What was the Obama administration thinking with the Goldstone report?

[ProgressiveMuslim]

Sun, 10/04/2009 - 7:15am

I'm still trying to figure out the thinking behind the Obama administration's rapid moves to block the Goldstone report on the Gaza war. Without even getting into the moral issues involved or the accuracy of the report, the most likely tactical considerations behind the administration's decision seem short-sighted. Its move likely responded to the intense public and private Israeli campaign against the report, and probably aimed at winning back some positive relations with the Israelis and maintaining momentum on the peace process.

But if the administration's hope was that killing the report would make the issue quietly go away while winning some political capital with the Israelis, it is likely to be disappointed. Quite the contrary: the report is becoming a major political issue in the Arab world, badly damaging the legitimacy of the Palestinian Authority, while Obama seems to be getting little credit from Israeli public opinion or the Israeli government.

Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority are already paying a heavy price for succumbing to reported American pressure to drop the report. It isn't just Hamas criticism, though there's plenty of that. This has rapidly become a leading issue in the Palestinian and Arab media, and is shaping up into a profound setback for the already weak PA leadership. Virtually every sector of Palestinian opinion -- from Hamas to Fatah, from Gaza to the West Bank -- has united in harsh criticism of the move. Even Mohammed Dahlan -- Dahlan! -- is positioning himself in opposition, showing where he thinks the political points are to be scored. The Economics Minister in Fayyad's government Bassem al-Khoury reportedly submitted his resignation in protest. Given his key role in pushing the so-called "economic peace" that Israeli and American officials are so keen upon, perhaps that will get more attention than the massive, broad-based criticism across the rest of Palestinian society.

read on...

http://lynch.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/10/04/pa_paying_the_price

[Don Caballero]

1. The report was veiled anti-semitism

President Obama has a great ally in Israel and does not wish to divide her people. Let us not forget that Israel was very patient with the Palestinians shooting Kassam rockets into their territory and finally had enough.

[ixion]

3. ...

:rofl:


...


:rofl:

[Howardx]

4. so

due to their patience, war crimes were ok. youre an idiot.

[Don Caballero]

5. War crimes are never okay

Israel understands that they are reviled by their neighbors both within their borders and outside. Defending the land of their origin and current residence is only natural. The Palestinians flaunt negligence when they fire rockets into Israel indiscriminately.

[shira]

6. you were correct about the report being veiled antisemitism

what else explains the following?

The Goldstone Report: A Study in Duplicity
http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=2&x_outlet=118&x_article=1736#

or this?

Israel initial response to Goldstone report
http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Terrorism-+Obstacle+to+Peace/Hamas+war+against+Israel/Initial-response-goldstone-report-24-Sep-2009.htm

Obama can't just come out against the UN and state the obvious.

Also, the report is bad for the USA, NATO, etc.. in their operations against Iraq and Afghanistan. If Israel is committing warcrimes in Gaza, then the USA is at least 10x worse under the same perversions of International Law. And when I state "perversions" of International Law, that's exactly what I mean, as this is a report from Goldstone 10 years ago regarding NATO bombing in Serbia (see paragraphs #71-77)...

http://www.icty.org/sid/10052#IVB3

...so the very same "warcrimes" Goldstone is accusing Israel of based on "International Law" are not warcrimes with regard to NATO, or the USA/UK in Iraq/Afghanistan.

Neither are these warcrimes when the USA is involved...

In 2003, Garlasco was responsible for dropping two, laser-guided, 500-kilogram bombs on a house in the Tuwaisi, neighborhood of Basra, Iraq, that he believed to contain Saddam Hussein's cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid, also known as Chemical Ali, the man responsible for launching poison gas attacks on Kurds in Iraq beginning in 1988.<7> Watching the attack via satellite form a room in the Pentagon, Garlasco threw his arms in the air and shouted: "I just blew up Chemical Ali!" However, Chemical Ali was not in the house; 17 other people were killed instead.<7> Garlasco left his Pentagon job in 2003 two weeks after the failed attack<5> to take a position as senior military analyst at Human Rights Watch.<9>

Garlasco explained the calculus of civilian deaths in high value targeting to the television news program 60 Minutes this way, "Our number was 30. So, for example, Saddam Hussein. If you're gonna kill up to 29 people in a strike against Saddam Hussein, that's not a problem. But once you hit that number 30, we actually had to go to either President Bush, or Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld." Garlasco told the interviewer that prior to the invasion of Iraq, he personally recommended 50 high-value targets -Iraqi officials for air strikes, but, according to Garlasco, none of the targets on his list was actually killed. Rather, "a couple of hundred civilians at least" were killed in strikes he recommended.<9> Garlasco defended the efforts made by the American military to minimize civilian casualties, "I don't think people really appreciate the gymnastics that the U.S. military goes through in order to make sure that they're not killing civilians."<9> He responded to the question "If so much care is being taken why are so many civilians getting killed?" by stating "Because the Taliban are violating international law, and because the U.S. just doesn't have enough troops on the ground. You have the Taliban shielding in people's homes. And you have this small number of troops on the ground. And sometimes the only thing they can do is drop bombs.”<9>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Garlasco

Garlasco works at Human Rights Watch where Goldstone was just recently on its board of directors before taking the UNHRC job.

One standard for Israel, one standard for the rest of the world.

It would be nice if Israel were judged according to NATO standards, but they're not.

=============

You were correct.

It's veiled anti-semitism.

"Criticizing Israel is not anti-Semitic, and saying so is vile. But singling out Israel for opprobrium and international sanction - - out of all proportion to any other party in the Middle East - - is anti-Semitic, and not saying so is dishonest."

[Fozzledick]

8. no

The accusation of war crimes against Israel is a blatant fraud motivated by an obvious pre-existing agenda. You're projecting.

[Altoid_Cyclist]

2. The question should be; what was AIPAC thinking?

It doesn't really matter which party is in control in the US. They both do whatever AIPAC wants them to do.

[bemildred]

7. Just habit.

Stall, delay, deny, postpone, ...