even within the context of the Council's disproportionate obsession with criticizing Israel (five out of its eleven special sessions since its founding in 2006 have been devoted to this), this resolution crossed a new threshold, condemning Israel in inflammatory and prejudicial language. This same resolution initiated no less than four separate reporting mechanisms into allegations against Israel, with not a single mechanism to examine Hamas' activities. One of these mechanisms was the Fact Finding Mission.
In operative paragraph 14 of the resolution, the Council decided: "to dispatch an urgent, independent international fact-finding mission, to be appointed by the President of the Council, to investigate all violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law by the occupying Power, Israel, against the Palestinian people throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory, particularly in the occupied Gaza Strip, due to the current aggression, and calls upon Israel not to obstruct the process of investigation and to fully cooperate with the mission".
This wording of the resolution clearly provided that the mandate of the Mission is limited to investigating "violations" by "the occupying Power, Israel against the Palestinian people" (OP14). The explicitly one-sided mandate of the Gaza Fact Finding Mission, and the resolution that established it, were the reason that so many states on the Council refused to support it - including the member states of the European Union, Switzerland, Canada, Korea and Japan.
The prejudicial nature of the mission also led several distinguished individuals, including former High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson, to refuse invitations to chair the mission. In doing so Mary Robinson admitted that it was "guided not by human rights but by politics"
Israel, for its part, stated that it would not cooperate with a Mission mandated to investigate the lawful use of force by a State to protect its citizens, yet required to ignore the illegal armed attacks by terrorist groups which made such action necessary. Israel, however, continued its ongoing dialogue with the Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights, and its engagement and cooperation with numerous international organizations and NGO's conducting inquiries into events in Gaza.
A number of statements were made by Justice Goldstone to the effect that the terms of the mandate of the Mission had been changed.However, as a matter of law, no statement by any individual, only a resolution of the Council has the legal force to change the mandate of the Mission and it never did so.
Accordingly, the mandate of the Mission remained the objectionably one-sided mission established in Resolution S-9/1. Nonetheless, in the entire 575 pages of the Mission's report, not a single reference is made to OP 14, which provides the legal basis for its work.

Once again for the ones not listening in the back, please show me where in the report that it states that Israel's action in Gaza had nothing to do with the rockets fired into Israel. You didn't answer my question.

Shin Bet wrote: »

The Report supports the so-called "right" of Hamas to use force against Israel in the name of self-determination (269), while ignoring the consistent approach of Hamas – as evident in its Charter and the statements of its leaders which not only rejects the peace process agreed by Israel and the PLO but explicitly calls for the destruction of Israel. The Report describes the rocket attacks from Gaza, including those which immediately followed Israel's withdrawal of all forces and civilians from the area, as “reprisals” (109, 1662-1665(2)), in clear contradiction to the decisive position of the international community that terrorist acts are "in any circumstances unjustifiable". At the same time, the Report fails to acknowledge that stopping the rocket attacks was a valid objective and discusses the rocket attacks almost as an afterthought.
The Report seeks to limit the scope of a State's response to terrorist threats by downplaying and minimizing the effects of such attacks. For example, describing rocket and mortar attacks on the Israeli town of Ashdod, the Report describes the impact as "a brief interruption to its economy brought about by the temporary displacement of some of their residents"(107), simply ignoring the death and injury to Ashdod's residents caused by missile attacks.

Hamas launched thousands of rocket and mortar attacks on Israel and admitted embedding itself within the civilian population of Gaza. But the Report strives mightily to avoid finding that Hamas bears any responsibility for deaths and destruction in the Gaza Strip. In contrast, the Report is quick to blame Israel, presuming guilt absent compelling evidence to the contrary. Throughout, the Report deems statements of Israeli officials inherently untrustworthy, except where it misuses them to support its ordained conclusions. By contrast, the Report regularly credits statements by the “Gaza authorities” i.e, the Hamas terrorist organization as legitimate evidence, except where such statements admit wrongdoing or justify Israeli actions. Moreover, despite overwhelming evidence that Hamas and other terrorist groups operated from densely populated areas and from within hospitals and mosques, booby-trapped civilian areas, and sought to blend in with Palestinian non-combatants, the Report fails to investigate the most egregious and publicly known examples of such conduct, and even goes so far as to raise doubts regarding the intentionality of Hamas’ tactics

Once again you didn't answer my question. By the way, the right of self-determination is enshrined in international law and using force is a legitimate way of doing this as long as civilians are not targetted. As for most of the crap above, I have already addressed that in my previous post re. impact on Israeli civilians of rocket attacks. What you have copied and pasted above is utter horse shite and if you bothered arguing yourself you probably could have done a better job. I'm not even going to go into depth on this because it really is laughable.

**Edit**
Ha, just noticed that all this came from Israel's official reply to the report. Jesus, you'd think they'd be able to get their "facts" right. Pretty lame to be honest. You'd think a government would be able to at least try, or seen to try, to be professional.

Manic Moran

wes wrote: »

The IAEA has authority, as it investigates those who signed up to the non-proliferation treaty. Judge Goldstone has nothing to do with the IAEA, so I don't see why he would have the same powers as they do.

You're confusing mandate with authority. The IAEA has the mandate to conduct inspections, just as Judge Goldstone had a mandate to conduct the Gaza investigation. However, should IAEA inspectors be refused access, guess what? They can't do anything, and have to go to the UN to have the UN encourage/coerce compliance. The similarity should be fairly obvious.

Again, can you provide me with details on what powers to compel Israel were at Judge Goldstones disposal? I honestly have no idea, and I think your arguement hinges on whether he actually had much power to comple Israel to do anything.

We both agree he had no power at all. But he has a telephone. He has a voice. And he has a bunch of bosses who do have powers to do something.

So how exactly was the report "rushed"?

No particular effort was made by the UN or international community in general to make the report a complete one. You argue that attempting to force compliance from Israel would have been a waste of time because it's Israel. The implication then being that maybe it might have been worth a crack had the nations involved been two that nobody really cared about, like Ivory Coast and Senegal or some such, and I would agree with that. I do not agree that one should have a different process and skip possible actions just because it's Israel.

What factual inaccuracies occured due to the report being "rushed"?

None that I know of. The conclusions and implicatoins drawn from the facts are less reliable, however.

You claimed the report had no effect. If Israel needs lawyers due to it, there it has had a effect. That all I was argueing there.

Fair enough, pointless though the effect is. Governments might waste money attempting to prosecute the unprosecutable. Whoopdedoo. If the Irish Government attempted to prosecute an Israeli for war crimes using the Goldstone Report as evidence, the DPP Director should be fired for wasting taxpayer's money.

NTM

wes

Manic Moran wrote: »

You're confusing mandate with authority. The IAEA has the mandate to conduct inspections, just as Judge Goldstone had a mandate to conduct the Gaza investigation. However, should IAEA inspectors be refused access, guess what? They can't do anything, and have to go to the UN to have the UN encourage/coerce compliance. The similarity should be fairly obvious.

True, and the UN has authority to act due to provisions under the NPT, which make things different again. Also, we don't have a guaranteed veto from Russia or China against any resolution against Iran, for instance. This means the IAEA have a lot more at there disposal than Judge Goldstone.

Also, the IAEA reports and a report for the Human Rights council are 2 different things, they won't have the same processes.

Manic Moran wrote: »

We both agree he had no power at all. But he has a telephone. He has a voice. And he has a bunch of bosses who do have powers to do something.

Perhaps he didn't see much point in bothering, when any kind of action against Israel will be vetoed by the US. Just look at the support for the Operation Cast Lead offered by the US in January for instance.

Manic Moran wrote: »

No particular effort was made by the UN or international community in general to make the report a complete one. You argue that attempting to force compliance from Israel would have been a waste of time because it's Israel. The implication then being that maybe it might have been worth a crack had the nations involved been two that nobody really cared about, like Ivory Coast and Senegal or some such, and I would agree with that. I do not agree that one should have a different process and skip possible actions just because it's Israel.

Can you show me examples on how the Judge Goldstone acted differently than others who have also done similar reports for the Human Rights council? The IAEA is not equivalent btw, as that is a whole different organization, which investigates Nuclear proliferation, so there processes won't be exactly the same as report being made for the Human Rights council.

Manic Moran wrote: »

None that I know of. The conclusions and implicatoins drawn from the facts are less reliable, however.

That may be the case, but I can't really say either way.

Manic Moran wrote: »

Fair enough, pointless though the effect is. Governments might waste money attempting to prosecute the unprosecutable. Whoopdedoo. If the Irish Government attempted to prosecute an Israeli for war crimes using the Goldstone Report as evidence, the DPP Director should be fired for wasting taxpayer's money.

Not getting a prosecution is hardly a reason to fire anyone, otherwise we would have prosecutors who would be afraid to take cases, and this could cause criminals to go free.

Having said that, prosecution in countries that claim universal jurisidiction, would be be effected by a US veto from the security council, so a prosecution could be successful.

Still, the Goldstone report has at very least given us information at what actually occured during Operation Cast Lead, which I do not consider a waste of time.