This section contains both interviews of Goldstone and related comments on the interviews (largely by bloggers). Â For other interviews, see the Video Section.
The author of a controversial U.N. report on Israel’s 2009 Gaza incursion spoke at U.C. Berkeley last week. But instead of excoriating the Jewish state, Justice Richard Goldstone offered a surprising defense of Israel’s right to self-defense.
Exclusive MEMO interview with Colonel Desmond Travers – Co-author of the UN’s Goldstone Report.
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By Dr Hanan Chehata
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Meeting Colonel Desmond Travers, one of the four co-authors of the UN’s landmark Goldstone Report, a year after the end of the Israeli invasion of Gaza was a fascinating experience. Sitting together in Dublin, he was clearly a man of strong convictions and he was very passionate about getting justice and accountability for the victims of war crimes.
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He began by telling me a little bit about his military background and how it set him in good stead to be the lead military expert in the fact-finding mission looking at Israel’s 22 day attack upon Gaza during Operation Cast Lead in December 2008-January 2009, in which over 1400 Palestinians were killed. The subsequent report, we now know, concluded that actions amounting to war crimes and potentially crimes against humanity had been committed by both sides in the conflict, but mainly by the Israelis against the civilian Palestinian population.
“I’m certainly a friend of Israel – I don’t mind being called a Zionistâ€
You served as a judge under apartheid in South Africa. How difficult was it to fulfil that role?
I wouldn't have accepted an appointment if human rights lawyers hadn't already begun to use the courts to establish rights for black South Africans. People like John Didcott, a leading anti-apartheid campaigner who went on the bench in the Natal region and blazed a trail there, encouraged me. There were already decisions knocking holes in the oppressive system.
Goldstone, as you will see in this interview, is a Zionist moderate who shares with Tikkun the view that Jewish values should be applied consistently, even if that means critiquing some of the behavior of some people in the Israeli army or even some of the policies of the State of Israel. And like Tikkun, he has been critiqued for being Anti-Semitic. Read this interview carefully and you will see how very cautious and balanced his statements are. To read the full Goldstone report go here.
Tikkun's Interview with Judge Richard Goldstone
This interview was conducted on October 1st, 2009, with Judge Richard Goldstone, the chair of the UN commission investigating the War in Gaza in 2008 and 2009. In the latter years of Apartheid in South Africa, Goldstone served as chairperson of the South African Standing Commission of Inquiry Regarding Public Violence and Intimidation, later known as the Goldstone Commission. The Commission played a critical role in uncovering and publicizing allegations of grave wrongdoing by the Apartheid-era South African security forces and bringing home to "White" South Africans the extensive violence that was being done in their name. The Commission concluded that most of the violence of those years was being orchestrated by shadowy figures within the Apartheid regime, often through the use of a so-called "third force." The Commission thus provided a first road map for the investigations into security force wrongdoing that, after democratization, were taken up by the country's Truth and Reconciliation Commission. After South Africa's first democratic election in April 1994, Goldstone served as a judge of the Constitutional Court of South Africa, from July 1994 to October 2003. The Court was entrusted with the task of interpreting the new South African Constitution and supervising the country's transition into democracy.
Christiane Amanpour, who, like Zakaria, has apparently not read the report (or a serious summary), and therefore, like Zakaria, let's Goldstone off the hook for saying silly things about his investigation of Hamas, nonetheless gets some interesting comments from Goldstone: "This wasn't even quasi-judicial, certainly not a judicial hearing." Follow up that wasn't asked: "So why the [harsh] judgments?" For transcript and fisking of second part of interview, see Augean Stables.
Here's CNN's Fareed Zakaria interviewing Goldstone. Even though it's clear that Zakaria hasn't read the report in question (or even a serious summary) since he let's Goldstone off the hook repeatedly, Goldstone's clearly on his best behavior for a Western public that assumes he's of good will. Highlight: How do these deeds compare with, say, Kosovo? Goldstone: "No comparison." So... why the possibility of "crimes against humanity?"
Jeremy Bowen reports on passage of the Goldstone Report in UN, then the anchor interviews him by phone. Although Goldstone had expressed sadness at the one-sidedness of the report the previous day to journalists in Geneva, now he has backtracked completely. The anchor, who seems to know about the earlier remarks, gives Goldstone every opportunity to express his previous attitude, but never embarrasses him with an explicit mention.
Cohn discusses one of the more unsettling exchanges between Goldstone and Moyers, in which the IDF is accused to executing prisoners whose hands were tied which appears nowhere in the report.
Some six weeks ago, on Wednesday, September 23, Bill Moyers interviewed Judge Richard Goldstone on the PBS "Journal." The judge had just released his Report in which he had accused Israel (and, much less urgently, Hamas) of "war crimes" in the conduct of the 2008-9 Gaza war.
As I listened to these two gentlemen, Moyers and Goldstone -- each more compassionate than the other, each more exuding compassion and good will than the other -- one accusation struck me as the most frightening of them all: it appears that Israel, in Goldstone's telling, had actually and deliberately shot prisoners to death whose hands were shackled behind them. The image stuck in my mind. No, I didn't believe that Jewish boys, even in the midst of war, would deliberately shoot captured and "shackled" men to death. And yet ... Jews, God knows, are no angels. Some are terribly cruel, not doubt. Could a terrible thing like this have happened ? I decided to look into the matter as much as I could. And I found out, as we shall see, that the best short answer to the question is that this alleged cruelty did not take place.
MARK COLVIN: The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reacted to a UN report on the war in Gaza by telling his government to draw up proposals to change the international laws of war.
Mr Netanyahu's office said government bodies had been told to examine a worldwide campaign to get the laws changed, to adapt to the spread of global terrorism.
What's angered the Israeli Prime Minister appears to be the UN Human Rights Council decision to adopt the report of the Goldstone Commission.
The report accused both Israel and Hamas of war crimes in the conflict which erupted at the end of last year and continued into January.
Israel's closest allies, the United States, Britain and France have all urged it to investigate the war crime allegations.
On this program last week, the Israeli Government spokesman Mark Regev attacked Justice Richard Goldstone for agreeing to head a commission which was bound to be biased.
I put Mark Regev's accusations to Justice Goldstone today, but first I asked him about the new Israeli campaign to change the laws of war.
RICHARD GOLDSTONE: I don't agree at all. I think the interpretation of the rules may change from decade to decade, but the fundamental principles remain the same and that's to protect civilians from victimisation during war.Â
Interviews
