The Goldstone Report: The UN Blood Libel

Articles and Reports: Responding to the Libel (page 1)

[For articles and reports after March 25, 2010 - the date that the UN Human Rights Council created a new committee to follow-up on the Goldstone report - click here]

"The Dangerous Bias of the United Nations Goldstone Report," by Dore Gold, U.S. News & World Report, March 24, 2010

"In trying to reconstruct the reality of what occurred in the Gaza War, the team members refused to consider that Hamas was exploiting civilian areas to gain military advantage. In late October 2009, Colonel Travers confidently told Harper's: 'We found no evidence that mosques were used to store munitions.' He then added his own ideological position on the matter that helped him make such a conclusive assertion: 'Those charges reflect Western perceptions in some quarters that Islam is a violent religion.'...

The Goldstone Report never suggests how Israel was supposed to respond to seven years of rocket fire. Despite the warnings that Israel issued, the report has the audacity to charge that Israeli soldiers "deliberately" killed Palestinian civilians, basing this accusation on biased interviews with Gaza residents whom it admitted were in "fear of reprisals." But rather than being discredited, unfortunately the Goldstone report has been picking up steam. The U.N. General Assembly voted on the report on November 5. Countries with forces deployed in insurgent wars, like in Afghanistan, either opposed or abstained. In a second vote in late February 2010, Britain and France changed their vote from abstention to support for the Goldstone Report. In mid-March 2010, the European Parliament voted to endorse the report as well.

No one is suggesting that human rights be sacrificed on the altar of national security. The laws of war need to be carefully protected along with the lives of the innocent. The problem with the Goldstone Report is not the result of the need to revise those laws: They need to be applied correctly and not in a way that ignores what insurgent forces are doing on the ground. If a public building filled with munitions needs to be attacked at night when civilians are not present, it is not for reasons of revenge but rather from military necessity. The Goldstone panel did not want to consider that possibility because of its own prejudices and mind-set. Should that mind-set spread, then not only will Israel's security be endangered but also the security of the West as a whole.

"Deputy FM: Qassam attack is consequence of Goldstone report," by Roni Sofer, Ynet News.com, March 18, 2010

"During a tour of the site of Thursday's Qassam attack that killed a Thai worker, Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon said, 'Since it was founded, Israel has sought peace, but the Palestinians not only fail to respond to our call, but continue with unbridled incitement and violence.'

"Ayalon also called on all those who support the so-called Goldstone report on Operation Cast Lead to come to the place where the Qassam rocket fell and 'see the consequences of the report.'"

""Hamas and the Terrorist Threat from the Gaza Strip"," Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, March 2010

Executive Summary

1. This document provides the main findings of a study which examined how the Goldstone Report dealt with the nature and activities of Hamas in the Gaza Strip before and during Operation Cast Lead.

2. The first part of the study examines how the Report relates to the terrorist threat as it developed in the Gaza Strip in the years before Operation Cast Lead . The subsequent parts deal with the various aspects of Hamas' strategy and combat tactics during the operation , emphasizing the massive use it made of Gazan civilians as human shields. The study does not deal with specific cases of IDF actions, which the IDF has examined separately.

3. The study compares the findings of the Goldstone Report with the actual events on the ground. It is supported by a vast amount of reliable, varied information which originated in the Israeli intelligence community, as well as open-source information, including statements made by Hamas elements.

4. The comparison clearly indicates four basic flaws in the way the Goldstone Report relates to the period before Operation Cast Lead:

The Report does not deal with the nature of Hamas, particularly its terrorist aspects. It focuses on severe criticism of Israel and presents an openly pro-Palestinian version of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It does not deal with Hamas' ideology , its strategy, the military-terrorist infrastructure it constructed, its radical Islamic nature, the way it relates to the West and the pro-Western Arab regimes, the brutality with which it treats its Palestinian opponents, the direction and aid it receives from its headquarters in Damascus, and its record as the terrorist organization which led suicide bombing terrorism against Israel and fired rockets at its civilians over a period of many years . The Report refers to the de facto Hamas administration as a governmental entity ("the Gaza authorities"), and adopts Hamas' false claim that there is no connection between that entity and the military-terrorist wing . The facts unequivocally prove that Hamas is one integral system, with a hierarchical leadership which maintains close contact between its political, administrative, security and military-terrorist branches.

The Report minimizes the extent and gravity of the terrorist activity carried out against Israel from the Gaza Strip and does not assign responsibility for it to Hamas . It focuses on rocket fire during the six months before Operation Cast Lead and devotes very little space to the rocket and mortar shell fire which began in 2001. It also does not deal with the other types of terrorist attacks originating in the Gaza Strip (including mass-murder attacks in Israel and the repeated attacks on the crossings and humanitarian facilities such as the Nahal Oz fuel terminal). The Report does define the rocket fire targeting the Israeli civilian population as a war crime (during the seven years leading up to Operation Cast Lead about 8,000 rocket and mortar shell hits were identified in Israel territory, killing and wounding civilians and severely disrupting daily life). However, the Report does not assign responsibility for the war crime to Hamas or any other terrorist organization operating in the Gaza Strip (such as the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which operated side by side with Hamas). Thus the war crime has no address (and no person, institution or organization is held accountable for it). Hamas exploited this basic flaw to shirk all responsibility for the rocket fire, using the Report as a tool for its legal and propaganda campaigns against Israel.

As part of its general trend to minimize the significance of the terrorist threat, the Report does not deal with Hamas' military buildup in the Gaza Strip during 2007-2008, which threatened Israel (as opposed to its extensive coverage of the historical development of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict). That was in spite of the military buildup which created a significant threat to Israel and was a gross violation of the Oslo accords between the Palestinians and Israel ( the Oslo accords allowed the Palestinian Authority to hold weapons only for the purposes of policing and security ). It ignores the various components of the process, including the institutionalizing and organizing of the Hamas' forces into semi-military units (similar to and inspired by Hezbollah); the smuggling into the Gaza Strip of an unprecedented quantity of advanced standard weapons and raw materials for the manufacture of weapons; intensive training in the Gaza Strip, Iran and Syria; and the manufacture of large quantities of rockets and IEDs. It also ignores the extensive efforts made before Operation Cast Lead to prepare residential areas for fighting, part of its combat doctrine of using civilians as human shields. The effort included stockpiling weapons, constructing pits and other facilities for firing rockets, erecting fortifications and digging tunnels, planting IEDs and mines, and booby-trapping buildings.

The Report completely ignores the massive amounts of aid Iran as well as Hezbollah and Syria (directly or through Hezbollah) gave Hamas to construct its military-terrorist infrastructure. Their support was accelerated during the two years preceding Operation Cast Lead and included smuggling long-range rockets into the Gaza Strip, assistance in developing and transferring knowhow for the self-production of rockets and IEDs, assistance in advanced training for hundreds of terrorist operatives and providing broad financial aid (given to Hamas by Iran). All of the above have continued after Operation Cast Lead and make it possible for Hamas to restore and improve the military capabilities which were damaged . The aid includes long-range rockets from Iran which can reach the center of Israel.

5. These four basic flaws in the Goldstone Report impair the reader's ability to understand Israel's reasons for Operation Cast Lead, and bias the description of the developments leading to it.

6. On the other hand, the Goldstone Report accepted the Hamas version of everything regarding the sharp escalation in rocket fire during 2008 which made Israel undertake the operation. For example, it minimizes the meaning of Hamas' systematic violations of the Egyptian-brokered lull arrangement during the six months preceding the operation. It provides a short , superficial description ( with motifs from Hamas propaganda ) of the rocket attack Hamas initiated when the lull ended. In addition, it does not assign responsibility for ending the lull to Hamas (despite the fact that Hamas unilaterally announced the lull had ended and accompanied the announcement with an escalation in rocket fire , for which it was severely criticized by Egypt and the Palestinian Authority). All of the above are part of the Goldstone Mission's underlying bias, which dictated its methodology and whose intention was to make Operation Cast Lead illegitimate in the eyes of the world and to prepare the ground for the serious accusations the Report made against Israel.

7. Throughout Operation Cast Lead itself, Hamas implemented a combat doctrine which made massive use of civilians as human shields. The doctrine, inspired by Hezbollah's experience in Lebanon, was formulated in the years preceding the operation. The Goldstone Report does not deal with Hamas' combat doctrine and its implications for asymmetric warfare in urban settings. Asymmetric warfare was characteristic of Operation Cast Lead, and presented the IDF with difficult operational and moral dilemmas (similar to those faced by the Americans, British and others in various combat zones). The report systematically ignores or rejects Israel's position on the issue of human shields. Rather, it accuses Israel itself of using civilians as human shields, although Israel made every effort to prevent harm from coming to non-combatant civilians.

8. This study documents the various combat tactics used by Hamas and the other terrorist organizations to turn civilians into human shields . Those tactics included forcing residents to stay at home in neighborhoods where the IDF operated; assimilating terrorist operatives into civilian neighborhoods ; exchanging their uniforms for civilian clothing while fighting the IDF; surrounding operatives with children to facilitate their escape from combat zones; making large-scale military use of civilian houses, which included constructing tunnels for assault and escape; situating its military infrastructure within civilian houses and public institutions; turning residential neighborhoods into combat zones (operational plans for which were seized by the IDF during the operation); firing rockets and mortar shells from within civilian population centers , including from next to buildings and from roofs; and summoning civilians to come to operatives' houses to serve as human shields for terrorist operatives in danger of being attacked by the IDF.

9. As part of implementing this doctrine, extensive use was made of public and administrative institutions on the assumption that it would increase Hamas operatives' chances of survival and make it difficult for the IDF to operate. This study documents the wide-spread, formal military use made of mosques, hospitals and educational institutions as locations for storing weapons, deploying terrorist operatives, fighting and firing rockets.

10. The study presents, among other findings, many specific examples, such as weapons hidden under a pulpit in a mosque in the Al-Atatra neighborhood of the northern Gaza Strip, the extensive military use of the Shifa'a hospital (the largest in the Gaza Strip) and others, the extensive use of ambulances to transport terrorist operatives during the fighting, booby-trapping a school in the Zeitoun neighborhood in Gaza City, and turning the laboratories of the science department of the Islamic University in Gaza City into production lines for rockets and other weapons. The Goldstone Report, on the other hand, either ignores the information about Hamas' combat tactics or minimizes its extent and importance.

11. The study examined the evidence regarding the degree to which Hamas' internal security services were involved in military-terrorist activities, both routinely and during Operation Cast Lead. The Goldstone Mission accepted Hamas' claim that the police and other internal security services are civilian entities whose only duty is enforcing law and order. The Report is therefore extremely critical of Israel for having attacked Hamas police and internal security service targets, representing them as attacks on civilians. Hard Israeli intelligence information as well as public declarations made by senior Hamas figures and open-source information demonstrate the nature of the involvement of the internal security services in Hamas' military activities. That involvement is expressed at three levels:

The senior governmental level: The support of the interior ministry of the de facto Hamas administration for Hamas' Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades and other terrorist organizations. Speaking in Arabic (not what they told members of the Goldstone Mission), senior members of the Hamas administration repeatedly praised the cooperation between the interior ministry, the internal security services and the various terrorist organizations (which they refer to as "the resistance"). For example, Fathi Hamad, interior and internal security minister, boasted that his ministry made every effort to protect the various organizations and to "facilitate their jihadist missions." To that end, he said, he and the members of his ministry met with the commanders of the organizations on a routine basis to remove obstacles which might hinder their military-terrorist activity. On another occasion, he praised his predecessor Sayid Siyyam, saying that one of his main achievements was the creation of the "cooperation and coordination between the security services and the Palestinian resistance."

Formal cooperation between the police and other internal security services, and Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades : Intelligence information indicates that for years there was formal cooperation between the police and internal security services, and the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades. It included joint deployment at bases and headquarters, joint training exercises at Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades facilities (a Hamas video clip shows Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades operatives training with police vehicles), conducting ambushes and observations, the transfer of weapons from the Brigades to policemen and joint preparations for a scenario for fighting the IDF . In such a scenario, police and other security services would join the fighting at the expense of their internal security duties. That cooperation has continued after Operation Cast Lead. For example, on December 20, 2009, the Brigades held a large military exercise in the northern Gaza Strip. It was intended to simulate fighting against the IDF in a scenario of a military operation in the Gaza Strip. The Hamas internal security services played a central role in the exercise, closely cooperating with the Brigades.

Fighting under the command of the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades: Police and other security service operatives were integrated into the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades. According to large amounts of reliable intelligence, police and other internal security service operatives served extensively, both routinely and in emergency situations, in the Brigades (including during Operation Cast Lead). In the scenario of a broad-scale Israeli incursion into the Gaza Strip, operatives of the internal security services become an integral part of Hamas' military structure (whether by having individual operatives join the organic forces of the Brigades, or whether by having the security services fight side by side with them).

12. During and after Operation Cast Lead police and other security service operatives with double identities were killed. Hamas made an effort to hide the names and identities of operatives killed during the fighting . However, even during the Operation, and more so after it, its efforts were gradually overcome and posters commemorating those killed were issued. Some of them clearly indicated the double identity of the police killed showing them wearing both Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades and police uniforms and filling roles in both entities. The posters used terminology characteristic of the Brigades. Additional information shows that internally, as opposed to what is reported in the Goldstone Report, Hamas makes no distinction between Brigades and internal security services operatives, regarding all those killed during Operation Cast Lead as fighters.

13. The statistics of Palestinian casualties during Operation Cast Lead, as they appear in the Goldstone Report, were also examined by the Israeli defense establishment. According to a thorough examination, during Operation Cast Lead 1,166 Palestinians were killed, of whom 709 were operatives in Hamas' military and security system. At least 60% of the casualties were terrorist operatives actively engaged in the fighting.

14. The Goldstone Mission, on the other hand, accepted the data provided by the human rights organizations in the Gaza Strip, most of which match the false Hamas database and Hamas' Tawthiq ("documentation") Committee, which is the creation of the de facto Hamas administration's justice ministry. (Today Tawthiq exploits the Goldstone Report to wage a legal campaign against Israel in Europe.) According to the data issued in the Report, the total number of Palestinians killed was more than 1,444, of whom some 20% were "combatants." One reason for the discrepancy between the data is the false representation of police and internal security casualties as ordinary civilians, used to magnify the claims against Israel and reinforce the thesis that it deliberately targeted civilians.

15. The percentage of operatives killed (at least 60%), compared with the number of non-combatants killed, is relatively high, particularly since the fighting took place in a densely-populated civilian area. In that area, Hamas made extensive use of non-combatant civilians as human shields. The Report does not relate to the special challenges of asymmetric warfare against terrorists using civilians as human shields and ignored the tragedy of civilian losses exploited for propaganda purposes. It does not make an effort to compare the way the IDF fought in the Gaza Strip with similar military campaigns fought by national armies against terrorist organizations and radical Islamic elements in other arenas (Iraq, Chechnya and Afghanistan).

16. The main conclusion of this study is that there is an enormous discrepancy between the findings of the Goldstone Report and the factual findings , and an extreme imbalance tipped against Israel in favor of Hamas. The Report systematically relies on selective, biased information, in many cases supplied by Hamas or by individuals and/or institutions controlled by it. The Report analyzes the selective, biased information in a way clearly intended to reinforce the thesis that Israel deliberately targeted civilians (a thesis which supports Hamas propaganda). We, the researchers and authors of this study, are aware that some of the information we had access to was not available to the Goldstone Mission. However, it is also clear that the authors of the Goldstone Report consistently avoided using information which was, in fact, accessible, but which did not support its main thesis, or at least presented serious doubts regarding its validity.

17. The Goldstone Report either ignores or minimizes the serious nature of the terrorist threat from the Gaza Strip facing Israel during the period before Operation Cast Lead (the potential for which still exists). The Report also systematically does not relate to the nature of Hamas or its goals. It also assigns no responsibility to it or any other terrorist organization for the years of rocket fire targeting Israeli civilians. It also does not blame Hamas for its use of Palestinian civilians as human shields. As far as Hamas is concerned, it is absolved by the Goldstone Report of all responsibility for war crimes carried out before and during Operation Cast Lead. Therefore, since the publication of the Report, Hamas has tried to use it wherever possible against Israel and sometimes even against the Palestinian Authority.

Sources

18. This study is based on a vast amount of intelligence information from the Israeli intelligence community which was made accessible to the team of researchers. It also made extensive use of Palestinian, Arab and international media, and of previous bulletins issued by the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center (which were used selectively by the Goldstone Mission). In addition, the intelligence information was supported and complemented by statements and investigations of IDF forces who fought on the ground.

19. This study employed the following concrete sources of information:

Vast amounts of intelligence information, based, among other things, on human sources (HUMINT) and intelligence sources, including the tactical communications networks of the terrorist organizations.

Interrogations of terrorist operatives belonging to Hamas and the other terrorist organizations who were detained during Operation Cast Lead.

Video clips photographed by the Israeli Air Force during the operation.

Analysis of aerial photographs of terrorist targets (bases, headquarters, facilities, weapons) and of residential neighborhoods in the Gaza Strip in which the military-terrorist infrastructure was based.

Documents seized during Operation Cast Lead (including two operational sketches of residential neighborhoods in the northern Gaza Strip which were prepared as combat zones).

Video clips and information from the Hamas media (including interviews held by Western correspondents with local residents).

Photographs taken by IDF forces operating in the Gaza Strip.

Statements made by IDF officers who participated in the fighting.

Methodology

20. The study was written by a team of researchers at the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center (ITIC) at the Israel Intelligence Heritage & Commemoration Center, headed by Dr. Reuven Erlich (Lt. Col., Ret.), with the assistance of the Israeli defense establishment. The ITIC dealt extensively with some of the issues appearing in the study in the years preceding Operation Cast Lead.

21. This study provides a response to the Goldstone Report regarding the activities and nature of Hamas and the nature of the terrorist threat from the Gaza Strip . However, it does not deal with other military and political aspects of Operation Cast Lead and its results , nor does it compare the operation with other arenas in which asymmetric warfare has been waged.

22. The methodology of the study is a comparison of the Goldstone Report and the facts on the ground , as they were reflected by the evidence relating to the actions of Hamas and the other terrorist organizations before and during Operation Cast Lead. Key issues were examined and a comparison was made between what the Report said and the factual findings.

The Methodology of the Goldstone Report

23. During its research, the team was exposed to the Goldstone Mission's way of thinking and drawing conclusions. The most conspicuous methodological flaws, which appear throughout its 452 pages, are its complete lack of balance, and its clear, systematic pro-Palestinian bias, exemplified by its adoption of the Hamas narrative and reflecting its initial prejudice against Israeli.

24. In any research work, regardless of its professional level, there is a certain amount of subjectivity and a potential for bias, even subconsciously, but the Goldstone Report is an extreme case. It is doubtful whether the way the Goldstone Report used information regarding Hamas and terrorism can be understood as anything other than a conscious attempt to serve a central, premeditated thesis. The main thrust of the thesis is to accuse Israel of war crimes against Palestinian civilians.

25. As a result of its fundamental bias, the Goldstone Report is tainted by a variety of flaws which are evident throughout: its complete asymmetry in collecting statements , which led it to rely to a great extent on biased and unreliable information supplied by Hamas or by Hamas-controlled sources which were neither independent nor objective; its systematic rejection or minimizing of the significance of available Israeli information and information from other Western sources; its failure to analyze essential facts and events; and its passive approach to collecting the data related to core issues which might have balanced the picture relating to Israel.

26. To the above can be added its complete acceptance of the Palestinian narrative (particularly Hamas') and as a result its complete disregard for Israel's positions, considerations and worldview. It lacks an attempt to put Operation Cast Lead into a wider perspective, such as an analysis of the problematic nature of waging asymmetric warfare as related to the massive use Hamas made of civilians as human shields, or a comparison of the results of the fighting in the Gaza Strip with fighting in other areas where national armies combat terrorist and guerilla organizations operating from within civilian populations.

"Israel's First Real Response to Goldstone," by Yaakov Katz, Jerusalem Post, March 15, 2010

"Over a year after Operation Cast Lead and following wide-ranging criticism and countless international condemnations, the vindication of the IDF has finally begun.

"The 500-page report revealed Monday by The Jerusalem Post and authored by the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center is the first real, aggressive Israeli response to the Goldstone Report, taking it apart piece-by-piece and explaining the true nature of the conflict against Hamas in the Gaza Strip...

"While Hamas's use of mosques was known, the Malam report shows that it was extensive and was a pillar of Hamas's overall military doctrine (almost 100 mosques were used to store weapons and launch Kassams). While everyone has heard the story about how Hamas terror chiefs hid in the basement of Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, the Malam report reveals maps of other hospitals which were surrounded by mines, Hamas military posts and tunnels."

"UN Inquiry Accused of Anti Israel Bias," by Ben Evansky, FOXNews.com, March 5, 2010

"A controversial United Nations report called the UN Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict and more commonly known as "The Goldstone Report," is under fire for being biased against Israel. Among its conclusions was an accusation that Israel had committed "war crimes" during its twenty-two day war with Palestinian terrorists that ended in January, 2009. Critics discredit this finding - saying key members of the report were clearly biased in favor of the Palestinians...

"Nile Gardiner...is a UN expert at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, and tells Fox News that the so called experts who helped write the report had already convicted Israel for war crimes before coming on board to investigate it. According to Gardiner 'it's an extreme example of the UN's anti-Israel propaganda, which comes at a huge expense to taxpayers.'"

"The Influence of New Israel Fund organizations on the Goldstone Report", Im Tirtzu, February 2010

"An analysis of the Goldstone Report reveals that the weight of the reliance of the report's authors on New Israel Fund organizations, out of all the Israeli sources, was 42%. A more detailed analysis of the data reveals that among the Israeli organizations mentioned in the report, and on whose publications Goldstone bases his accusations against the IDF and Israel, there are some that contradict the report's allegations in their publications, or which have a neutral stance toward the allegations. Fully 92% of the quotes from Israeli organizations that support the claims against Israel come from organizations funded by the NIF...

"Furthermore, an analysis of the research material reveals that the joint actions of some of the organizations funded by the NIF was intended not only to protest against IDF actions, but also to coordinate international activities against Israel, resulting in serious damage to Israel's image around the world and the impairment of the IDF's ability to defend Israel during times of military conflict. 40% of the evidence on which the Goldstone Report based its arguments originated in publications of NIF (145) and Palestinian (26%) organizations. Without the NIF, over 90% of the claims against Israel that were based on Israeli publications would not have been in the report."

"The Goldstone hustle: Railroading Israel into court," by Benny Avni, New York Post, February 5, 2010

"The chosen tool of the world Israel-bashing lobby is South African Judge Richard Goldstone, whose now-infamous report made an overstated and poorly substantiated case against the Israel Defense Force. He also charted a careful road map for taking the job of prosecution away from Israel's unbiased, independent and long-admired justice system and handing it to the Hague-based International Criminal Court...

If Goldstone's tactics succeed, future imitators will surely build cases for "war crimes" in Iraq, Afghanistan or Yemen. Indeed, the ICC's top prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, has already expressed interest in trying allegations against NATO troops, including Americans, operating against al Qaeda in Afghanistan.

"Arguments 'Ad Hominem' and 'By Ethnic Identity' in Defense of Goldstone Report," by Alan Dershowitz, Gatestone Institute, February 3, 2010

"In a criminal trial, it is impermissible to attack the character of the defendant unless he has placed his character at issue. That is precisely what Goldstone has done in his campaign to lend credibility to his mendacious report by constantly invoking his Jewishness. The appropriate response to an ad hominem positive argument is an ad hominem negative argument...

"In light of the hard evidence, that is easily accessible online and in the media, Goldstone cannot possibly believe that Hamas did not intentionally use human shields, have their fighters deliberately dress in civilian clothing and use mosques and hospitals to store rockets and other weapons. Videotapes conclusively prove these charges, and Hamas acknowledges-indeed boasts of-them. He cannot possibly believe that Israel used the thousands of rockets that Hamas directed against its children as an excuse, or a cover, for its real goal, namely to kill as many Palestinian civilians as possible. Nor could he possibly believe that the Israeli government made a policy decision, at the highest levels, to deliberately target Palestinian babies, young children, women and the elderly for murder. All the evidence points away from these wild charges. Yet he signed a report asserting that those demonstrably false conclusions were true. Shame on him. And even more shame on him for exploiting his Jewishness to get others to believe these defamations against the Jewish state.

"The Goldstone report should be rejected on its demerits. The added fact that it was authored by a Jew-selected precisely because he is a Jew with aspirations to be honored by the international community-should diminish, rather than increase, its credibility."

"ECLJ: Goldstone Report's Criticism of Israel Flawed, Biased, Unwarranted," American Center for Law & Justice, January 26, 2010

"The Goldstone Report makes a mockery of objective fact-finding," said Robert Ash, the ACLJ's Senior Litigation Counsel for National Security Law, who worked extensively on the ECLJ filings. "Instead of commending Israel for its efforts to avoid the Gaza conflict in the first place and then to avoid civilian casualties once the war began, the Goldstone Report blames Israel and gives a pass to Hamas and its terrorist allies who triggered the conflict. By exonerating Hamas from its responsibility for causing the war and for placing Palestinian civilians at risk, the Goldstone Report provides Hamas terrorists with a propaganda victory which encourages them to try the same thing again."

"Blaming Israel First" by Peter Berkowitz, Weekly Standard, January 13, 2010

"With the possible exception of the U.S. armed forces, no military in the history of warfare has made greater efforts in the face of grave national security threats to avoid the use of force or has tried harder, when obliged to fight, to protect noncombatants than the Israel Defense Forces. No military has investigated itself as rigorously as the IDF. No courts have done more to hold their military accountable than Israel's. It is therefore a bitter irony that no country's military, judiciary, and democracy have been the target of greater vilification for alleged human rights violations, war crimes, and crimes against humanity than Israel's. By pervasively insinuating that Israel is no better than, and in some respects worse than, the terrorists it battles, the Goldstone Report hands Islamic extremists another propaganda victory...

"The long-term stakes, according to General Halamish, are high: 'The fundamental problem applies not just to Israel but to all democratic nations-if they accept the Goldstone Report's approach and conclusions, they will not be able to fight terror.'"

"Between Goldstone and Gaza, what's one more zero?" by Martin Kramer, Sandbox, December 10, 2009

I've been reading through the part of the Goldstone Report treating the economic impact of Operation Cast Lead-a part that hasn't gotten much attention. It's largely a crib of a March 2009 report compiled by the Palestinian Federation of Industries, whose deputy general-secretary, Amr Hamad, was interviewed three separate times by the mission. The mission deemed both the report and Hamad's testimony to be "reliable and credible."

The most important sentence in this section of the Goldstone Report is this one: "Mr. Amr Hamad indicated that 324 factories had been destroyed during the Israeli military operations at a cost of 40,000 jobs" (paragraph 1009)...

But if you return to the report of the Palestinian Federation of Industries, it puts the job losses at these 324 factories not at 40,000, but at 4,000. That's an order-of-magnitude misrepresentation by Hamad of his own organization's findings. The Goldstone Mission should have wondered at the figure, checked Hamad's testimony against the Palestinian Federation of Industries report, detected the discrepancy, and gotten it right. But it didn't. Perhaps the mission members, hearing the word "factories," thought that 40,000 jobs sounded credible. In fact, more than a quarter (88) of these 324 "factories" employed five people or less, and over half (189) employed from five to twenty people (Federation report, p. 12). The vast majority of these "factories" should really be described as "workshops." Only three employed a hundred or more people...

And as you ponder all those figures in the Goldstone Report, just keep in mind that it contains at least one order-of-magnitude error regarding a very basic statistic. The report isn't just biased. It's shoddy.

"The Goldstone Report: Stone or Gold?"University of Sussex, December 8, 2009

The Goldstone Mission Report is not so much an exercise in judgment as an exercise in labelling. Anti-Zionists attempt to delegitimize Israel through demonization. Their tactic of demonization of choice is claimed violations of international law. The line of argument they attempt to push is that Israel does not deserve to exist because it is a criminal state. The Goldstone Mission Report was another instalment in this serialized demonization...

One can speculate what this Mission, or, better still, an independent unbiased investigation, might have done with first hand facts and accurate law. One can say right now that this Mission, with its biased composition and mandate, with the wrong law and missing facts, has produced a report which is not reliable.

Is the Goldstone Report stone or gold? My verdict is stone. Like stone, the report is thick, heavy, dense and worthless. It is useful as a piece of anti-Zionist propaganda. But for those not inclined to engage in that propaganda, it is not much use at all. Anti-Zionists will want to keep it afloat. For others, it deserves to sink like a stone, without a trace.

"Hamas: Goldstone Report exonerates us from war crimes against Israel,"Al-Mushahid Al-Siyasi (pan-Arabic weekly), December 5, 2009

Hamas second-in-command Musa Abu Marzouq said in an interview: "All paragraphs in the Goldstone report convict Israel and totally exonerate Hamas from any misconduct. For instance, the report exonerates Hamas from the accusation of using civilians as human shields and attributes this accusation to Israeli forces. Likewise, the report exonerated Hamas from all other accusations mentioned by Israel, and even when the report is dealing with the rockets which were launched from Gaza, it speaks about military groups without naming Hamas." Translated by Jonathan D. Halevi.

"Dershowitz slams Goldstone for 'spreading lies'", by Yitzhak Benhorin, YNet News, November 23, 2009

Jewish-American legalist, Prof. Alan Dershowitz accused Judge Richard Goldstone, the author of the UN report investigating Operation Cast Lead, of dodging an intellectual confrontation with him and of choosing to speak with relatively less incisive interviewers in order to spread lies against the Israeli government...

Dershowitz demanded that Goldstone provide explanations of the sources that led him to his final conclusion in the report, which asserted that Israel's policy in Operation Cast Lead was to kill as many Palestinian civilians as possible.

Dershowitz said that this is an utter lie and that Goldstone must be ashamed for coming to such a conclusion, saying that while Goldstone now denies such allegations in interviews, this indeed is the bottom line of the report written plainly in black and white.

"UN's Goldstone Sent 13-Year-Old Boy to Prison for Protesting Apartheid," by Ashley Rinsburg, The Huffington Post, November 19, 2009

"During this period between 1980 and 1989 -- some of apartheid South Africa's most violent years -- Goldstone ruled on cases which pitted human rights against South African statutory law, legal precedence, and judicial convention.

In the most poignant case, Goldstone ruled against the 1986 appeal of a 13-year-old boy who had been sentenced to jail for disrupting school as a protest against apartheid and increasingly draconian "emergency laws" used to preserve order and squelch opposition to the government. Goldstone, according to The New York Times, provided no comment to his decision to uphold the sentence of the lower court.

...The case of the 13-year-old boy Goldstone ruled against came in the context of a wave of national protests and school disruptions by South Africa's black youth against apartheid and the brutal emergency laws. Authorities responded with mass detention of children who participated in the protests, or were suspected of doing so. By the fall of 1985, at least 800 students had been detained. By December of 1986, South African security officials admitted to having detained more than 1,800 teenagers, while reports surfaced that policemen routinely whipped children at their school desks if they were suspected of supporting the anti-apartheid protests.

Goldstone was slammed by South African human rights organizations for his 1986 ruling against the boy. In a later interview with The New York Times' Bill Keller (who called Goldstone a "cross between King Solomon and Ghostbusters"), the South African judge said about his ruling against the boy that the emergency laws left him "no way out."

But criticism of Goldstone has not been limited to decisions made during his tenure on the bench of apartheid South Africa's Supreme Court. South African journalist and historian R.W. Johnson wrote in an October, 2009 piece that Goldstone had made serious ethical breaches in his capacity as chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia (ICTY).

During preparation for the trial against former Yugoslavian military commanders, according to Johnson, Goldstone was informed by higher-ups that if he did not secure an indictment by November, 1994, he would not receive budgetary funding for the following year. Goldstone quickly moved to indict the only person there was evidence against, even though Goldstone admitted that the defendant "wasn't an inappropriate first person to indict."

Johnson, in his piece, "Who Is Richard Goldstone," noted that the indictment "was so inappropriate that the judges in The Hague passed a motion severely censuring Goldstone."...Natynczyk related the similarities between what is required of Israel and what is required of his country as part of its battle against terror.

"Goldstone defends UN report on Gaza At Brandeis, jurist debates ex-Israeli envoy," by James Smith, The Boston Globe, November 6, 2009

But Goldstone faced an equally spirited rebuttal from former Israeli diplomat Dore Gold, who called the report "the most serious and vicious indictment of the state of Israel bearing the seal of the United Nations' since an infamous resolution equating Zionism with racism in 1975. Gold said the Goldstone report all but ignored Israel's right to defend itself despite years of Palestinian rocket attacks and suicide bombings.

[NOTE: Click here to view the visual presentation of Dore Gold given at the debate at Brandeis University.]

"Canadian Chief of Staff slams Goldstone Report," by Gil Zohar, The Jewish Tribune, October 27, 2009

"I'm not sure if the Israeli standpoint is that much different than the Canadian standpoint, having had the experience in Afghanistan," said Gen. Walter J. Natynczyk, Canadian Armed Forces chief of the defence staff, in an interview last week with the IDF journal Bamahane (In the Camp).

"I've got to look through the whole report and read it through myself. But I fully understand how when someone is attacked from houses, family houses, and so on, that there is a responsibility to protect oneself and protect civilians," Natynczyk said...

...Natynczyk related the similarities between what is required of Israel and what is required of his country as part of its battle against terror.

"Israel and the UN Kangaroo Court,' by Gregg Rickman, The Cutting Edge, October 26, 2009

Last week's consideration of the one-sided Goldstone Report has once again shown the fecklessness and bias of the Human Rights Council. Israel's indictment by that body should come as no surprise to anyone who knows the UN. Israel simply cannot receive a fair hearing for any accusations placed against it there. As such, the Human Rights Council, and to be more accurate, the entire UN system is rigged against Israel making the process a kangaroo court.

"Top UK journalist calls Goldstone 'half-bakes,'" The Jerusalem Post, October 23, 2009

In an article in The Guardian, Sir Harold Evans, former editor of the Sunday Times and Times, condemned the Goldstone Report, describing it as "half-baked" and designed to exonerate the real aggressor, Hamas.

In an article entitled "A moral atrocity," he said Goldstone had been "suckered" into letting war criminals use his name to pillory Israel.

Evans also said that as a Jew, Goldstone should have turned down the job of leading the delegation.

"[Goldstone] said that, as a Jew himself, he was surprised to be invited. He shouldn't have been, and should never have accepted leadership of a commission whose terms of reference were designed to excuse the aggressor, Hamas, and punish the defender, Israel," Evans said.

"Who is Richard Goldstone," by R.W. Johnson Radio Free Europe, October 20, 2009

Throughout his career Goldstone has been criticized for cutting corners out of excessive ambition, but in the eyes of many Jews his Gaza commission has set a new low. That a Jewish judge, barred from entering Israel for accepting a commission deliberately biased against the state, should write a report based largely on interviews with Hamas activists in order to pander to anti-Zionist opinion has meant, for many, that he has simply stepped outside the pale.

"A biased war report" Baltimore Sun, October 20, 2009


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