Judge and UN report author says report would have been different if he’d known what he now knows
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Israel will ask the United Nations to revise the Goldstone Report on the 2008-2009 Gaza war, following publication 1 April of an Op-Ed article by judge Richard Goldstone in the Washington Post.
Goldstone says that the conclusions drawn by his fact-finding report for the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, which included allegations that Israel may have intentionally targeted civilians, were based on less information than is now available.
“The final report by the U.N. committee of independent experts — chaired by former New York judge Mary McGowan Davis — that followed up on the recommendations of the Goldstone Report has found that ‘Israel has dedicated significant resources to investigate over 400 allegations of operational misconduct in Gaza’ while ‘the de facto authorities (i.e., Hamas) have not conducted any investigations into the launching of rocket and mortar attacks against Israel.’
“Our report found evidence of potential war crimes and ‘possibly crimes against humanity’ by both Israel and Hamas. That the crimes allegedly committed by Hamas were intentional goes without saying — its rockets were purposefully and indiscriminately aimed at civilian targets.
“The allegations of intentionality by Israel were based on the deaths of and injuries to civilians in situations where our fact-finding mission had no evidence on which to draw any other reasonable conclusion.”
Goldstone does not go as far as “retracting” statements made in his report, as the Jerusalem Post reports, but he does say that “if I had known then what I know now, the Goldstone Report would have been a different document.” The Guardian qualifies his article as having “expressed regret that his report may have been inaccurate.”
Apology, retraction, and greater documentation in the future
A senior Israeli defense department officer told the Jerusalem Post that Goldstone’s remarks will not be enough alone to stop a future investigation, and that Israel must document every action in Gaza in order to avoid another investigation.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Saturday said he will insist the UN rescind the report, according to Bloomberg and Israeli media, and South Africa’s IOL (Independent Online) news reports Monday that President Shimon Peres says he wants an apology from Goldstone.
US Jewish groups, notably the influential American Jewish Committee, over the weekend called for Goldstone to retract his report and ask the UN to approve a revised version, according to the Jerusalem Post. “‘The Washington Post is not the place for Judge Goldstone to recant the biased and damaging UN report he wrote on the Gaza conflict,’ said AJC Executive Director David Harris.”
Background story on Goldstone report and the UN Security Council, and initial report, October 2009 GenevaLunch
The UN General Assembly has approved 114 to 18, with 44 abstentions, the controversial Goldstone report into atrocities in the Gaza war in the winter of 2008/09, and recommended that the Security Council act if both Israel and the Palestinians had not conducted their own investigations within three months. CNN, New York Times
Honduras‘ former President Manuel Zelaya says the agreement reached one week ago that would have led to a power-sharing government and his reinstatement as president is dead, after the two sides failed to agree on the government by Thursday, 5 November. The Supreme Court still needs to make a recommendation to the Honduran Congress on whether Zelaya may complete his term. Al-Jazeera, BBC
Morgan Tsvangirai says he will end his three-week boycott of the Zimbabwean unity government “effective immediately”, and has given Robert Mugabe 30 days in which to implement his side of the bargain that led to the deal. Tsvangirai walked out after Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party began to harrass Tsvangirai’s MDC party members. Al-Jazeera, BBC, The Guardian
The findings of the Goldstone report on the war in Gaza last December 2008 and January 2009 are being debated 4 and 5 November in the UN General Assembly in New York.The Goldstone investigation was commissioned by the UN to investigate allegations of war crimes during the brief war that killed more than 1,400 Palestinians and 31 Israelis.
A resolution could be voted on that includes calls for the General Assembly to endorse the Goldstone report, that both Israel and the Palestinians conduct independent investigations into the allegations that war crimes were committed, and for the Secretary General of the UN to refer the matter to the Security Council.
The Goldstone report calls on both sides to investigate the allegations or else be referred to the Security Council for consideration by the International Criminal Court. Israel, which did not cooperate with investigators, has said it is opposed to the findings because they are biased.
