According to the Boston Globe, "Brandeis to host Gaza violence forum," South African Judge Richard Goldstone, author of a fiercely controversial report issued by the equally controversial UN Human Rights Council, will speak at Brandeis next month as part of a forum addressing the report and the issue of violence surrounding the Gaza incursion last winter.
The article reflects the commonly held belief about the report - that it is controversial because it places heavier blame on Israel for human rights violations during the war.
But as with similar discussions surrounding the report - and the war in general - the press story only tells a fraction of the story. First and foremost, the article says nothing of the recent backtracking from Goldstone, as he tries to distance himself from the report. What people don't often hear is the frequency with which "respectable" men like Goldstone are duped and co-opted by the incredibly biased bodies of the United Nations. There are many with a very sincere desire for peace and "the truth" whose respectability - and often their being Jewish - feeds into the cause of those who seek to demonize Israel. And in good form, once the individual duped realizes this, they distance themselves from demonization. But of course by then, the damage has been done and Israel has already been condemned in the global community - once again - for crimes it has not committed.
And the sad part of all of this is that, because these UN Reports lack credibility, it is almost impossible for any honest analysis of real abuses to take place. It is true that Israel conducts their own investigations of such military actions. It is also true that they are thorough and often do reveal problems. But an independent review is not a bad idea. It just can't come from a body that has a documented and pervasive bias for Israel - bordering on pervasive hatred and anti-Semitism. A student of the UN and International law will take that last statement as a systemic fact rather than a reactionary opinion. It is simply undeniable that many of the countries who make up the general assembly and the committees of the UN are still in a very understandable but immature stage of awareness when it comes to Israel and Jews in general. If you accept that bigotry against Jews exists in this country, and is even more prevalent in places with less exposure to Jews, you have to acknowledge that this is the truth about most of the world.
If you needed more proof of this bias - just ask why the context for the Brandeis forum is "Violence" and the context for the UN report was "War Crimes". The Brandeis forum is attempting to be unbiased and exporatory. The UN Report wanted to feed the flames of a global presumption.
But of central importance here is not the bias of the UN but that the content of the report has not been properly reported. Goldstone, in his comments to the press, would have you believe that the report simply calls out Israel for things like inappropriate bombings of factories essential to daily life. Well maybe that is an abuse, and we could talk about that, but that does not accurately reflect the report. The same is true of outlets like the Globe - they merely report the popular opinion and do no real investigative journalism. And how common is it that the Globe comments on the Arab-Israeli conflict without trying to get the facts or even dig beneath the surface at all?
Even a cursory reading of the report reveals a no-holds-barred compilation of accusations surrounding the entire breadth of complaints against Israel. What is tackled is the everyday actions of Israeli police, the very "occupation" of the West Bank itself, and the actions in Gaza. What is tackled on the Palestinian side is the bombing of southern Israel - but nothing else. There is no discussion of the complex issue of Hamas - an organization aimed at eradicating Israel. There is no discussion of Hamas acting in opposition to the Palestinian Authority their supposed partners in governing.
What is also not mentioned is the intractable nature of fighting an enemy who stages attacks from civilian locations. How balanced could a report be when it does not specifically challenge accusations already leveled. Israel was condemned during the war for firing on a UN school. What has been documented since is the reality that the school had been taken over by Hamas militants precisely because it might avoid Israeli attacks. As Israel often does, they opted for the effective rather than the politically correct and targeted the school - with no students in it when they attacked. But that, of course, was not what was reported.
It almost goes without saying that no mention is made of the efforts Israel makes to avoid the loss of innocent life. But I think the focus on that takes away from the larger problem of a UN report that takes broad swipes at Israel having nothing to do with Gaza. That is why the Palestinian Authority eventually accepted the report. They realized the benefit of having documented language of arguments in their larger conflict with Israel far outweighed the slaps on the wrist they would have to take in regard to Gaza.
It will be interesting to see how much of these larger issues will be discussed at the forum. Dore Gold, former Israeli Ambassador to the UN will respond to Goldstone, and it would be a shame if all he talked about was the way in which Israel sent in humanitarian aid, and texted people to let them know their building would be shelled. A real discussion would include asking Goldstone why the report diverges so much from its alleged focus on Gaze and asking Dore to explain some of the questionable sites Israel chose to target (not the sites that had satellite imagery and documentation of militants launching missiles into Israel.) An honest discussion can be had about Gaza. Just not with a UN Human Rights Council report as its focus.
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