RePortersNoteBook.com: Congressional Vote on Goldstone Most Detrimental for Israel and the U.S.

Congressional Vote on Goldstone Most Detrimental for Israel and the U.S.

By: Noura Erakat and James Marc Leas

The House vote condemning the Goldstone Report, which encourages Israel and Hamas to conduct "credible" independent investigations of war crimes committed in Gaza, may help Israeli leaders avoid prosecution in the short-term. However, the House vote will have long-term detrimental effects on Israel and the U.S.'s moral authority. While the vote increased the likelihood of a US veto in the UN Security Council, it will not stifle calls for justice. On the contrary, the Congressional vote increases the likelihood of a worldwide campaign to push the UN General Assembly, the International Criminal Court, or other countries, under universal jurisdiction, to take action against the Israeli war crimes committed in Gaza. Campaigns for boycott, divestment and sanctions are already growing rapidly and likely to be accelerated by US and Israeli intransigence.

The House Resolution railed against the Goldstone Commission for failng to recognize Israel's right to self-defense "against relentless rocket and mortar attacks." However, the self-defense claim propagated by Israeli and U.S. politicians alike since the initiation of Operation Cast Lead, is inconsistent with both the facts and the law.

Within weeks of entering into the Egyptian-brokered ceasefire agreement, Hamas rocket fire had come to a near halt. According to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), the ceasefire was so successful that it brought "normal life and "calm" back to Israeli towns near Gaza. In an article titled, "One Month of Calm Along the Israel-Gaza Border," posted on July 27, 2008, the MFA even lauds Hamas, stating, "Publicly, Hamas leaders have stated time and again that the lull is a Palestinian national interest. On several occasions, Hamas members have arrested Fatah operatives who were involved in firing at Israel and confiscated their arms."

Calm prevailed for four months until Israeli forces broke the ceasefire agreement on November 4, 2008, as reported in a New York Times article, "Israeli Strike is First in Gaza Since Start of Cease Fire." . While the world's gaze turned to one of the U.S.'s most historic elections that day, Israel launched an armed incursion into Gaza, accompanied by aerial bombing, killing six Hamas members. Hamas rocket fire immediately followed the Israeli attack catapulting the region into a renewed wave of violent hostilities. Two weeks later Israel's largest circulation paper quoted Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak admitting that "the recent waves of rocket attacks are a result of our operations, which have resulted in the killing of twenty Hamas gunmen" (Ynet News November 20, 2008). Barak's admission, consistent with the fact that Israel broke the ceasefire, makes Israel's self-defense claim baseless.

Still, Hamas offered to reinstate and extend the ceasefire a month later on December 23, 2008. ("Hamas: Willing to renew truce" Ynet News December 23, 2008.) Israel refused, ducking the chance to reach a diplomatic agreement that would have again ended rocket fire and brought the security desired by Israel. Instead, Israel chose massive escalation and four days later launched a gruesome aerial offensive against Gaza.

On the Offensive's 17^th day, Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni boasted that Israel was "going wild–and this is a good thing" ("Israeli cabinet divided over fresh Gaza surge," The Independent, January 13, 2009). The targeting of civilians described in the Goldstone Report seems to corroborate this Israeli attitude as Israeli forces attacked targets in Gaza that had nothing to do with Israel's stated military objective of stopping rocket fire. Israeli forces targeted schools, hospitals, factories, agricultural land, the only flour mill in Gaza, an egg farm, thousands of private homes, government buildings, and Palestinian civilians.

The Goldstone Report concluded:

"While the Israeli Government has sought to portray its operations as essentially a response to rocket attacks in the exercise of its right to self-defence, the Mission considers the plan to have been directed, at least in part, at a different target: the people of Gaza as a whole." (Goldstone par. 1883)

Although the principle of proportionality, a pillar in the laws of war as well as an element of self-defense in international law, has been a matter of significant controversy, there exists one unequivocal standard of proportionality around which no controversy exists: the prohibition on the targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure. As demonstrated not only by the Goldstone Report, but the reports by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, and the National Lawyers Guild, Israeli forces directly targeted civilians and civilian infrastructure during its 22-day offensive, thereby rendering null any legal argument for self-defense. The only rebuttal to these charges against the Israeli Army is a military investigation conducted by the Israeli Army of itself- an investigation nearly unanimously deemed insufficient and partial. (see "Operation Cast Lead: The Elusive Quest for Self-Defense in International Law,"http://www.lawrecord.com/files/36-rutgers-l.-rec.-164.pdf)

Thus, neither the facts nor the law support an Israeli self-defense claim. Rather than condemn Israel's act of aggression, ongoing occupation and humanitarian blockade of the Gaza Strip, Congress produced a pungent piece of manipulative delusion: that Israel's onslaught of Gaza constituted an act of self-defense. The House is now on the record disavowing international law and international accountability mechanisms. People around the world will be persuaded that protests, boycotts, and divestment campaigns are all the more necessary, and they will look to places outside the US political establishment for justice.

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