Israel sees Palestinian children as 'potential terrorists', panel finds

[Scootaloo]

20. I read the second

Like I said, ngo-watch made things go wacky.

Do you know WHY the Goldstone report relied heavily on NGO reports? Because Israel flat refused to provide any information for it. Their position was that they would provide an "internal investigation" and release their own findings. I'll admit my own doubts here; I don't trust the local police department to investigate themselves, why would I trust a damned military to do so? Regardless, he had been commissioned to create this report, and so he did, with the information he could gather. Israel, choosing to not divulge a scrap of its own information, really, truly, honestly has no place to whine about the results.

But goodness gracious did they whine. Even before any findings were reported, Goldstone was suddenly a raving Israel-hating antisemite lying motherfucker and the absolute worst human being on the entire planet. He was accused of "collaborating with terrorists." There were death threats against Goldstone, for the first time since 1990, when his investigation into apartheid won him death threats from White Afrikaaner separatists (kind of ironic, that)

In fact for daring to accept the UN's assignment for him, he was nearly barred from attending his grandson's Bar Mitzvah by the South African Zionist Federation. Such class, those Team Israel folks.

Even with that pressure on him, he did not retract his report. He said that if he had had the information which Israel later released, the report would have been different. Well... Duh? He also commended Israel for at least investigating, unlike Hamas, which did jack squat. It's not exactly the massive capitulation you're presenting it as.

Which is why your source links to one of its own articles that keeps right up with the attacks even after supposedly getting what it wanted.

Now, the funny thing is... Israel's own report confirms many of the situations reported by Goldstone;
http://www.hybridstates.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/GazaUpdateJuly2010.pdf

http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Terrorism-+Obstacle+to+Peace/Hamas+war+against+Israel/Gaza_Operation_Investigations_Second_Update_July_2010.htm (Second source, since I'm sure you probably won't take hybridstates as "credible.&quot

Whether or not these are war crimes would be up to an impartial jury, I would think. But you and I know that's just not going to fucking happen, unless I guess we get some random villagers from the hills of Laos to review evidence and reach a conclusion (which... honestly sounds like it might work ) Goldstone's initial position that they did qualify as war crimes is perhaps due to, you know, Israel flat out refusing to participate in the investigation and thus denying Goldstone some necessary information and perhaps convincing arguments. It's clear that choosing to do so would have saved everyone a lot of trouble.

So to recap.

Team Israel - and you are very much included in this group, Shira - responded to the idea of investigating human rights violations on OCL with threats to murder a man, antisemitic attacks, harassment of this man's family, dehumanization of him and his colleagues and sources, a campaign of lies and mis-characterization designed to try to wreck his illustrious and admired career and achievements, a political campaign to bar him from his religious observances, all while Israel was refusing to provide a scrap of information to him that would have, evidently, resulted in a somewhat different report that cast Israel in a better light.

All to the end effect of basically being able to say "Look! Israel is better than Hamas!" which is a really low bar to set for yourself, if you ask me.