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The Forum > Article Comments > The Goldstone Report and the allegations against Israel > Comments

The Goldstone Report and the allegations against Israel : Comments

By Sharene Hambur, published 23/10/2009

The Goldstone Report and the United Nations Human Rights Council: anti-Israel politicisation with far-reaching ramifications

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Here we see a gross political imbalance within the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) where, instead of being an arbiter for peace, it is clandestinely setting the stage for a further and heightened conflict.
Posted by relda, Friday, 23 October 2009 9:34:58 AM
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What a litany of half truths,misleading statements and downright ,blatant zionist propaganda.It is not worthy of detailed criticism but to say we all know Israel moved their occupation out of Gaza but what you just failed to say is that Israel has constantly harassed the population with continuing military operations with the major 'Cast Lead' campaign destroying homes and killing in excess of 1400 and injuring many more as the IDF has continued to do since occupation of Palestine in 1948.

You now fear your latest, recorded and reported actions have exposed the lie which is the jewish state of Israel to a world who believed you were all Holocaust survivors. The sooner this Ziono-fascist state of Apartheid collapses, the better.

The Goldstone Report must be discussed in the U.N. and it's deliberations made public so we can all study the contents and judge for ourselves.
Posted by maracas1, Friday, 23 October 2009 11:01:37 AM
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Israel has been accused of terrorist acts and crimes against humanity.
The biggest condemnation of the Israeli attacks on Gaza comes from their own mouths. There was a 99% success rate of hitting what they targeted. This means they deliberately targeted schools, hospitals, kindergartens, water infrastructure, greenhouses, chicken farms, cement plants, public buildings, sewage treatment plants (deliberately hit so as to release as much raw sewage as possible) mosques, wells, flour mills and homes. This is without doubt terrorism. The deliberate targeting of civilians.
Mistreatment of prisoners, using human shields, indiscriminate mortar shelling and use of flechettes. All war crimes. All commited by Israel in its attack on Gaza.

Why did they do this? For "the specific purpose of denying their use for the sustenance of the civilian population of the Gaza Strip", which was "part of a policy of collective punishment of the civilian population". This takes place in the context of a "military doctrine that views disproportionate destruction and creating maximum disruption in the lives of many people as a legitimate means to achieve military and political goals". "Statements by political and military leaders prior to and during the military operations in Gaza leave little doubt that disproportionate destruction and violence against civilians were part of a deliberate policy" Terrorism! Israel is a terrorist state.

No where have I yet seen any evidence that Israelis or their supporters have even read the Goldstone report. They certainly are doing everything they can to defame its author but they have not said a single word to refute any of the charges leveled at them. Bring them before the ICC and then we can see the truth and stop them doing this to any of their neighbors ever again.
Posted by mikk, Friday, 23 October 2009 12:03:04 PM
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It's sort of funny in a horrifyingly disgusting way that states like China, Saudi Arabia, and even Iran, have chaired the UN Human Rights Panel - which decides

Think of all the filthy practices these nations have, even slavery of SE Asian workers in Arab states, trafficking of kids as soldiers in Africa, and filthy Cuba where it's own people risk death by swimming to Miami!

And these scum cultures dare to condemn the only democratic state in the whole backward mid-east region? Where Arabs are treated better in Israel than in their own vile nations?

They should be bombed just for daring to criticise civilised people in the first instance, and bombed again because they are so devoid of logic.

Israel is like a flower in a region of hopeless waste.

The UN should only have members like Australia, US, Canada, and western European nations in Scandanavia, etc.

Even Italy, Greece and other souther European states shouldn't be allowed in, due to their corruption.

Third world filth should eventually be allowed in, but only after proving they are not 3rd world filth anymore - where taxi drivers rob tourists, police rape prisoners, etc.

UN is hopeless. Good on US and UK for ignoring it during Iraq war.

We should stop funding it immediately unless my preconditions are met.
Posted by Benjam1n, Friday, 23 October 2009 1:56:45 PM
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Mikk

You say, "No where have I yet seen any evidence that Israelis or their supporters have even read the Goldstone report. They certainly are doing everything they can to defame its author but they have not said a single word to refute any of the charges leveled at them."

I was surprised to read this as there are numerous detailed reports available on the internet which expose many of the report's flaws. If you are interested below is a link to one such report.

http://honestreporting.com/articles/45884734/critiques/new/The_Goldstone_Report_Rewarding_Palestinian_Terror.asp
Posted by Poppyseed, Friday, 23 October 2009 3:32:40 PM
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sorry poppy that article does not address a single incident or criticism within the Goldstone report.

For example justify the bombing of the Al Bader flour mill. At the start of the attack the Al Bader flour mill was the only flour mill in the Gaza Strip still operating. The flour mill was hit by a series of air strikes on 9 January 2009 after several false warnings had been issued on previous days. The Mission finds that its destruction had no military justification. The nature of the strikes, in particular the precise targeting of crucial machinery, suggests that the intention was to disable the factory in terms of its productive capacity. WAR CRIME!

The chicken farms of Mr. Sameh Sawafeary in the Zeitoun neighbourhood south of Gaza City reportedly supplied over 10 per cent of the Gaza egg market. Armoured bulldozers of the Israeli forces systematically flattened the chicken coops, killing all 31,000 chickens inside, and destroyed the plant and material necessary for the business. The Mission concludes that this was a deliberate act of wanton destruction not justified by any military necessity and draws the same legal conclusions as in the case of the destruction of the flour mill. WAR CRIME!

Israeli forces also carried out a strike against a wall of one of the raw sewage lagoons of the Gaza Waste Water Treatment Plant, which caused the outflow of more than 200,000 cubic metres of raw sewage into neighbouring farmland. The circumstances of the strike on the lagoon suggest that it was deliberate and premeditated. WAR CRIME!

Taking into account the ability to plan, the means to execute plans with the most developed technology available, and statements by the Israeli military that almost no errors occurred, the Mission finds that the incidents and patterns of events considered in the report are the result of deliberate planning and policy decisions.
ISRAELS LEADERS ARE WAR CRIMINALS!

How about some answers and less of the rhetoric, propaganda and slander from you Israeli apologists.
Posted by mikk, Friday, 23 October 2009 5:07:14 PM
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Sharene,

I don't know why you bother. You blokes lost the propaganda war in the west in Lebanon a few years ago.

All the rubbish you Israeli propagandists publish is ignored or outright rejected by thinking people, which unfortunately for you includes most all Australians and obviously excludes your immediate circles.

Cheers, keep it up you are only causing a growing development of sympathy for the Palestinians.
Posted by keith, Friday, 23 October 2009 8:30:16 PM
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Discussion of Israel's actions tend to focus on the immorality of inflicting suffering on civilians. I get a clear picture that few Israelis care, because they think current policy will bring them the most peace. Therefore, discussion of the best way for them to stop being bombarded with missiles may be more productive.
Posted by benk, Saturday, 24 October 2009 10:32:07 AM
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Yes, just more propaganda from the Israeli's. All the talk of bias and flaws but no examples, only personal attacks. The fact that most of the report was focussed on Israeli crimes may have something to do with the fact that nearly all of those killed were Palestinians. It would be bizarre if the report spent half its time focussing on the 13 Israeli's killed,(several of them by friendly fire). The constant talk of Israelis right to defend its civilian population but no acknowledgement of the Palestinian right to defend its civilian population. There is plenty of data available on the numbers of Palestinians killed over the past few years in comparison to the numbers of Israeli's killed. There is only one civilian population at real risk and that is the Palestinians.
The claim that Gaza is not occupied is absolutely absurd. It is worse than occupied, it is under siege and has been since 2006. Israel controls everything that comes in and out and controls all its borders and airspace as well.
Maybe the Israeli propagandists could tell us the appropriate method of responding to a siege and ongoing military incursions. It seems the Israeli's respond to everything with extreme and indiscriminate violence yet believe Palestinians have no right to respond at all.
Justifying the killing of hundreds of men women and children by dismissing an entire oppressed and tormented population as "terrorists" does not work for any person with any amount of human decency.
Posted by Rhys Jones, Saturday, 24 October 2009 3:25:33 PM
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I lost faith with the United Nations especially when they had Sudan as the President/Chairman of the Human Rights Commission/Council. Just a club which caters to tyrants which of course did not engage in constructive discussion of human rights issues, but was a forum for politically selective finger-pointing and criticism. The desire of states with problematic human rights records to be elected to the Commission was viewed largely as a way to defend themselves from such attacks.
Posted by Constance, Saturday, 24 October 2009 8:05:30 PM
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Judge GoldStone was recently interviewed on AlJazeera. I watched a rerun of it again today and imagine that it is on their website.

He did amonst other things charge that none of his critics have engaged with the substance of his report.

And of course, his job was not to assess the the rights or wrongs of the war, the legality or otherwise, but rather the conduct of the parties involved during the war and whether any activites specifically constituted war crimes pursuant to international law.

.. and we are talking about allegations of such behaviours as kids under white flags being shot at point blank constituting in his view a persistent pattern of dehumanization.

Neither of course was it his role to investigate individual criminal liability, but because of the findings of war crimes against both parties, there is still an ongoing push for further investigations as to who ordered whom to do what.

Thus, it seems that the so called Princes of the World have been tried and found wanting. Will any be brought to the International Criminal Court to face charges? Time will tell. What would be interesting to know at this point is which countries have arrest warrants ready for them should they cross the border. England recently grabbed one of the Israelis but he was let off under a diplomatic flag from memory.
Posted by DreamOn, Saturday, 24 October 2009 9:29:12 PM
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What is saddest about the denialism of the zionist clan is that they demonstrate how little Israel has learned from the history of the jews; its failure to see in its own terrororising of its citizens that it is repeating the crimes that it should be dedicated to eliminating.
Posted by next, Sunday, 25 October 2009 7:23:26 AM
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Continuing Zionist refusal to seriously participate in peace negotiations has condemned Palestinian Refugees from the aftermath of the 1967 war and occupation of the West Bank and Gaza to live in the refugee camp pictured in this link. http://picasaweb.google.com/ayman.qauder/TheLifeOfThePalestinianCamp#
forty two years on. Although Israel has left Gaza, the Gazan population live in a state of siege, controlled by Israel. The blockade of Gaza must stop to permit the Palestinians to receive aid in their rebuilding since the "Cast Lead" bombardment and obtain access to Health and Medical Services
Posted by maracas1, Sunday, 25 October 2009 9:42:46 AM
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next wrote: …they demonstrate how little Israel has learned from the history of the jews.

Dear Next,

What Israel has learned is the same thing other countries and groups have learned.

South Africans suffered terrible humiliation during the Boer War. Many died in the concentration camps the British set up to hold the wives and children of the Boers. When Afrikaaners took power they maintained the horrible apartheid regime.

Germany was dominated for France for years. The French regarded the Germans as barbaric. Germany was the battleground for the wars of the Reformation which went back and forth over its soil. When Germany became united in the nineteenth century. Payback time. Wars with Denmark, Austria and France, After a setback in WW1 Hitler.

The Romans persecuted the early Christians. "The Dark Ages" dated from 380 to about the 17th and 18th centuries. The beginning was on 27 February 380 when Theodosius declared "Catholic Christianity" the only legitimate imperial religion. The spirit of enquiry that existed in the classical world was criminalised at that point. In 384 Theodosius prohibited haruspicy, the inspection of the entrails of sacrificed animals, on pain of death, and unlike earlier anti-pagan prohibitions, he made non-enforcement of the law, by Magistrates, into a crime itself. Priscillian was the first person in the history of Christianity to be executed for heresy in 385.

Then followed a period of great violence as Christianity imposed its religion on most of Europe. The Crusades, the conversion of Europe by violence, the Wars of the Reformation, the Inquisition, justifying the despoiling of the Americas because the Treaty of Tordesillas divided the new discoveries between the Spanish and the Portuguese with the injunction to spread their faith, the Holocaust partially inspired by the centuries of Christian hatred and other examples of Christian misbehaviour show the lesson Christianity learned from the oppression of early history.

An abused child often grows up to be an abusing parent.

Why should Jews be different?
Posted by david f, Sunday, 25 October 2009 10:02:13 AM
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Sharene,

This is one of those pieces that is rightfully referred to as blatant PR pap.
No where did you engage in the substance of the the report. To be honest, I would have been surprised if you had.

Abominable behaviour is that, regardless of the emotional/religious justification.

Likewise the reality of invasion and unnecessary deaths is never the less true regardless the the countries who sanction criticism in The UN. Violent deaths are so and no amount of obfuscation will change that. Both sides need to be held accountable.

It is disingenuous for the Israel to claim victim status in this conflict.
NEITHER side is immune from justifiable criticism.

It is also fallacious, to claim the moral high ground by sole virtue of the US's obscenely blatant self interest support. Without which, Israel would have been justifiably sanctioned several times over for it's outrageous behaviour.

I have no doubt that the Jewish chauvinists will call me antisemetic in an attempt to silence a voice that doesn't accept the selectivity and dubiousness of the unacceptable.

I do accept the pragmatic reality of Israel's existence but not the validity of its origins, justification (both of which are largely moot) or its current myopic, belligerent, expansionist, government dominated as it is by a strategic extremist minority.

Having said that neither do I accept that the 3rd party proxy forces that are continuing the war for their own purposes are any less contemptible.

Nor do I accept the Palestinian right to terrorism. Although resistance to Israel's hegemonic intentions 'a death by a thousand cuts' is in one sense, understandable.

Just in case your Google earth is malfunctioning this is Australia, not the middle east.
We as a nation can ill afford is to be pro Israel's proxy wars, that might endanger or make us a target. Having a lapsed Jew as a daughter, I accept homeland emotional affiliations but Australia is not the appropriate place to fight a third country's war of expansion.

A message to both sides either argue the point objective with the intention to solve it or bugger off.
Posted by examinator, Sunday, 25 October 2009 2:52:32 PM
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"Israel is a flower in a region of hopeless waste"-Oh my God!
Posted by gazzaboy, Sunday, 25 October 2009 5:43:32 PM
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The interesting about those who write and comment on such articles is seeing who their allies are on the international stage.

For those who condemn the "Zionist" enterprise and Israel, they side with Russia, China, Bangladesh, Cuba, Ghana, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Senegal and Zambia - at least according to those who voted for it.

For those who support Israel or reject a condemnation in this context, they are allied with The United States, Britain, France, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Slovakia, Ukraine and Australia.

If I had to put my values on Human rights with either of these two groups, I must choose the second. I am baffled how other apparently educated Ozzies align themselves and even defend the first.
Posted by Brian Kollin, Sunday, 25 October 2009 9:52:16 PM
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There you go Brian Kollin, expressing yourself in typical Zionist logic. At least credit Australians with the capacity to not only see thru Zionist PR pap but the ability to make their own reasoned judgements on the issue of War Crimes. Not all Australians agree with the Australian Government's alignment with the United States uncritical support for the actions of Israel's excesses nor their history of military involvement in other countries in order to change regimes.
Posted by maracas1, Sunday, 25 October 2009 10:32:36 PM
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Stop the fighting and lying.
We are sick of war propaganda.
*Both* sides are wrong...but the more powerful is more wrong.
Who would you ask to stop: The 6th grade bully or the 3rd grade kid he is smashing up? Of course the little kid will do nasty stuff back, and should stop. But is it really fair to ask the little kid to stop while the big kid keeps whacking away?
Don't you guys realise we know what war propaganda looks like now and will not be swayed by it? Israel calling the UN biassed is a total joke.
Posted by Ozandy, Monday, 26 October 2009 11:41:34 AM
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There's been trouble at the Mosque/Temple Mount/Crusader Hill today.

I caught a glance on Al-Jazeera though don't know if it was a replay of an earlier event or not. I was otherwise engaged at the time.

For my 2cents worth, whilst there is much that disgusts me in the behaviour of the Israelis, and in that regard they are partly responsible for making some of the Pali's as feral as they are, I do support their wish to live in peace and security.

And I cannot help wondering whether *Netan the Yahoo* has been elected to, if they so much as put a toe over the line, make an end of it, regardless of the price in *BlooD*

It seems with them to be a one step shuffle. One step forward and antagonise, 1 step forward saying, "You see, you still want to Kill Jews, out you go."

..

On the other hand, I have some experience with the Indo Muslims and Indos generally. And whilst I am very fond of them in many ways, they are, perhaps like the Pali's a very WillFull, Undisciplined and Unruly people, quick to anger and fight when they stand not to get their way, even if it means cutting off their noses despite their faces.

..

On more fronts than one, I think we need practiced calming effects at this stage lest things get out of control.

...Adam...
Posted by DreamOn, Monday, 26 October 2009 3:57:12 PM
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Earlier today AlJazeera reported that *Bibbi Yahoo* is now seeking cabinet support for an internal review in response to the *GoldStone* report.

Whether or not the review conforms to accepted standards remains to be seen.
Posted by DreamOn, Monday, 26 October 2009 11:56:46 PM
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Can you imagine that some Israelis are not satisfied with Obama administration efforts to sweep Goldstone report under the rug? They even call it “hostile neutrality” to Israel! Here’s a very interesting link: http://samsonblinded.org/news/us-and-israel-hostile-neutrality-14513
Posted by ValeriusS, Wednesday, 11 November 2009 6:53:38 AM
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