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Case Study al Maqadmah Mosque Harris, The Goldstone Report Forgery: Al Maqadmah Mosque, Harris Ad Hoc
Case Study al Maqadmah Mosque Harris, The Goldstone Report Forgery: Al Maqadmah Mosque, Harris Ad Hoc
| Harris, The Goldstone Report Forgery: Al Maqadmah Mosque, Harris Ad Hoc |
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The events according to the written Report: »822. The al-Maqadmah mosque is situated near the north-west outskirts of Jabaliyah camp, close to Beit Lahia. It is located less than 100 metres from the Kamal Idwan hospital, in the al- Alami housing project. At least 15 people were killed and around 40 injured – many seriously – when the Israeli armed forces struck the entrance of the mosque with a missile.« The written report makes it very clear: The mosque was struck by a missile fired by the IDF.
This assumption is elaborated later on:
»834. The Mission has established that the Israeli armed forces fired a missile that struck near the doorway of the mosque. The penetration pattern witnessed on the concrete ramp and stairs underneath is consistent with that which would be expected of a shrapnel fragmentation sleeve fitted onto an air-to-ground missile. Shrapnel cubes that the Mission retrieved from the rear inside wall of the mosque are consistent with what would be expected to be discharged by a missile of this nature.463« and in a footnote:
»463 The Mission considers it possible in analysing the information available that the missile in question may have been a modified high-explosive anti-tank missile, sometimes referred to as either augmented high-explosive antitank (AHEAT) or high-explosive dual-purpose (HEDP).«
And the report clearly states that the projectile exploded at or in front of the door:
»828. The Mission has also viewed a number of photographs taken shortly after the strike and considers them to be reliable. They showed that something had penetrated the concrete (about three inches thick) immediately outside of the mosque doorway and then hit the pavement at the bottom of the stairs below the concrete covering. The ramp and entrance level structure had a wall about one metre high built on its outer side. The part of the wall opposite the mosque door was blown away.« »829. The Mission observed that the interior walls of the mosque and part of the exterior wall around the doorway appeared to have suffered significant damage as a result of a spray of small metal cubes. A good number of these were lodged in the wall even at the time of the Mission’s visit to the site in June 2009. Several of these were retrieved and the Mission could see how deeply embedded they were in the concrete walls.« So Goldstone and his colleagues know for sure that this had been a missile impact. This assumption is the most important indication for a responsibility of the Israelis for this incident. But a anti-tank missile is not necessarily a airborne missile. If it were the result of a mortar shell impact or a RPG also used by the Hamas it very well could have been a misguided or intentionally placed mortar shell shot by the Hamas. No witness present at or in the mosque during the incident would have been able to distinguish between a Israeli mortar shell and a Hamas mortar shell. And they know for sure that it had taken place at or in front of the main door of the mosque. Otherwise there would have been no damage to the exterior wall of the mosque.
It seems that Goldstone is developing the case against the Israelis after the publication of the report. In a UN press conference on September the 15th 2009 (the day the report was published) (v) he puts forward an additional argument against claims or suggestions that there might have been weapons caches inside the mosque which would justify a strike against this building. This is interesting because the written report does not mention this. He claims that no secondary explosion had been observed (Time Index 1:17): »And I might say there was no evidence of any secondary that one would expect if there were weapons being stored there«
Actually one would not expect that, if the projectile had exploded outside the mosque as stated in the report. For Goldstone this mosque has to be pristine: He wants to make clear that it was not used by the Hamas. It seems that this contradiction lead him to another spin of the story at the same day: On September 15th, 2009 (the day the report was published) he gave an interview to the Al Jazeera broadcasting service (vi). In this interview he presented the case of the mosque incident. When asked about it he told the audience the modified story (Time Index 4:30):
»Q: You highlight in your report an attack on a mosque in Gaza City. Tell us a little bit more about
this incident and what it demonstrates about Israeli conduct in this war.« »A: Well, the incident I refer to was eh took place during the evening service in a large new three year old mosque in the middle of Gaza City. Ehm it was crowded with some hundreds of worshipers who were gathered for what is a combined morning and afternoon service that takes place during times of war. And a Israeli mortar shell was fired at the mosque and in fact went through the main door of the mosque killing fifteen people and seriously injuring many more. And this was the incident and our mission could absolutely not find a military advantage or military justification in what appeared to us very clearly to be an attack against innocent civilians« The air-to-ground missile from the written report not only has turned into a mortar shell. This mortar shell now also »went through the main door of the mosque« i.e. exploded inside the mosque after traveling a quite unusual trajectory for mortar shells. Mortars fire grenades into very steep trajectories in general. Goldstone is suggesting the quite unlikely case of a flat trajectory which is needed for a grenade traveling »through the main door« of a mosque. But this is actually needed for maintaining the idea of a pristine mosque without any weapons caches inside and therefore no secondary explosions: The projectile must have been exploded inside the building. Otherwise the absence of secondary explosions would not have been a indication for the absence of weapons inside the mosque.
Two days later in a lecture (vii) at the Western Law Ontario as part of the Pensa Lecture in Human Rights on Sept 17, 2009 Goldstone repeated this story (Time Index 19:00) »And we talk about the incidents that we considered to be unacceptable from an international humanitarian point of view. Let me mention one that related to the shelling by the IDF of a mosque. It was a fairly newly constructed mosque, it was under three years old. And a service the morning and evening services were combined during the war eh because it was decided by the leaders that the people shouldn't be more in the street more than they had to. So they had the morning and evening services combined in the late afternoon. And this mosque was full, over three hundred people. During the ceremony a mortal shell comes through the front the main front door of the mosque kills fifteen worshipping and injures many more. Now there can be no justification at all for shelling a mosque when it's full of civilians.«
The latter may be true. But what are the justifications for spinning a story about an evil Israeli air-strike against civilians in a mosque?
But by spinning this story Goldstone has caught him some problems: If it had indeed been a mortar shell that exploded outside or inside the mosque, then the origin of the projectile would be not so clear after all: The Hamas uses mortars as well. The idea that the IDF had fired a single mortar round deliberately and precisely at the entrance door of a mosque is just silly, because it is impossible. And the mission members know that: »699. The choice of weapon – mortars – appears to have been a reckless one. Mortars are area weapons. They kill or maim whoever is within the impact zone after detonation and they are incapable of distinguishing between combatants and civilians. A decision to deploy them in a location filled with civilians is a decision that a commander knows will result in the death and injuries of some of those civilians.«
But they only know that when it seems possible to use it against the Israelis.
In fact the mission members needed the projectile to be some sort of high precision ammunition such as an air-to-ground missile to build the entire case of a mosque entrance door deliberately targeted and hit by the Israelis. If it had been a mortar shell (Israeli or not) as Goldstone has claimed since the publication of the written report – in the press conference, in the Al Jazeera interview and in the lecture - the claim of such a precision targeting and with it the entire case would have been baseless. The only group who could have produced a targeted mortar grenade explosion at the entrance door of that mosque is the Hamas. But such a Pallywood-style propaganda coup – and the »Palestinian resistance« has a long documented track record for such propaganda coups (viii) - probably exceeds the mindset of the mission members. Richard Goldstone is completely incompetent as a member of a mission which purpose is to find facts that could lead to war crimes prosecutions: He either does not deem it necessary or is not able to distinguish between a airborne missile strike on that mosque which obviously could only be carried out by the IDF, a ground-based strike with an anti-tank-missile which could as well have been carried out by the Hamas for propaganda purposes and the detonation of a mortar shell, flying through the mosque entrance door and exploding inside the mosque which could have been fired by almost anyone. Or he is blatantly lying either about a mortar shell explosion that in fact was a air-to-ground anti-tank missile impact, or – which is more plausible – he along with the other mission members is lying about a deliberate air-to-ground anti-tank missile strike by the IDF on the entrance of a crowded mosque.
Considering Goldstone´s track record as war crimes prosecutor in Yugoslavia and Rwanda and his former membership of the South African Constitutional Court one must assume that he is able to precisely reproduce witness testimonies and other evidence – if he wants to. Additional Remarks Regarding the Mosque Case
*The interview of the three Al-Silawis conducted by the 'fact-finding mission' headed by judge Goldstone and his colleagues (public hearings) is in fact not really a fact-finding interview but propaganda sermon brought forward by the Al-Silawis as well. They combined held statements of not less than 18 minutes (of 40 minutes total) without being asked a single question. The Imam Al-Silawi preaching inside the mosque "saw the rocket coming to the land and it exploded to my understanding before hitting the ground because shrapnels were just showering the area..." (while making a hand movement towards the table). He saw the 'rocket' from inside the mosque? The Mission member repeats the question whether he saw or heard the missile. He then modifies his statement by saying that he heard the rocket and then saw shower of shrapnels. (31:00..) The Pakistani member of the Mission then asks for the number of 'martyrs' and wounded. Apparently martyr now is a terminus technicus at the UN. *Claims that the worshipers who had attended the services in this mosque or the local imams were not affiliated with the Hamas are just pathetic considering the origin of the mosque´s name: The »Martyr Ibrahim al-Maqadmah Mosque« is named after the terrorist Dr. Ibrahim al-Maqadmah, a founder of Hamas who was believed to be the top commander of its military wing, which has waged a bombing campaign against Israel since mainstream Palestinian leaders signed interim peace accords with the Jewish state in 1993. He was killed in an Israeli air strike in 2003 (xi). Making this claim is similar to claiming that worshipers who frequently are attending services in a fictional Adolf-Hitler-Memorial-Temple are not affiliated with Nazism.
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