Goldstone Recants Read Online Free

sewage installations, 190 greenhouse complexes, 80 percent of agricultural crops, and nearly one-fifth of cultivated land.
    Entire neighborhoods in Gaza were laid waste and some 600,000 tons of rubble were left behind after Israel withdrew.
    More than two years after the Gaza invasion the only penalty Israel has imposed for unlawful property destruction was an unknown disciplinary measure taken against one soldier.
    But Goldstone is now “confident” that Israeli wrongdoers will be punished and also asserts that Israel has already “done this to a significant degree.”
    Beyond killing 1,400 Palestinians (including more than 300 children) and the massive destruction it inflicted on civilian infrastructure, Israel damaged or destroyed 29 ambulances, almost half of Gaza’s 122 health facilities (including 15 hospitals), and 45 mosques. It also—in the words of Human Rights Watch—“repeatedly exploded white phosphorus munitions in the air over populated areas, killing and injuring civilians, and damaging civilian structures, including a school, a market, a humanitarian aid warehouse and a hospital.”
    Both the Goldstone Report and human rights organizations concluded that much of this death and destruction would constitute war crimes.
    More than two years after the Gaza invasion the only Israeli soldier who did jail time for criminal conduct served seven months after being convicted of credit card theft.
    But Goldstone is now “confident” that Israeli wrongdoers will be punished and also asserts that Israel has already “done this to a significant degree.”
    To be sure Israel did express remorse at what happened in Gaza. “I am ashamed of the soldier,” Information Minister Yuli Edelstein declared, “who stole some credit cards.”
    After this wondrous show of contrition how could Goldstone not be “confident” of Israel’s resolve to punish wrongdoers?
    IN HIS RECANTATION Goldstone can barely contain his loathing and contempt for Hamas. He says that—unlike in Israel’s case—Hamas’s criminal intent “goes without saying—its rockets were purposefully and indiscriminately aimed at civilian targets.” The Mission’s Report had reached this conclusion on the basis of a couple of statements by Hamas leaders combined with Hamas’s actual targeting of these civilian areas.
    It is unclear however why comparable statements by Israeli officials combined with Israel’s purposeful and indiscriminate targeting of civilian areas in Gaza no longer prove Israel’s criminal guilt. In fact judging by the Mission’s findings, none of which Goldstone recants, the case against Israel was incontrovertible.
    If, as Israel asserted and investigators found, it possessed fine “grid maps” of Gaza and an “intelligence gathering capacity” that “remained extremely effective”; and if it made extensive use of state-of-the-art precision weaponry; and if 99 percent of the firing that was carried out by the Air Force hit targets accurately; and if it only once targeted a building erroneously: then, as the Mission’s Report logically concluded, the massive destruction Israel inflicted on Gaza’s civilian infrastructure must have “resulted from deliberate planning and policy decisions throughout the chain of command, down to the standard operating procedures and instructions given to the troops on the ground.”
    Goldstone also chastises Hamas because—unlike Israel—it has “done nothing” to investigate the criminal conduct of Gazans during the Israeli invasion.
    Hamas attacks killed three Israeli civilians and nearly destroyed one civilian home. The Israeli assault on Gaza killed as many as 1,200 civilians and nearly or totally destroyed more than 6,000 civilian homes. Hamas did not sentence anyone to prison for criminal misconduct whereas Israel sentenced one soldier to seven months prison time for stealing a credit card.
    Isn’t it blazingly obvious how much eviler Hamas is?
    In his recantation Goldstone