Goldstone Report

Richard Goldstone

Goldstone Report is the common name for the report written by members of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict headed by South African jurist Richard Goldstone.

This article is an adjunct to the Wikipedia article "Goldstone Report". It aims to fill in some otherwise puzzling gaps, presenting missing information from a "Neutral Point of View" to the same "Reliable Source" standard as claimed by Wikipedia. [In articles other than this one information apparently acceptable to the Wikipedia, and which may be reproduced here for comparison purposes, is not to a high standard].

Important elements of the report inadequately covered at WP

1st Goldstone "reconsiders" April 2011

On April 1, 2011 Richard Goldstone published a piece titled "Reconsidering the Goldstone Report on Israel and war crimes" in the Washington Post. Popular blogger

Goldstone made one significant change to the findings of the report, that Israel had not intentionally targeted civilians as a matter of policy but that "the crimes allegedly committed by Hamas were intentional goes without saying". He said that the lack of Israeli cooperation had meant that no Israeli officers were interviewed during the writing of the report. In hindsight, incidents which had been interpreted as the deliberate targeting of civilians may have had other explanations, such as poor intelligence information.

Goldstone also expressed the hope that: "inquiry into all aspects of the Gaza conflict would begin a new era of evenhandedness at the U.N. Human Rights Council, whose history of bias against Israel cannot be doubted". and: "That comparatively few Israelis have been killed by the unlawful rocket and mortar attacks from Gaza in no way minimizes the criminality. The U.N. Human Rights Council should condemn these heinous acts in the strongest terms."

Goldstone commended Israel for responding to his report by revising military procedures to e.g. limit the use of white phosphorus in civilian areas.

The statement at the beginning of the "reconsideration" was considered particularly notable by many commentators: "If I had known then what I know now, the Goldstone Report would have been a different document."

"Not intentionally targeted civilians"

Goldstone appeared to justify his change of view from reading a later UN report (chaired by former New York judge Mary McGowan Davis) which 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." (There is a WS summary of the Judge Mary McGowan Davies report here).

The other authors of the UN report, Hina Jilani, Christine Chinkin and Desmond Travers rejected Goldstone's reassessment arguing that there is "no justification for any demand or expectation for reconsideration of the report as nothing of substance has appeared that would in anyway change the context, findings or conclusions of that report with respect to any of the parties to the Gaza conflict".

Al-Jazeera commented that Goldstone's revised view concerned the intentional targeting of civilians, not other war crimes alleged in the report to have been committed by Israel. Such other crimes included causing civilian casualties by using a disproportionate level of force and attacks on buildings concerning which there was no indication they were legitimate military targets. The same point was made in detail at the popular Mondoweiss blog, listing the siz unchanged broad findings of war-crimes viz (1) Siege on Gaza (2) Attack on political institutions and buildings of Gaza (3) taking insufficient measures to protect civilians (4) "indiscriminate" attacks (as distinct from "deliberate" attacks) (5) illegal weapons, such as white phosphorous and flechette missiles and (6) deliberate destruction of civilian infrastructure.

"Goldstone Report would have been different"

The popular blog Mondoweiss also commented that a year later the Goldstone report would undoubtedly be written slightly differently, but that didn't mean any of the observations would have been any different, they were not.

Reactions to the April 2011 statement

The critical reactions to the original Goldstone report and the often complimentary reaction to the "reconsideration" recieve more coverage at WP articles (eg the one on "Cast Lead") than the original report recieved.

Less well reported is that Goldstone maintained that, although the one correction should be made, he had "no reason to believe any part of the report needs to be reconsidered at this time" and that he didn't plan to pursue nullifying the report.

Human rights organizations said that much of the report remained valid.

American Jewish Committee (AJC) Executive Director, David Harris, said that "Judge Goldstone should apologize to the State of Israel for the accusations of intentionally targeting civilians, which he now admits were unfounded. He should present his updated conclusions to the UN Human Rights Council, as well as to the General Assembly, which endorsed the skewed report, and press for its rejection."

On the 14th of April 2011 the other three authors of the Goldstone report released a statement regarding Goldstones article in the Washington post. Hina Jilani, Christine Chinkin and Desmond Travers claimed that the significance of the Goldstone retractions had been "misrepresented facts in an attempt to delegitimise the findings of this report and to cast doubts on its credibility". They pointed out that the follow-up committee (on investigations by Israel and Hamas) did not contradict the report and concluded that Israel and Hamas had yet to establish any convincing basis to contradict the report. While Israel had conducted some 400 command investigations into allegations by the fact-finding mission and other organisations these are operational, not legal, and were conducted by personnel from the same command structure as those under investigation. They noted that just three of the incidents had been submitted for prosecution, with two of them completed and resulting in convictions (one for theft of a credit card and another for using a Palestinian child as a human shield). "The committee has expressed serious concerns about the late start and slow pace of the proceedings, their insufficient transparency and the participation of victims and witnesses". The authors also stated that there is "no indication that Israel has opened investigations into the actions of those who designed, planned, ordered and oversaw Operation Cast Lead". One of the most serious allegations about the conduct of Israel's military operations remained completely unaddressed.

The PA had attempted to investigate the allegations made in the Goldstone Report, but had been denied access to Gaza by Israel and the relevant controlling authority. Hamas had not started any investigations on the firing of thousands of rockets into southern Israel.

2nd Goldstone statement of Nov 2011

Richard Goldstone published another statement in Nov 2011 stating that "One particularly pernicious and enduring canard that is surfacing again is that Israel pursues “apartheid” policies" wherein he defended Israel from the charge of apartheid. Popular blogger Mondoweiss was scathing in response.