UNDERSTANDING
THE GOLDSTONE REPORT

The Goldstone Report's pervasive flaws raise the larger question of how this inversion of both empirical observation and legal reasoning could come about?  At the same time, such a problematic opens up a second line of investigation about the implications that this report has for our broader understanding of the dynamics at work in the Middle East.  In a sense, the radical failures of the report offer an unparalleled opportunity for asking fundamental questions about how our alleged "elites" and "human rights advocates" have managed to so profoundly misinform us.

• Durban Strategy

The UN World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, that took place in September 2001 in Durban, South Africa, provided a key venue for promoting Israel as “an apartheid regime,” to be achieved through the use of human rights rhetoric and allegations of war crimes, thereby delegitimizing Israel as a sovereign state.

The text adopted in the NGO Forum at Durban provided a battle plan for the political war against Israel, to be led by the NGO network. The document asserts that the “targeted victims of Israel’s brand of apartheid and ethnic cleansing methods have been in particular children, women and refugees.” The authors labeled Israel a “racist apartheid state,” guilty of “genocide,” called for “an end to its ‘racist crimes’ against Palestinians,” and endorsed an international war crimes tribunal to try Israeli citizens. There were no references to Palestinian terror, or the use of densely-populated areas for sheltering terrorists to deter Israeli retaliation.

On this basis, the NGO participants agreed to

a policy of complete and total isolation of Israel as an apartheid state ... the imposition of mandatory and comprehensive sanctions and embargoes, the full cessation of all links (diplomatic, economic, social, aid, military cooperation and training) between all states and Israel.” The NGO declaration also condemned “those states who are supporting, aiding and abetting the Israeli apartheid state and its perpetration of racist crimes against humanity including ethnic cleansing, acts of genocide.”

Thus the Durban conference provided the strategy for the ensuing NGO-led political war against Israel, using weapons derived from the rhetoric of human rights and international law, and conducted in concert and under the umbrella of the UN Human Rights Commission (and subsequent Council), the media, churches, and university campuses. The subsequent battles included the Jenin “massacre” and “war crimes” reports (April 2002), the campaign against the separation barrier (“apartheid wall”) that involved the UN General Assembly resolution referring the issue to the highly politicized International Court of Justice for an “advisory opinion”, the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) campaigns, the 2006 Lebanon war, and numerous other incidents.

The Goldstone “fact finding” report on Gaza is the latest embodiment of the Durban Strategy. As a member of HRW’s board and a staunch supporter of Ken Roth, who has headed HRW since 1993, Goldstone has been active in this process of isolating and delegitimizing Israel, using questionable (at the very least) allegations of human rights and international law violations.  Goldstone’s report reflects all of the elements of the strategy, including heavy reliance on false or unverifiable “evidence” from NGOs, removal of the context of terror and the obligation of self-defense, carefully selection of cases in order to highlight allegations against Israel, and distorted interpretations of international law.

The scripts in each of these cases, including Goldstone, are very consistent. The elements include allegations of Israeli “war crimes”; removal or minimalization of the context of terror (Goldstone follows the standard HRW ratio of about 5 to 1, to create the façade of “balance”); unsupported NGO-based “evidence” and “witnesses”; narrowly and artificially defined issues, time frames, and cases to exclude attacks against Israel; totally distorted international legal claims; rejection of Israeli investigations as “inadequate”; and demands for international action designed to further the Durban strategy of total isolation and delegitimation.

This is the political context in which the Goldstone “fact finding mission” was established, and in which the report, as well as Goldstone’s justifications, can be understood.

• Comparable Cases

One of Israel's criticisms of the report concerns the lack of perspective involved.  Around the same time as Operation Cast Lead, there were several other conflicts going on around the world in which the civilian casualty tolls were uniformly higher, in the comparable case of Sri Lanka, by an order of 20-30 times higher.  Here we review not only "Third World" conflicts like Sudna, Sri Lanka and Democratic Republic of Congo, but also the performance of major Western armies like the British and the US forces in Iraq, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.  Similarly, we compare the kinds of war crimes and crimes against humanity that Goldstone investigated earlier in his career with those for which he accused Israel.

• Singling Out Israel

A look at the comparable cases raises the obvious question why the media focuses so ferociously on Israel to the exclusion of so many other, far more violent and destructive actors on the world scene.  One of the current definitions of (or shibboleths for) anti-semitism is the degree to which people apply a double (or triple or quadruple) standard in which Israel is singled out for opprobrium for doing things that other countries -- including their enemies -- do with impunity.  This preoccupation with Israel and her faults/sins has become a documented characteristic of many groups that style themselves "progressive" -- "Human Rights" NGOs, MSNM, UN.  This section seeks to document the phenomenon and open a discussion about both the motivations behind it and its consequences.

• Jews, Israel, Self-Criticism

The particularly Jewish cultural trait of self-criticism has played a major role in the perception and understanding of the entire Goldstone controversy; Goldstone's Judaism, and his longstanding connections to Israel have been used by his supporters to validate the report, while some critics accuse him of betraying his people.  Indeed, Goldstone defends himself by invoking the principle that such self-criticism is particularly incumbent on Jews given their values and history.  

This debate takes place within a larger one on the limits of decent Jewish and Israeli self-criticism, and at what point unrestrained self-criticism ends up ratifying anti-semitism.  On the one hand, rigorous moralists insist that only the most severe self criticism can restrain Israeli behavior, and that no limits should inhibit this public soul-searching; on the other those attuned to its role in reinforcing the demonizing and delegitimation of Israel argue that there should be significant limits to what one might call decent self-criticism.

Part of the problem concerns the public nature of the debate.  While Jews and Israelis like to engage in public self-criticism (even self-flagellation), Arab culture abhors public self-criticism.  Indeed part of Hamas' behavior in the conflict reflects a strong tendency to violently suppress internal dissent, as well as to demonize and scapegoat the enemy.  As a result of this vast cultural difference, outsiders can suffer from epistemological disorientation:  Most people and nations avoid self-criticism whenever possible, so when Israel admits to wrong-doing, most people think it must be guilty of much more.

This section seeks to lay out these issues in conjunction with the Goldstone report, and the larger problem of Israel's image among the nations.  It's aim is to explore ways to allow self-criticism while eviscerating its use against Israel by enemies of both Israel and the self-critical culture of democracy.

• (Un)intended Consequences

Goldstone, his associates, and his supporters, have repeatedly insisted that their intention is to improve the global situation for human rights and protection for civilians in times of military conflict.  Critics contend that the inversions of reality that the Report repeatedly articulates and endorses will have the opposite effect from that intended: it encourages abuse of civilians by organizations like Hamas and Hizbullah and punishes entities that try (however imperfectly) to protect those civilians and the larger culture of human rights.  Students of the phenomenon of "bite-back" have analyzed its various dynamics.  Here we propose to discuss the relationship between faulty argument and negative unintended consequence with in the framework of the Goldstone Report, and more generally, within the framework of adopting a weaponized narrative as a path to peace.

• Cognitive Warfare

• What we can Learn

Finally, this section raises the largest question: What can be learned from the Goldstone Report. Criticizing it, fixating on its endless imperfections, outrages, and idiocies becomes increasingly unhelpful over time.  Here we invite people to write essays about what the Goldstone Report teaches us about the state of our understanding, our institutions, and our public discourse today.  All submissions, whether of already published or posted piece, or original essays are welcome.