Goldstone to Israel: Probe war crimes detailed in UN Gaza report
UN investigator: Israel can avoid charges being filed at Int'l Criminal Court by launching 'open' probes.
By Haaretz Service Tags: Goldstone report Gaza Israel newsRichard Goldstone, the author of a United Nations report on Israel's winter offensive against Hamas, urged Israel on Wednesday to investigate alleged war crimes detailed in the document.
"My first wish and hope is that there will be open and full inquiries in Israel, and the ability of Israel to do that, I accept completely has been done before with regard to at least two other inquiries that I know of which were acceptable by international standards," said Goldstone in an interview with Channel 1.
Goldstone, a South African war crimes prosecutor, said that by doing so, Israel could prevent the findings of his report from being brought before International Criminal Court in The Hague, where charges could be brought against Israeli officials involved in the military campaign.
"Israel can do it if it wishes, it's a matter of political will," he said. "And if that happens, then of course that would and should avoid any international court involvement."
Though the report, which was released on Tuesday, accuses both Israel and Hamas of carrying out war crimes during the three-week campaign in Gaza, it focuses primarily on Israel's actions during the hostilities.
During the interview, Goldstone rejected scathing Israeli criticism in response to his report that it was biased and encouraged terrorism.
"We have said in clear terms that the Hamas rockets constitute a pretty serious war crime, and possibly crimes against humanity and we are against that sort of activity," he told Channel 1.
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Why should it? If it did not mean to punish civilians for the actions of Islamic Jihad and Hamas then why did it? If it meant to destroy Hamas why did it not? NO nation is required to sit still and allow anyone to attack it. Some Palestinians were attacking Israelis. They were committing the war crime of attacking civilians. Thus Israel - any nation - would be justified in attacking those attacking it. The great mystery of Cast Lead is why the casualties included so few Hamas and so many civilians. In the battle of Jenin earlier in the decade the IDF killed lots of terrorist and few civilians. That battle also resulted in many IDF casualties. In Cast Lead there were few IDF casualties, few Hamas casualties and lots of civilian casualties. Why? The IDF has changed it's tactics. It has changed it's goals. The Goldstone report details (in exhausting, tedious, detail) the nature of the change in Israel's strategy and tactics. Israel choses to pretend nothing has changed. Why?
Israel has decided to pretend Cast Lead never happened. If I did something I was so ashamed of i could not admit it; or if I did something so contrary to my self-image that I had to lie to myself, I would think about it. Israel sought to punish the people of Gaza for allowing Hamas to rule them. Never mind Hamas is a bunch of thugs with guns and most Gazans have no guns and are not thugs. Israel could have gone after Hamas, but that would have meant big casualties. So it took the easy way. It chose to not take casualties going after terrorists. It chose to use massed firepower against soft targets. Israel punished the people of Gaza for the crimes of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. The shame is that now Israel denies what it did as it threatens to do it again. Israel is ashamed of what it did. It should not be. It should be HONEST about what it did. To act ashamed of what it did is to admit that it believes what it did was wrong. By it's protests, Israel admits guilt.