Allister Sparks owes an apology to his readers for departing from sound journalistic practice by failing to identify the report from which he quotes. Had he done so, readers would have been able to refer to it and judge for themselves, rather than being restricted to his interpretations. The cherry picked snippets he chose to quote, give a grossly distorted picture of the huge amount of serious investigative material contained in the 34 page Israel report, “Gaza Operation Investigations: Second Update July 2010″ that is readily accessible athttp://tinyurl.com/38xexqn.

Readers are entitled to be told about the report’s description of the multiple layers of review in  Israel’s investigative system that ensure impartiality and independence as well as the fact that Supreme Court review can be initiated by a petition of any interested party, including Palestinians who live in Gaza.

The seriousness with which the IDF treats the enforcement of humanitarian behavior is reflected in the fact that the report refers to 47 criminal investigations relating to the Gaza Operation.  Rather than vindicating the Goldstone report, as claimed by Mr. Sparks, these indictments reflect an admirable determination to ensure that even in the midst of intense warfare, violations of the IDF’s strict code of purity of arms are not tolerated.

The blatant flaws in the Goldstone Report that Mr. Sparks defends, include

a) The Goldstone Mission’s obstinate refusal to consider available expert evidence that contradicted its preconceived opinions. For example, my suggestion that Colonel Richard Kemp be invited to give expert evidence was flatly rejected despite his formidable experience of the type of warfare conducted in Gaza. And it was rejected  for the implausible reason,  “..there was no reliance on Col. Kemp mainly because in our Report we did not deal with the issues he raised regarding the problems of conducting military operations in civilian areas and second-guessing decisions made by soldiers and their commanding officers in the fog of war.”

(Colonel Kemp had told the BBC that in the Cast Lead Operation, Israeli forces did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in the combat zone, than any army in the history of warfare).

Other highly relevant professional memoranda were also ignominiously ignored such as those from a group of fifteen Australian lawyers, NGO Monitor, Bnai Brith and Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs among others.

b) Its failure to recognize that the IDF is a citizens’ army. Like all populations in the world, Israel’s citizens regrettably include some rotten apples among those who are drafted into the army. Consequently grossly objectionable aberrations from standard behavior inevitably occur to the shame of the IDF and the country. It is however indefensible to generalize from these exceptions.

c) Abject failure to recognize that despite the greatest care, civilian casualties inevitably occur in situations where combatants merge with the civilian population. And this applies not only to the Israeli army, but equally to NATO and British forces in Afghanistan and most significantly to US forces even during President Obama’s watch. The following examples are not quoted in order to claim that it is OK for Israel because others do it, but rather to forcefully show that responsible journalists must recognize the realities of clashes with forces like Hizbulla, Hamas and the Taliban who make callous use of civilian populations.

For example, on May 12, 2010 The Nation reported that Obama praised US forces for their restraint in Afghanistan, saying, “Because of Gen McChrystal’s direction, often times they’re holding fire, they’re hesitating, they’re being cautious about how they operate even though it would be safer for  them to go ahead and take these locations out.”

Despite these precautions, the same article reports that US Special Forces killed five people, including three women who collectively had 16 children. The US military tried to cover up and blame it on the Taliban, but later, General McChrystal’s command admitted US-led forces had done the killing, saying it was an accident. The article also refers to an incident when US warplanes bombed civilian houses in Farah province killing more than 100 people? The dead, according to the Red Cross, included an “Afghan Red Crescent volunteer and 13 members of his family who had been sheltering from fighting in a house that was bombed” in the air strike. US Military sources floated the story to NBC and other outlets that Taliban fighters used grenades to kill three families to “stage” a massacre and then blame it on the US.

British forces are not exempt. The Guardian on July 25, 2010 reported the US army’s archives contain descriptions of at least 21 separate occasions in which British troops are said to have shot or bombed Afghan civilians, including women and children.

The logs identify at least 26 people killed and another 20 wounded as a result. Some casualties were accidentally caused by air strikes, but many also are said to involve British troops firing on unarmed drivers or motorcyclists who come “too close” to convoys or patrols. The number of dead and wounded alleged to have been caused by the British include 16 children, at least three women and a mentally ill man. The number is a small fraction of the 369 civilian casualties listed in the logs resulting from coalition – mostly US – action in total.

British troops at a checkpoint in Sangin killed four and wounded three civilians in July. In August a  Para squad rocketed what it thought were insurgents, killing three civilians and wounding four. And in September an unarmed motorcyclist was shot dead by a British patrol.

When Guardian correspondent Declan Walsh, interviewed victims in hospital, witnesses described a shooting spree in which vengeful or scared UK soldiers shot at bystanders, killing two and wounding five. Unlike the IDF’s detailed investigations, the MoD never publicly investigated these allegations.

In these circumstances, an unprejudiced reader who examines the complete report of the Israeli military investigation cannot but conclude that Allister Spark’s claim that it vindicates the Goldstone commission is plainly absurd.

Judge Goldstone is not criticized because he criticized Israel, but because the report that bears his name is deeply flawed as rationally analyzed on a web site based on empirical evidence and cogent reasoning under the title “Understanding the Goldstone Report”. It urges readers to agree or disagree, not because of how they feel about Israel or the Palestinians, but because of the evidence. Unlike Mr. Sparks, the site invites readers to examine the arguments without prejudice, make up their own minds and, where they see problems, to challenge them. (http://www.goldstonereport.org/ )

Mr. Spark’s insinuation that Rabbi Goldstein suggested that “it is a Jewish person’s inherent duty either to set aside his professional ethics and find in favor of the state of Israel regardless of the merits of a case” ignores the facts. It is a baseless accusation that demands an abject apology from Mr. Sparks