Last year's report by the
Strictly speaking, the report was primarily directed against
Israel, which was seeking to bring to a complete
halt the indiscriminate rocket and mortar fire by the international
terrorist organization
Thus a report that has the stamp of
How did the Goldstone team produce such a result? It is essential to
understand that its members had a very specific outlook of the nature of
this kind of armed conflict that affected their conclusions. Colonel
Take, for example, the case of
Because the U.N. actually posted on its website video clips with the
questioning of
In
The
When Travers was asked how many mosques he inspected,
he answered that he visited two. He did not even think that he needed to
be more thorough for he dismissed the very possibility that anyone would
hide munitions in a place of worship. In contrast, earlier this year,
Col.
In other theaters of war in the Middle East, the
militarization of mosques was very common. In 2004, U.S. forces in
More generally, the Goldstone team simply refused to accept the
argument that
From
However, the Goldstone panel did not want to consider the possibility
that the Gaza War was part of an emerging battlefield, in which private
homes, mosques, and innocent civilians are being intentionally exploited
by terrorist groups that seek to fight the West. In
With respect to the
What needs to be done is to recognize that Western armies are going
to be dealing increasingly with situations in which terrorist groups are
embedding their military capabilities in the heart of civilian areas. In
these circumstances, Western armies have three choices if their
countries come under attack: to give up and not defend their citizens,
to act like the Russians in Chechnya and use indiscriminate firepower,
or to find a way to separate the civilians from the military
capabilities they hope to destroy. Israel clearly
chose the last option, using a system of warnings to the population, by
means of leaflets, breaking into
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
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
- Al-Qaeda has Lost the Battle. But has it Won the War?
- Why Natural Disasters Are More Expensive But Less Deadly
- Dangerous Bias of United Nations Goldstone Report
- Greek Financial Debt Crisis Only Part of EU's Woes
- Remember the Pacific War
- Strange Sighting in Iraq
- Mexico Facing Six Wars Not Just One
- Mexican Violence Rising but Less Than in Washington
- Pakistan's Shrewd Shift in Dialogue
- In Middle East Public Diplomacy Is Wrong Approach
- The Truth About American and Israeli Interests Comes Out
- Israel's New Enemy: America?
- Israel and Palestine: An Interim Agreement
- The Progress of Man
- Iraq - Reflections on an Anniversary
- Iraq - The Story That Won't Go Away
- Jolt for Energy Innovation: Government Investing
- Side by Side in Need for Green Growth: China and America try cooperation
- In World's Economic Crisis, Competition in Ignominy Remains Keen
- Winning the War to Secure the Peace
- Enemies Into Friends: How United States Can Court Its Adversaries
- Obama's Hesitant Embrace of Human Rights
(C) 2010 U.S. News & World Report