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Israel’s refusal to Participate

UNHRC

On April 3, 2009, four months after the end of Israel's Operation Cast Lead in Gaza (December 27, 2008-January 1, 2009), the UNHRC appointed (former) Chief Justice of South Africa, Richard Goldstone the head of a "Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict." The Goldstone Fact-Finding Mission was controversial from the start. It was commissioned by the UNHRC, an organization, headed and manned by representatives from nations who are systematic violators of their own people’s human rights, and whose hypocritical obsession with condemning Israel to the exclusion of all other human catastrophes is a matter of justifiable satire.

Mandate

The mandate the UNHRC developed is a matter of great importance. Judge Goldstone explicitly claims he took the position as head of the FFM because they had changed the mandate to be more "even-handed." Originally it specifically targeted Israel, and, in its language, anticipated a verdict of guilty. The accusations that Hamas had used human shields, fired from among civilians at civilians, dressed as civilians, used ambulances and hospitals—all of which are war crimes and which helped explain civilian casualties, were not on the agenda for examination at all. With so one-sided a mandate, even Mary Robinson, who presided over one of the most vocal anti-Israel assemblies of the new century – Durban, August 2001 – refused to head the commission.

Richard Goldstone accepted with a request that the range of the inquiry be enlarged to include Hamas’ behavior, and, in appointing Goldstone and other members of the Mission, the Council President rephrased the charge in accordance with Goldstone’s request. However, the President never requested nor received any UNHRC approval for the change; the “revised” mandate was never legally binding; and the Report reflects the original mandate in almost every aspect of its approach – from its framng narrative, to its selection of evidence and witnesses, to its harsh conclusions.

Choice of Judges:

Further controversy surrounded the choice of judges, three of whom – Goldstone, Travers and Jalani – signed an Amnesty International petition, stating they were “shocked to the core” by events and calling for a war crimes investigation, a call some found disturbingly one-sided. The fourth member, Christine Chinkin, signed an even more openly hostile public letter to the Sunday Times, in the midst of the fighting and long before any investigation could take place, in which she and her co-signers accused Israel of acting “contrary to international humanitarian and human rights law” and committing “prima facia war crimes.”

Chinkin’s inclusion in the committee prompted a group of Australian lawyers and UN Watch to request Chinkin’s removal on the basis of expressed bias. The request was denied, and Chinkin defended herself by falsely claiming that her Sunday Times letter did not address international humanitarian law and human rights law and instead addressed only jus ad bellum. Even Goldstone admitted that, if this were a real tribunal and not a “Fact-Finding Mission,” her participation would be problematic. A group of Canadian lawyers and British lawyers and academics wrote formal protests.

Israel’s Refusal to take part:

Israel’s refusal to take part in the inquiry, even refusing Goldstone entry to Gaza through, was based on these issues, in particular the The Mandate of the Mission and its composition and conduct. The decision remains controversial to this day, with Goldstone claiming that Israel's participation would have changed the results significantly in its favor, and others challenging his counter-factual version of history.

Emet m'Ziyon, Goldstone's Henchman, Colonel Travers, Is another Piece of Work

Goldstone's Henchman, Colonel Travers, Is another Piece of Work

Sunday, November 08, 2009

Anti-Zionism is the anti-imperialism of fools

Many lies resembling truth, Hesiod, Theogony

The moral flimsiness of the Goldstone Commission, also called the UNHRC Fact Finding [fact-finding, no less] Mission on the Gaza Conflict, shows up not only in the matrix from which it emerged, the UN human rights council, a corrupt body with an Orwellian name. It also shows up in its personnel, Richard Goldstone himself, Hina Jilani, Christine Chinkin, and Desmond Travers.

Goldstone's conduct as chief prosecutor of the ICTY [Yugoslav criminal tribunal] was meant to besmirch and incriminate Serbs as much as possible, going easy on the Croats and the Bosnian Muslims, while making sure that the major Western powers that had played a decisive role in instigating the Yugoslav conflict were not tarnished in the least. That's Goldstone.

Then there is Ms Professor Christine Chinkin who had notoriously made up her mind as to the identity of the guilty party beforebeing appointed to the "fact-finding commission."

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The section of Friedmann's article that deals specifically with the creation and composition of the GFFM. His comments on Christine Chinkin's inclusion are particularly sharp.

Exclusive: 'Goldstone report - the terrorists' Magna Carta'

Oct. 29, 2009
DANIEL FRIEDMANN , THE JERUSALEM POST

A commission created in sin gives birth to an aberration

Israel has suffered from terrorism since its establishment, long before it was blamed for having conquered territories from which attacks against it were launched. The war of terror changed phases, becoming more and more sinister. From "simple" murder of women and children, it turned into airplane hijackings, murdering hostages, suicide bombers and global terror - including the mass murder of members of the Israeli team during the Olympic Games in Munich. During the past eight years a new mode of terror has developed - that of firing rockets on civilian targets from the Gaza Strip. Some 12,000 rockets have been fired, terrorizing hundreds of thousands of Israelis and causing tremendous damage to the economy.

None of these actions triggered UN intervention. Moreover, other countries involved in the war against terror elsewhere in the world - such as in Iraq, Sri Lanka, Chechnya, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Turkey - have remained immune to fact-finding missions by the Human Rights Council, despite the thousands of civilians killed or wounded in these conflicts, and the hundreds of thousands who have been displaced. Israel, the victim of incessant rocket attacks and endless acts of terror, has been singled out for special treatment.

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Maurice Ostroff, author of numerous submissions to the FFM, expresses his reservations on the creation and mandate of the Mission, especially its ability and willingness to investigate infractions by Hamas.

An open response to Judge Goldstone from Maurice Ostroff

May 23, 2009

Dear Judge Goldstone,

Thank you very much for your courteous responses to my emails and for the copy of the near verbatim report of the April 16, press conference.

I refrained from writing until now because in your email of May 13 you said that, at that stage you could not make any exceptions to the decision that no further public comments would be made by the Fact Finding Mission until developments warrant them.

I am writing now because it appears,in view of your widely publicized statements on May 20, that developments again warrant public statements. You are reported as saying that the UN investigation into possible war crimes in Israel and Gaza will go ahead with or without Israel’s cooperation and you expressed disappointment at not receiving a positive response from the Israeli government.

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Here is a transcript of the session of the UNHRC in Geneva at which Goldstone was officially appointed the head of the FFM. The issue of mandate is addressed specifically.

Near verbatim transcript of press conference in Geneva re: The Establishment by the UN Human Rights Council of a Fact-Finding mission on Gaza, led by Justice Goldstone.

(Note relevant paragraphs highlighted in bold)

Thursday, 16 April 2009 12:50 Added by PT Editor Sameh A. Habeeb

Palestine, April 16th, 2009, (Pal Telegraph) - Near verbatim transcript of press conference by the President of the Human Rights Council, Martin Ihoeghian Uhomoibhi (Nigeria) and Justice Richard J. Goldstone on the announcement of the Human Rights Council fact-finding mission on the conflict in the Gaza Strip

Amb. Uhomoibhi: I am deeply honored to be sitting here with Justice Richard J. Goldstone; a man with a very distinguished career in promoting and defending human rights; and a man who you know well. Justice Goldstone is an internationally respected academic and the former Chief Prosecutor of the United Nations’ International Criminal Tribunal of Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. I have decided to appoint Justice Goldstone to lead the fact-finding mission called for by the Human Rights Council, in its Resolution S/9-1 adopted at the 9th special session held in January this year.

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Conclusions about Israel's guilt in Gaza were voiced well in advance of a 'fact-finding' mission

By ZION EVRONY

Saturday October 10 2009

Last January, speaking to the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs, I asked the question 'What would you do?' if Ireland found itself in a situation comparable to that of Israel at the end of 2008, following eight years of rocket and mortar attacks on its southern communities from Hamas-ruled Gaza. In the months since, nobody in Ireland has come forward with an answer to my question.

An implied answer has now come from an international source, in the shape of the report of the Goldstone "fact-finding" mission into the Gaza conflict at the start of this year.

The answer is that, in practice, a democratic state confronted with terrorist attacks against its citizens must do nothing. Terrorists everywhere will rejoice that a UN- mandated body has effectively ruled that there are no legitimate means by which states may counter the complex and innovative terrorist techniques evolved by groups such as Hamas.

The mission was mandated by the so-called Human Rights Council, a misnomer if ever there was one. This body, which has contained paragons of human rights values such as Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Cuba, currently has nothing to say about, for example, the 400,000 deaths in Darfur for which Sudan is responsible, or the 1,000,000 displaced civilians in Somalia.

It had absolutely nothing to say during the years when 12,000 Hamas rockets -- more than 7,000 since Israel's withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 -- landed on houses, streets, hospitals and schools, making a speciality of targeting the morning school-going period, and only an efficient system of shelters prevented heavy civilian casualties. Not a single UN resolution was passed condemning those criminal attacks.

Instead, of the 25 resolutions passed by the Council in the three years since its foundation, 20 have singled out Israel for censure.

The Goldstone mission contained members who had clearly voiced their conclusions about Israel's guilt well in advance of any "fact-finding" being carried out. This led several distinguished individuals, including former President of Ireland and former High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, to refuse invitations to chair the mission. Ms Robinson objected that the mission seemed to her to be "guided not by human rights but by politics".

During its investigation, the mission did not ask its witnesses any questions relating to Hamas terrorist activity, the storage of weaponry in civilian areas or the launching of attacks from those areas. Except in one case, it failed to inquire into the widespread reports of the abuse of mosques to hide weapons and terrorist activity.

The Goldstone report accuses Israel of targeting Gaza's hospitals, but admits that it did not investigate the well-corroborated reports that the Hamas command centre was located in Shifa Hospital. Why did it not ask such questions? A clue is provided by its admission that the witnesses appeared "reluctant to speak about the presence or conduct of hostilities by the Palestinian armed groups" -- a reluctance which it says "may have stemmed from a fear of [Hamas] reprisals".

The report quotes the boast of a Hamas spokesman that it had created "a human shield of women, children, the elderly and the jihad fighters" but, incredibly, goes on to state that it does not consider this as evidence against Hamas.

In the narrative of the report, there is no place for the extensive diplomatic and political efforts made by Israel to avoid an outbreak of hostilities. Neither is there any place for self-defence. Former Prime Minister Olmert's direct plea on Al-Arabiya TV to the people of Gaza, just before the conflict, to stop the Hamas rocket fire, and his statement "that we are not acting against [the residents of Gaza] and that we have no intention of punishing them for the actions of Hamas", are ignored.

A recognised expert with insight into the dilemmas associated with combating the tactics of groups such as Hamas is Colonel Richard Kemp, former commander of British forces in Afghanistan. Yet the commission made no attempt to interview him. Judge Goldstone admitted: "There was no reliance on Colonel 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 ... "

The warning systems implemented by Israel to limit civilian casualties -- dropping one million flyers, sending tens of thousands of text messages and cellphone calls asking people to leave target areas -- measures which were, according to Colonel Kemp, unprecedented in the history of warfare, are mentioned in the report only to be criticised as "inadequate".

In complex urban warfare, despite the best precautions, civilian casualties are tragically inevitable. There may also have been incidents in which a few soldiers did not always maintain the standards that Israel expected of them.

The true test of a democracy is how it examines its own failings. Israel has opened more than 100 separate investigations into allegations of misconduct arising out of the Gaza conflict, and instituted criminal proceedings in 23 of these.

Overall, the worst feature of the Goldstone report is the moral equation it makes between a democratic state seeking to put an end to attacks against its citizens, and the terrorist group responsible for those attacks.

In the first case, the motives and intentions of Israel are treated as inherently suspect, and its own scrutiny and judicial mechanisms treated as flawed and inadequate. In the second case, Hamas, referred to as "the Gaza authorities", is allotted small space in the report. The history of its aggression is ignored, and its charter, calling for the killing of Jews and the destruction of Israel, similarly ignored.

However, regardless of this report, Israel is ready to open peace negotiations with the Palestinian Authority without any preconditions.

Hopefully, eventually, Israel and moderate Palestinians will be able to forge a lasting peace, based on two states for two peoples: the state of Israel that already exists as the homeland of the Jewish people and a future Palestinian state as the homeland of the Palestinian people.

Zion Evrony is the Israeli Ambassador to Ireland

- ZION EVRONY

Irish Independent

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U.K. lawyers and academics protest Goldstone Mission’s failure to disqualify biased LSE professor

Published by UN Watch - at September 10, 2009

The following open letter by British lawyers and academics was sent today to LSE professor Christine Chinkin in reaction to the Goldstone inquiry’s recent rejection of UN Watch’s request that she step down due to her prior statements. UN rights chief Navi Pillay expressed the hope that the report, due out on Saturday, be used by the Security Council to refer Israel to the International Criminal Court on charges of war crimes. For more info, click here.

Professor Christine Chinkin Law Department London School of Economics Houghton Street London WC2A 2AE

10 September 2009

Dear Professor Chinkin,

We wish to express our support for the UN Watch request that you be disqualified from the United Nations Human Rights Council’s fact-finding mission on the Gaza conflict and our disappointment that this well-founded request was recently rejected by the mission, as reported by the Jewish Chronicle (”Dispute over ‘biased’ Gaza inquiry professor,” 28 August 2009).

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This is the open letter to the Sunday Times in the midst of the fighting (Jan 11) that Christine Chinkin signed, condemning Israel of war crimes. It is notable for its reliance on news media reports for its knowledge about the things it condemns, and its adoption of the Palestinian narrative of sequence and response. In both of these details, largely foreshadows the thinking of the Goldstone Mission. Signing the letter with Chinkin was Professor Richard Falk, open advocate of cognitive warfare against Israel.

From The Sunday Times

January 11, 2009

Israel’s bombardment of Gaza is not self-defence – it’s a war crime

ISRAEL has sought to justify its military attacks on Gaza by stating that it amounts to an act of “self-defence” as recognised by Article 51, United Nations Charter. We categorically reject this contention.

The rocket attacks on Israel by Hamas deplorable as they are, do not, in terms of scale and effect amount to an armed attack entitling Israel to rely on self-defence. Under international law self-defence is an act of last resort and is subject to the customary rules of proportionality and necessity.

The killing of almost 800 Palestinians, mostly civilians, and more than 3,000 injuries, accompanied by the destruction of schools, mosques, houses, UN compounds and government buildings, which Israel has a responsibility to protect under the Fourth Geneva Convention, is not commensurate to the deaths caused by Hamas rocket fire.

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Amnesty International organized a letter expressing "being shocked to the core by what was happening in Gaza." This letter came out almost two months after the hostilities had occurred and expressed the results of the preliminary investigations of the Human Rights NGOs, Western, Palestinian, and Israeli. Within a month, 20,000 Tamil civilians would lie dead without any of these signatories expressing any sense of shock, suggesting that, despite their studiously neutral language about "both sides," the behavior that really shocked them was Israel's. Certainly this attitude would reflect the kind of work that Amnesty International was putting out on the conflict at that time, and in fact, the eventual report did not come anywhere near to looking equally on both sides. This letter was signed by the other three eventual judges in the Fact-Finding Mission: Goldstone, Travers, and Jilani.

Gaza: World's leading investigators call for war crimes inquiry - open letter

Source: Amnesty International (AI)

Date: 16 Mar 2009

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Mary Robinson and Justice Richard Goldstone among signatories "shocked to core" by recent events

A 16-strong group of the world's most experienced investigators and judges have today (16 March) called for a full international investigation into alleged abuses of international law during the recent Gaza conflict.

The call, supported by Amnesty International, is made in an open letter (full text below) to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon as well as all members of the UN Security Council. The letter comes at a time when a UN Board of Inquiry is expected to report to the UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, on its initial findings regarding attacks on UN facilities and personnel in the region.

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Thursday Jul 02, 2009

Double Standard Watch: The UN kangaroo "investigation" of Israeli "war crimes"

Posted by Alan Dershowitz
Comments: 37

Just as Spain's national Court decided to shelve a phony war crime investigation of a 2002 Israeli air strikein Gaza, a group of lawyers and military experts assigned by the United Nations Human Rights Council continued its phony investigation of "the grave violations of human rights in the occupied Palestinian Territory, particularly due to the recent Israeli military attacks against the occupied Gaza Strip."

The UN Human Rights Council is a scandal. It's a successor to the defunct UN Human Rights Commission. Both organizations have a long history of singling out Israel for condemnation and of ignoring real human rights abusers by the world's worst offenders, several of which dominate the Human Rights Council and it predecessor.

As Hudson Institute scholar Anne Bayefsky recently noted: "The Council has adopted more resolutions and decisions condemning Israel than all the other 191 UN member states combined. The more time the Council spends demonizing Israel, the less likely it becomes that it will ever get around to condemning genocide in Sudan, female slavery in Saudi Arabia, or torture in Egypt."

The very mandate that authorized the Gaza investigation reveals its bias against Israel. The council has already concluded, without any pretense an investigation, that Israel is guilty of "grave violations of human rights.due to its military attacks."

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From Israel Matzav

Thursday, September 17, 2009

The Goldstone mandate

The Australian makes a serious mistake on the Goldstone Commission's mandate, which I suspect has been repeated elsewhere. Let's get it right.

In calling in January for an investigation, the original HRC resolution blamed Israel for "massive violations of human rights", a determination before the investigation had even begun which, Israel said, exposed the council's bias.

Justice Goldstone, an eminent jurist, refused to accept the HRC invitation to head the investigation until its mandate had been expanded to include the firing of rockets and mortars by the Palestinians into Israel.

As Human Rights lawyer Irwin Cotler pointed out last month in the Jerusalem Post, the mandate was not legally changed.

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CAMERA analyzes the AI letter signed by the other three panelist, and puts it in a larger context.

Chinkin's Gaza Letter Revealed Bias, But Also Skewed Facts

CAMERA, September 17, 2009

Critics of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, also known as the Goldstone Commission, have convincingly argued that commission member Christine Chinkin had preconceived notions of Israeli guilt, and thus should not have been a part of an ostensibly impartial investigation.

In a letter co-signed by Chinkin and published in the Sunday Times during the Gaza war — long before the London School of Economics professor was selected as a commission member and thus long before she had a chance to closely investigate the facts — she asserted that Israel was not entitled to defend itself against Hamas rocket fire and insisted that Israel’s actions during the war were "contrary to international humanitarian and human rights law." In other words, she already knew her "answer" before even going through the motions of looking into the question.

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Published by UN Watch - at September 10, 2009

Professor Christine Chinkin Law Department London School of Economics Houghton Street London WC2A 2AE

10 September 2009

Dear Professor Chinkin,

Judge Richard Goldstone, as head of the mission, promised at the outset that it would be impartial. Impartiality requires that fact-finders be free of any commitment to a preconceived outcome. Because you expressed yourself on the merits of the issues prior to seeing any of the evidence, you cannot be considered impartial.

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Irwin Cotler discusses his decision to decline participating in the Goldstone FFMR, due to its one-sided nature.

by Irwin Cotler

Sunday August 16, 2009

from The Jerusalem Post

After nearly a decade of rocket-fire from Gaza targeting Israeli civilians - including armed attacks that continued and escalated for the three years after Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005 - this year's conflict in Gaza was nothing if not preventable and predictable.

From the moment Hamas officially announced that it would not extend its truce with Israel in December 2008, military confrontation appeared unavoidable. In the conflict that ensued, Israel - even if acting in self-defense - was bound to the rules of war like any other combatant. Yet despite the fog of war immediately covering the on-going hostilities, the international community was rife with "experts" who were ready to convict Israel of war crimes.

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Aug 18, 2009 20:50 | Updated Aug 21, 2009 2:13

The Goldstone Mission - Tainted to the core (II)

In Monday's article, Prof. Cotler explained how the Goldstone Commission was tainted by the UN Human Rights Council resolution creating its mandate, as well as the predisposed views of some of its personnel. In the second part of his piece, he elaborates the systemic and systematic bias of the UN council itself, and the implications this bias has on the fact-finding mission and on the integrity of international law generally.

Disturbing as it may be, the failure to include a thorough review of Hamas's continuous rocket attacks in the resolution establishing the Goldstone Commission - and to then staff the mission with a member who has already decided that such attacks do not alter Israel's guilt - can be seen as evidence of the reductionist narrative that the UN Human Rights Council seeks to promulgate.

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From Israel Matzav

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Mary Robinson says to listen Goldstone anyway

I trust you all remember that just a short time ago, US President Barack Obama presented Mary Robinson, who presided over the first Durban Conference at which Israel was vilified as an 'apartheid state,' with America's highest civilian honor, the Medal of Freedom.

Before Richard Goldstone agreed to head the United Nations 'Human Rights Council' commission that bears his name, Mary Robinson was offered the job. She turned it down because the mandate only called to investigate 'Israeli war crimes' and much has been made of that fact in the aftermath of Goldstone's outrageous report. But in Pakistan's Daily Times, Robinson now dismisses the unbalanced mandate that caused her to decline chairing the commission, saying that it doesn't matter whether that mandate conformed to United Nations rules.

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The Moral Incompetence of the UN, of its "human rights council," and of the UNHRC's Goldstone Commission

UPDATINGS 9-16-2009 & 9-21-2009 links added at bottom

The Goldstone Commission report is now delivered. But vital issues concerning its background remain. Before having time to deal with analysis of the report, which is now going on, here are considerations about the moral competence of the UN itself in general, of the UN "human rights council" in particular, and of some members of the commission. This statement was prepared earlier and is still valid of course.

Can the world expect a reasonable, factual judgment about human rights violations during January’s Gaza War, “Cast Lead,” to emerge from the upcoming report of the Goldstone Commission? Indeed, we can expect the opposite.