Judge Goldstone’s regrets

Amid all the fuss kicked up in Israel over Judge Richard Goldstone’s op-ed in The Washington Post,
in which he retreats from his harshest accusation, that Israel might be
guilty of war crimes and possible crimes against humanity in Gaza, his
critics have remained silent on his main regret.

Far from repudiating his report as a whole, he is basically saying that
in light of new evidence provided by the Israeli government, these
specific accusations cannot be substantiated. What the distinguished
judge actually regrets is the lack of timely cooperation by the Israeli
government, which could have influenced some of the report’s
conclusions. He now says that while there is no doubt that civilians in
Gaza were targeted by the military during the 2008-09 war, there is no
evidence of a deliberate policy.

“Although the Israeli evidence that has emerged since publication of our report doesn’t negate the tragic loss of civilian life, I regret that our fact-finding mission did not have such evidence explaining the circumstances in which we said civilians in Gaza were targeted, because it probably would have influenced our findings about intentionality and war crimes,” he says.

I took another look at Goldstone’s 575-page 2009 report in the light of this op-ed, which actually does not retract a single fact — including the bombing of 29 members of a single family in their home and the killing of other civilians while they held up a white flag. Regarding the killing of the al-Samouni family, however, he accepts that in light of a subsequent Israeli investigation, the shelling of their home was “apparently the consequence of an Israeli commander’s erroneous interpretation of a drone image.” An Israeli officer is under investigation for having ordered the attack.

This is not to excuse Hamas, which was also accused of possible crimes against humanity in the report, and whose rockets did deliberately target civilians. As Goldstone says, Israel has now investigated the civilian casualties of Operation Cast Lead to a significant degree; “Hamas has done nothing.”

But let’s look at the bigger picture here, as the op-ed was published just as Israeli President Shimon Peres landed in Washington for White House talks on the Middle East peace process. For Goldstone’s report describes in acute detail the “collective penalties” against the 1.5 million people of Gaza since they had the misfortune to vote out of office the morally bankrupt and corrupt Fatah Palestinian movement in a democratic election in 2006.

Now the Ramallah-based Fatah leadership is maneuvering for a U.N. General Assembly vote next September on Palestinian statehood, which is concentrating Israeli minds. It could be that Peres will be discussing with President Obama prospects for an interim solution, probably involving the transfer of more Palestinian authority over the West Bank.

But if you read the Goldstone report, you can see that unless the weeping sore of Gaza is addressed, there can be no peace for Israelis and Palestinians.