Goldstone Report Ignores Evidence

Goldstone suppressed evidence unfit to Report

Updated2009OCT4 - No neutral and serious reader or writer protects the Goldstone Report any more. It seems the Judge Goldstone led UN Fact-finding Mission to Gaza simply served the UN HRC's original prejudicial mandate: "to investigate the grave war crimes Israel committed in Gaza". An unprecedented consensus, 94% of Israeli Jews are deeply disappointed from the Goldstone Report, even relative to the low expectations. Israel's president, dovish Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shimon Peres called the report "a mockery of history". An excellent Guardian article Goldstone's Sins of Omission is also blasting the UN Report. 
Iran, Libya, Sudan, Cuba, Syria, Yemen and similar champions of human rights - are satisfied with the Goldstone Report.

The 574 page long Goldstone Report published on 15 September may look like a serious document to the inexperienced reader. But attentive readers soon realise  conspicuous  major  faults in the Report. First, it is preoccupied with Israel and deals very briefly only with Hamas - when Goldstone had promised to investigate all parties. Another fault, with Peres' words again: the Report "fails to distinguish between the aggressor and those acting in self-defense". The Summary speaks about 3 Israeli dead from Hamas rockets, which would be true during the few months around the Gaza fighting. The 14 more dead Israelis, hundreds maimed and tens of thousand civilians terrorized by the 6300 Hamas rocket attacks before Israel gave an ultimatum to stop it and finally fought back - are left out from the Report - because they would show who was the aggressor. 

The Goldstone Report's conclusions are worn out truisms about war crimes possibly committed both by Israel and by  Hamas. This is a false, cosmetic balance. Of course deviations from norms happen in every war, they happened also in the war against Nazi Germany on both sides. The main things the investigators should have to understand are: who is the aggressor, who commits crimes systematically and who on the other side does its best to keep  deviations at minimum. Who tries to tell the truth, with an independent press and legal system watching, and who lies systematically - about Jenin, the Al-Durra forgery, in Pallywood - and now about Gaza.  Goldstone  should  know that the accusations against Israel are based mostly on Palestinian fiction, collected under the well-known "freedom of speech" of the murderous Hamas regime - while the accusations against Hamas, the unilateral aggressors for years, are based on facts. Goldstone's "balance" is, in Churchill's words:  "evenhandedness towards the fire-fighters and the arsonists".

To further show Goldstone's bias we urge you to note that one of his favorites sources of "information" or "facts" is the Human Rights Watch. An excellent Letter to the BBC points out that... Judge Goldstone "forgets" to inform the readers of his Report that he is one of the senior members of this HRW; thus compromising his so called "impartiality" even more.

But our most serious charge is that the Goldstone Report suppresses crucial evidence.  Take-A-Pen's 2 large Submissions to the UN mission are mentioned solely in the Report's Annexure and in a footnote. No sign that the Mission read our Memoranda (Memorandum 1 and Memorandum 2) and used any word or hard evidence  presented there; like IDF aerial photos and our analysis (see also below), demonstrating beyond doubt Hamas' systematic use of Protected Civilian Objects to hide and to fire rocket launchers. The same Report which quotes tens of unsubstantiated pages by sources known of fierce anti-Israel bias,  ignores  information and even hard evidence we and others submitted, if unfit for its predetermined conclusions. Had it really been seeking the truth, the Goldstone Report could refer to a presentation about Limiting Harm to Gaza Civilians (see bottom of page) - readily available in the public domain.

This totally manipulated and biased Goldstone Report can not be used for any further purposes in its present form. It should be cancelled, or withdrawn and thoroughly, honestly corrected, at least its most blatant shortcomings. But, who still believes in Goldstone's honesty? The Goldstone Report and its motives are best described in two letters:  "Kafka's work of fiction now sees life" and the beautiful Email from an old friend To Judge Goldstone: "Richard,... this report did not arise from ignorance or naivete. I am trying so hard to resist the conclusion that your role and report might represent a self-serving desire to ingratiate yourself for a more senior position in the kangaroo court called the United Nations"