Soccer Dad

The landes report

Prof Richard Landes has a two part article critiquing the Goldstone report at the MERIA Journal. In part one Landes mostly criticizes Goldstone's assumptions an methodology.

As might be expected from this attitude toward the testimony they heard, the report ruled consistently against the Israeli army. While this may not be surprising in the context of its political agenda, it is surprising from the point of view of its mission: fact-finding. As Alan Dershowitz pointed out, had the report restricted itself to collecting testimony and asking questions for further investigation, it could have made a valuable contribution.[59] Indeed, Goldstone admitted on a number of occasions that the evidence they compiled would not stand up in court, that the mission was not "judicial, not even quasi judicial."[60]

Still, under the category "legal findings" (which follow on from the "factual findings" in which testimony deemed credible established the "facts"), the report repeatedly resorts to judgments not only about what happened, but more significantly, in matters of war crimes, about the intention of the actors. Where facts are concerned, intention is irrelevant (except insofar as one has to gauge the motivations of witness); where judgments of criminality are concerned, intention plays an indispensible role. The most striking feature of the report's speculation about intention is the ready, even eager willingness of the mission members to attribute malevolent intention to Israelis and their exceptional reluctance to speculate when it comes to the intentions of Hamas, especially in matters of human shields. Indeed, the overall pattern reveals a pervasive eagerness to accuse Israel and exculpate Hamas.

One of the footnoted items above is a reference to an interview that Goldstone gave to the Forward in which he 1) claimed that his commission proved nothing that would stand up in a court of law and 2) that Israel was now obligated to refute the charges in its report or stand condemned of violations of international law. These two views are not consistent, unless Goldstone (and his cohorts) judged Israel to be guilty until proven innocent. Clearly Goldstone investigated with his mind made up about a verdict before he even started.

In part II Landes took a look at the forces that led to Goldstone including one sided reporting and intimidation. Landes here notes another telling remark made by Goldstone.

In a highly revealing moment, Richard Goldstone shared one of his nightmares with the audience at Brandeis: "...three nights before I went [to Gaza] I woke up in the middle of the night after a terrible nightmare, with sweat on my brow, because I had a vivid dream that I'd been kidnapped by, by Hamas, and people in Israel were rejoicing [laughter]. That was the nightmare, based on real fears."[69]

Goldstone clearly didn't tell this anecdote in order to reveal the flaws of both his report's methods and conclusions, but reveal them he did. The nightmare reflects the brutal reality of life in the Gaza Strip, where foreign journalists and critics of the regime face violent sanctions--kidnapping, torture, knee-capping, and death--at any time. The perpetual threat reflects some fundamental aspects of Hamas as a political organization from its origins in the first intifada (during which Palestinians killed almost as many Palestinians as Israelis did),[70] through the second (during which collaborators and reporters were in constant danger of retaliation), and finally (briefly) reaching the public eye when it took over Gaza in a bloody coup in 2006.[71] Moreover, during Operation Cast Lead, as even the Goldstone Report chronicles, Hamas pursued political enemies with remorseless violence (¶1345-72). Goldstone was thus perfectly correct in adding "based on real fears..."

As noted above, I really don't think that Hamas had to fear what Goldstone would produce. Still it's interesting to note, that Goldstone suggests that even if he had intended to be fair, he would have been too scared to tell the truth about Hamas.

Read both parts of the critique.

Crossposted on Yourish.