UN Out to Lynch Israel? Hey, They're Not Even Subtle About It!

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By Barry Rubin

The UN is sending a committee to Israel to follow up on the biased Goldstone Report. The report, you might remember, found Israel guilty because Palestinians who are seeking to destroy Israel said so. Oh, and the report's staff and leadership were rather intensely prejudiced themselves.

Now it turns out that the coordinator of the committee, Ahmed Motala, a South African lawyer, is not exactly non-partisan. In fact, during the very fighting he is asked on to judge now, he'd already made up his mind. On January 5, 2009, he wrote on a South African site

“The war in Gaza and the killing of innocent Palestinians is not about Hamas, but entirely about the forthcoming elections in Israel….What better way to gain the support of the Israeli electorate than to…kill innocent civilians….The costs of victory in an election in Israel are being paid for by the blood of innocent Palestinians.”

Now this is the kind of nonsense written about Israel that should permanently bar anyone dumb enough to say such things barred permanently from dealing with the issue. The war had nothing to do with the elections but with the fact that--despite Israel's government pleas--Hamas publicly tore up the existing ceasefire and began firing dozens of rockets at Israeli civilians.

If someone can't even understand this, they are hopeless. For one thing, they have turned Israel from a democratic country to a land ruled by comic-book villains. Mu-ha-ha! chortled Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Let's kill some Palestinian children in order to get more votes!

Motala's whole understanding of how international affairs works is defective. But he got caught. Suppose he had never actually written these words but merely said so to colleagues in conversations? He'd be the key person deciding that Israel was guilty of war crimes and incapable of investigating itself (because it was concealing that demonic murder-for-votes scheme).

But that's far from all. What about the chairman of that same Goldstone follow-up committee, Christian Tomuschat? On one or two occasions he did work for then PA leader Yasir Arafat, advising him on how he could more effectively get his way over Israel. In a 2002 study he did, Tomuschat hs already said that countries cannot investigate their own militaries, precisely the issue he is supposed to decide on as a fair and neutral judge in this situation. Oh, and in 2007 he stated that Israel's targeted killings of terrorists who had murdered Israelis was an act of state terrorism.

Mr. Tomuschat insists he is unbiased and refuses to resign.

But when you have the Jordanian businessman appointed by the UN secretary-general (who is a relative moderate compared to some of his recent predecessors) as vice-chairman of the UN Global Compact talking about Zionist conspiracies to control the world and dominate America (no doubt he won't be removed from that post by the UN) this is just one more example of the true scope of the insanity.

Doesn't this kind of thing get it across to people--and especially to anti-Israel Jews as well as leaders of various Western countries--that the lynch mob is running wild, following old patterns of Jew-hatred, and possibly one day going to come after them? Don't they see that they are ruining all the basic principles on which democratic law has been based: a fair hearing, equal treatment, impartial judges?

Are Repressive Dictatorships Merely A Matter of Taste, of Different Strokes for Different Folks?

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By Barry Rubin

The elections to the UN Human Rights Council brought onto that body such human rights’ violators as Libya, Angola, Malaysia, and Uganda. Indeed, 80 percent of UN members—many motivated by being Muslim-majority or African states—thought the Qadhafi dictatorship an excellent addition to the group that already includes Saudi Arabia, China, and Cuba.

My expectations of the UN are very low indeed. So what interested me here is what the Obama Administration’s refusal to contest the issue says about its foreign policy concept.

After the vote electing Libya and the others, U.S. Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice would only say that her government regretted the victory of several countries but added, “I am not going to name names. I don’t think it’s particularly constructive at this point.”

Rice went on to say that the human-rights' smashing dictatorships on the Council were just “countries whose orientation and perspectives we don’t agree with.”

These two quotes are very revealing. The Obama Administration understandably believes that its predecessor made a lot of enemies by criticizing radical regimes and hostile countries. Thus, the current government is determined not to complain about anyone except under the most extreme pressure—witness the president’s reluctance to say anything about Iran’s stolen election—or unless the target is a friendly country—like Honduras or Israel--that isn’t going to do anything nasty to America.

Or to put it another way, the Bush Administration went too far in saying: You are either with us or against us. Unfortunately, the Obama Administration has gone too far in the other direction in saying: You're against us? Who can blame you?

And while Bush's policy certainly made enemies, Obama's policy strengthens enemies.

In trying not to be a bully, the current approach goes too far and makes America the victim whom bullies kick around. That's even more true for those who are America's friends and the bullies' intended victims.

One aspect of this dangerous course is that the "live and let live" approach of U.S. policy lets the radicals make gains without having to give up anything in return. The other side doesn't believe in watching passively those with whom they disagree but rather seek to intimidate and defeat them.

This mismatch of policies will go on until the U.S. government decides it has had enough. It would be best if the current leaders made that decision. Unfortunately, that might require a different government, which means the United States will take a lot more hits before the situation is turned around.

Having determined that conflict is not “constructive,” the Obama Administration wants to avoid it. This requires downplaying or covering up things that enemies do, for example: Iran working with al-Qaida, killing Americans in Iraq, and arming anti-American forces in Afghanistan; Syria taking over Lebanon and sponsoring the terrorists killing Americans in Iraq. Many more items could be added to this list.

As for that second statement of Rice, I think the phrase, “countries whose orientation and perspectives we don’t agree with,” may go down in history. It sounds as if America can just agree to disagree with such regimes as each goes its separate ways. May the best man win.

One can imagine it in the mouth of some 1930s’ French or British statesman advocating appeasement. It also reminds me of what the Soviet foreign minister said, after the Soviet-German alliance of 1939, that fascism was a matter of taste.

Indeed, this approach also matches up with two phrases from Obama himself. First, the president said: "We must be as persistent and passionate in our pursuit of progress as any who would stand in our way." That formulation implies that those "who would stand in our way" are equally persistent and passionate in pursuing progress but they just have a different orientation and perspective on how to do so.

It is a very relativistic, Politically Correct, multi-cultural worldview: We believe we're right (though we've been wrong a lot in the past, sorry about that!); they believe they're right. Who's to say?

Well, not America. For as Obama told the nuclear summit: "It is a vital national security interest of the United States to reduce these conflicts because whether we like it or not, we remain a dominant military superpower, and when conflicts break out, one way or another we get pulled into them."

To avoid war one must avoid conflict, which also helps to avoid the United States having to act as a superpower. The preferred posture is, apparently, to be as much as possible a bystander, unless there is some idealistic goal like eliminating all nuclear weapons or saving the earth from human-triggered global warming.

Once you decide that avoiding friction is the most important thing you MUST be nicer to enemies because they are the ones who would otherwise create conflict. That's why this administration is being nicer to Pakistan than to India, to Venezuela than to Colombia, to the Palestinian Authority than to Israel, to Syria than to Lebanon, to Russia than to Poland.

Another paradox of this approach is this: How can you say that you have sympathy for the poor and downtrodden, the masses of ordinary people, in the world when you are indifferent about the main factor oppressing them? And in 2010 that isn't Western imperialism but their own corrupt and dictatorial rulers.

That doesn't mean you have to make democracy promotion the main policy priority or that you can't deal with dictatorships who are providing something you need in terms of national interest. But why have any respect for repressive governments which don't do so? This is why Obama's policy is reactionary, not liberal, why he refused to condemn Iran's stolen election or say kind words about the courageous opposition until he was practically forced to mutter something.

This whole approach has very little in common with the liberal Democratic party views of such people as Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Hubert Humphrey, and even Bill Clinton. These leaders were internationalists who believed in American leadership and that somehow moderates and democrats were superior and preferable, even though the World War and the Cold War sometimes required unsavory allies. One can hardly imagine them shrugging off aggressive anti-American repressive regimes as merely “countries whose orientation and perspectives we don’t agree with.”

The problem isn’t just that the United States doesn’t agree with how these countries behave. The problem is that those regimes' behavior is directed toward defeating and destroying U.S. interests and influence, enslaving their own and neighboring peoples. Or, to put it another way, this isn’t some philosophical disagreement but a historic battle that will dominate our era and determine the future of the world.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). His new edited books include Lebanon: Liberation, Conflict and Crisis; Guide to Islamist Movements; Conflict and Insurgency in the Middle East; The West and the Middle East (four volumes); and The Muslim Brotherhood: The Organization and Policies of a Global Islamist Movement. To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books. To see or subscribe to his blog, Rubin Reports.








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Goldstone, U.S. Policy and the Looming Veto: If the UN is so Irresponsible Why is Obama Its Biggest Cheerleader?

[Please subscribe. Reality is just getting started in beating up on the Obama Administration and the world in general. Lots of analysis to come.]

By Barry Rubin

Now that the UN General Assembly has endorsed the Goldstone Report--a collection of Hamas propoaganda without any independent investigation--the ball is in the court of the Obama Administration. The non-courageous abstention of Britain and France highlights that fact. Despite all the current president's talk of partnership and multilateral cooperation, a great deal of European policy is based on the premise that the United States has to do most of the work, especially the dirty work.

President Barack Obama made a controversial decision in deciding to have the United States participate in the radical-run UN Human Rights Council, reversing Bush administration policy of boycotting the group. Moreover, the president has gone out of his way to talk about how useful the UN is as a force, sometimes it seems to be in his eyes the most important force, to keeping the world peaceful and making it more so.

The new administration argued that by participating it could moderate the course of a body that never defends human rights in a long list of dictatorships (many of which are members and even leaders of it) but just focuses on bashing Israel.

But now that the point about the Council’s function as a propaganda organ for extremist dictatorships is proven, what does the United States do? Its ambassador isn’t going to the discussion in the General Assembly that’s discussing using the ludicrous Goldstone report as a basis for punishing Israel.

If you need to know just one thing about the Goldstone report, here it is: the commission did not investigate anything. It heard a lot of Palestinian and some other anti-Israel witnesses; wrote down what they said; and put it into the report without verifying anything.

A couple of sidebars:

The U.S. Congress, over the opposition of the anti-Israel pretending to be pro-Israel J Street lobby, passed a resolution criticizing the report.

The EU position was presented by Sweden, a country whose government tried to destroy any Swedes who published the “Muhammad” cartoons but refused to condemn the publication of an article portraying Israel as murdering Palestinians to steal their organs. The Swedes, and hence the EU, said the report was serious and the accusations should be investigated further.

The last point sounds reasonable in the abstract but in context is helping the global anti-Israel haters get the report sent for action to the International Criminal Court in the Hague.

Will the United States veto the resolution in the Security Council? It will take some courage to do so because Obama’s popularity with everyone (including lots of countries generally considered anti-American and even more who want to wipe out Israel) is going to take a big hit as a result.

Or will the United States back down and settle for some easing of the resolution’s language which still makes it a disaster?

This is going to be a big test for Obama, and it is one he cannot avoid.It is also one more step in showing the unworkability of both his ideas and his strategy. Ultimately, his presidency's foreign policy will be judged on whether he and his colleagues can adjust to that factor, admit (at least to themselves) that they were wrong, and change course.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books. To see or subscribe to his blog, Rubin Reports.

Israel's Response to the Goldstone Report: Exposing a Politically Motivated Fraud

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By Barry Rubin

If you've been following the Goldstone Report controversy, you might be interested in the response done by Israel to specific points raised by the report. 

The Goldstone report bashes Israel regarding the Gaza war for alleged crimes and misdeeds based solely on the unchallenged testimony of almost totally pro-Hamas and universally anti-Israel Palestinians who live under an Islamist dictatorial regime. On close examination, a very large number of the accusations dissolve into nothingness.

Judge Goldstone keeps repeating in interviews--and the media lets him get away with it--that nobody has challenged the substance of his report. This is blatantly untrue as this response shows. He and the commission have not even attempted to respond to any part of these critiques.

Equally, much of the Western media has not reported on any of these detailed critiques, for example the demolition of the number of civilian casualties claimed, achieved by reclassifying Hamas gunmen as civilians.

Meanwhile, the report passed the UN Human Rights Council and is now being discussed in general debate. At some point, the UN will try to pass some sort of anti-Israel resolution--with or without material sanctions--and the United States and Europeans will have to decide how to vote or veto. The report will also be used in the coming years repeatedly to portray Israel as an evil and illegitimate state that should not be allowed to exist.

There are also broader implications, as the response shows. If the concepts used in the report are adopted, democratic countries facing terrorist attacks will be unable to respond without international political and perhaps legal condemnation. For example, the U.S. attack into Afghanistan after September 11 would be subjected to war crimes' charges.

Here's a sample from part of the response:

Selection of Incidents

Like the prescreened and selected witnesses permitted to appear in the Mission's public hearings, the incidents covered in the Report appear to have been carefully cherry-picked for political effect. For example:

Despite Israeli and independent sources confirming that the Southern Command Center of Ismail Haniyeh had been located in the Shifa Hospital in Gaza, the Report states that it did "not investigate the case of Al-Shifa hospital and is not in a position to make any finding with regard to these allegations"[¶ 466].

Similarly, despite widespread reports of the use of mosques to hide weaponry and terrorist activity, the Mission examined only one incident involving a mosque and found no evidence that this mosque was used for the storage of weapons or any military activity by Palestinian armed groups[7]. The Mission then absolves itself of any responsibility to examine allegations of the abuse of mosques elsewhere in any other instance:


"As far as this mosque is concerned, therefore, the Mission found no basis for such an allegation. However, the Mission is unable to make a determination regarding the allegation in general nor with respect to any other mosque" [¶ 463].

A troubling insight into the approach of the Mission in selecting the incidents it wished to address was provided in response by Justice Goldstone to an enquiry asking why the Mission had ignored requests to invite witnesses such as Colonel Richard Kemp, the former commander of British forces in Afghanistan and an adviser to the UK cabinet, and a recognized expert in the field of warfare in conditions similar to that in Gaza[8]. In an open response dated 21 September 2009 explaining the refusal to invite Colonel Kemp to testify, Goldstone admitted that the Mission had deliberately selected incidents so as to evade the complex dilemmas of confronting threats in civilian areas:


"[t]here was no reliance on Col. Kemp mainly because in our Report we did not deal with the issues he raised regarding the problems of conducting military operations in civilian areas and second-guessing decisions made by soldiers and their commanding officers "in the fog of war". We avoided having to do so in the incidents we decided to investigate."[emphasis added]

Evidentiary double-standards

Hamas launched thousands of rocket and mortar attacks on Israel and admitted embedding itself within the civilian population of Gaza. But the Report strives mightily to avoid finding that Hamas bears any responsibility for deaths and destruction in the Gaza Strip. In contrast, the Report is quick to blame Israel, presuming guilt absent compelling evidence to the contrary. Throughout, the Report deems statements of Israeli officials inherently untrustworthy, except where it misuses them to support its ordained conclusions. By contrast, the Report regularly credits statements by the “Gaza authorities” - i.e., the Hamas terrorist organization - as legitimate evidence, except where such statements admit wrongdoing or justify Israeli actions. Moreover, despite overwhelming evidence that Hamas and other terrorist groups operated from densely populated areas and from within hospitals and mosques, booby-trapped civilian areas, and sought to blend in with Palestinian non-combatants, the Report fails to investigate the most egregious and publicly known examples of such conduct, and even goes so far as to raise doubts regarding the intentionality of Hamas’ tactics.


Presumption that Israeli military sources are untrustworthy. Routinely treating Israeli statements as inherently unreliable, the Mission discounts even the veracity of photographic and satellite image data supplied by the IDF, on no more basis than the fact that the Mission did not have a means to verify the data independently. (¶ 449) The Report also points to Israel’s reliance on newspaper reports rather than its own intelligence to explain its conduct of the operation as an admission that IDF sources are unreliable (¶ 612), failing to recognize that, in many circumstances, intelligence information -- no matter how compelling -- simply cannot be disclosed to the public. Perhaps most tellingly, the only circumstance in which the Report appears to accept and emphasize Israeli statements is where it finds such statements useful to condemn Israel.[9]


Refusal to accept even the most direct admissions by Hamas as evidence of guilt. The Report cites the admission[10] of a Hamas official that Hamas “created a human shield of women, children, the elderly and the mujahideen, against the Zionist bombing machines.” (¶ 475) The Report then states, incredibly, that it does not consider this confession “to constitute evidence that Hamas forced Palestinian civilians to shield military objectives against attack. ( ¶ 476) The Report cites the admission of a fighter for Islamic Jihad that “the most important thing is achieving our military goals. We stay away from the houses if we can, but that’s often impossible.” (¶ 451) The Report then states, incredibly, that this admission of using civilian homes where needed for military objectives, “suggests the absence of intent.” (¶ 451)

'Reinterpretation' of Hamas statements. In seeking to support its assertion that the Hamas police were not involved in terrorist activity, the Report prefers to gloss over has to deal with the admission of police spokesperson Islam Shahwan who that the police had been given orders "to face the [Israeli] enemy". The Mission unquestioningly accepted his explanation that the intention was that in the event of a ground invasion the police would continue ensuring the movement of foodstuffs and upholding public order(¶ 414). The Mission is similarly accepting of an interpretation given by the director of the Police that by "resistance fighters" his intention was that they would develop into a law enforcement force (¶ 416). At the same time, the Report dismisses posters and photographs of policemen praising their involvement as members of the terrorist groups, arguing that this does not mean that these individuals "were involved in resistance in any away" and suggesting that they had been "adopted" post-mortem by terrorist groups(¶ 421). Beyond these reinterpretations of the evidence, the Report claims that no other evidence has been presented against "the civilian nature of the police in Gaza" (¶ 417), quite simply ignoring numerous explicit statements in Israel's report: The Operation in Gaza – Factual and Legal Aspects, which it quotes on many other matters. Among the many statements cited, ignored by the Report, is the admission by Hamas police chief Jamal al-Jarrah that "the police took part in the fighting alongside the resistance".


Picking and choosing its sources for political effect. At times even the same source is regarded by the Report as reliable insofar as its criticism of Israel is concerned but is discounted to the extent that it indicates wrongdoings by Hamas. The group of Israeli soldiers, "Breaking the Silence", for example, is quoted authoritatively throughout the report for its criticisms of Israel (¶ 457, 725, 800, 949, 996, 1022, 1088 – this last paragraph admitting "the soldier does not appear to have been a direct witness to the incident, but rather heard it from others ", 1089, 1183 and footnotes 362, 558), and yet the statements of the group are given no weight when they confirm that Hamas booby trapped civilian buildings[11]. (¶ 460)


Selective quotations regarding goals of the operation. The Report relies on uncited quotations in an NGO report as questionable support for its assertion that “[s]tatements by political and military leaders prior to and during the military operations in Gaza leave little doubt that disproportionate destruction and violence against civilians were part of a deliberate policy.” (¶ 1211) Yet the Report ignores repeated statements of Israel's leaders emphasizing that, to the contrary, Israel's aim was to spare no effort to avoid or minimize civilian casualties.[12]


Misrepresentations of fact and law



Beyond the adoption of evidentiary double-standards, and the creative interpretation of inconvenient evidence, the Report frequently presents explicit misstatements of both facts and law. For example:


Misstatements of fact:



The Report accuses Israel of discriminating against its non-Jewish citizens by not providing shelters to protect Arab towns and villages from the rocket attacks. (¶ 1709, 1711(1)). In fact, the relevant decision[13] of the Government of Israel made no such discrimination, and provided all municipalities up to seven kilometers from the fence with a budget to cover the building of shelters. Municipalities located further away from the fence, which included non-Jewish villages as well as the Jewish cities of Be'er Sheva and Ashqelon, did not qualify for this funding.


The Report repeatedly misrepresents historical facts, particularly in the context of 'explaining' Israel military operations. It states that Operation "Hot Winter" was launched by Israel in February 2008 following a rocket attack towards the city of Ashkelon that caused 'light injuries' (¶ 196). In fact, Roni Yihye, aged 47, a student at Sapir College, was killed after sustaining massive wounds to his chest. Similarly it states that Operation "Days of Penitence" was launched in September-October of 2004, in retaliation for the firing of rockets against the town of Sderot and Israeli settlements, but fails to mention the deaths of Yuval Abebeh (aged 4) and Dorit (Masarat) Benisian (aged 2) of Sderot, killed by a Kassam rocket fired into Gaza while playing in the street. In both cases Hamas claimed responsibility for the attacks.


Misstatements of law:



The description of Israel's military courts system (¶1599-1600) contains numerous errors and inaccuracies. For example, its description of the appeals process relies on provisions which were amended in 2004 and are no longer in force today.


In support of its assertion that the Gaza Strip is to be regarded as occupied territory, even following the withdrawal of all Israeli forces and all 9000 Israeli civilians in the Disengagement Initiative in 2005, the Report cites as authority UN Security Council Resolution 1860 (footnote 163 to ¶277). But this resolution makes no such assertion. In fact, in the negotiations prior to the adoption of this resolution, a Libyan draft which sought to insist that Gaza was still occupied was specifically not adopted by the members of the Security Council.


Simplistic approaches to complex military challenges

The Report fails to consider the realities of the conflict and in particular the mode of operation of terrorist organizations which deliberately endanger civilians and make urban areas their battlefield of choice. It makes no reference to the recruitment and exploitation of children by Hamas and the smuggling of weapons and ammunition through tunnels, and ignores clear evidence of the abuse of mosques and hospitals. At the same time, it makes unfounded assumptions regarding military options and so places unrealistic and unworkable demands on any State seeking to protect its civilians from terrorist attacks.


The Report pays lip service to the established international law principle that the legality of military action must be assessed based on the information available to a “reasonable military commander” at the time of each individual targeting decision, and not based on hindsight. But the Report nonetheless repeatedly reaches sweeping conclusions about “war crimes” without ever examining such real-time information. The Report does not examine what information was available to the commanders in the field, how they might have perceived the immediate threats to themselves and their soldiers, what weapons were available at that moment on the ground, and what information was available about potential risks to civilians. Instead, time and time again, the Report substitutes its own hindsight judgment. For example:


Second-guessing choice of weapons and tactics without knowledge of available resources. The Report concludes that with respect to one particular incident, Israeli forces should have used different weapons to further limit the risk to civilians in the area, and is untroubled by the fact that it has no information regarding the available troops, weapons or intelligence. The Report observes that forces had 50 minutes in which to respond to a significant threat (the time used by the force to accurately identify the source of fire), and opines that given this time, “it is difficult to believe that mortars were the most accurate weapons available” (¶ 696). Displaying a troubling disconnect from the reality of urban fighting on many simultaneous fronts, it suggests that the forces in the field should used "helicopters and fighter jets", assuming that these are readily available to commanders in the field.[14]


Second-guessing what commanders should have anticipated. The Report concludes with respect to another incident that Israeli forces should not have been surprised that they were faced with anti-tank missile fire in the vicinity of a UNRWA installation, and therefore should have taken different steps to respond to this hostile fire, other than applying the commonly used technique of smoke screening (¶ 588). Again, the Report seeks to substitute its judgment for that of the commanders in the field, without any of the information necessary to conduct a proper analysis under the applicable law.


The Report also ignores Israel's extensive efforts, even in the midst of fighting, to maintain humanitarian standards and protect civilians. It makes no mention, for example, of IDF precautions such as cross-verification of intelligence prior to targeting or the numerous incidents in which operations were aborted due to concerns about disproportionate civilian harm[15]. And while the Report does, reluctantly, acknowledge Israel's "significant efforts" to issue warnings before attacks, it dismisses these as not having been effective (¶ 1717(2)).




Minimizing terrorist threats – and vindicating terrorist tactics



21. The Report adopts an approach that encourages armed terrorist groups worldwide to adopt the strategy of hiding behind civilians and civilian infrastructure. The Report strongly condemns as unlawful Israel’s attacks on terrorists - even those actively engaged in combat - when the latter were in the vicinity of civilians. Under the Report’s view of appropriate rules of engagement, any State would be virtually powerless to target a terrorist group that operates in densely populated areas and seeks to blend in with the civilian population. The Report also suggests that the members and infrastructure of a terrorist organization enjoy protected status under international law so long as the organization exercises de facto control over a civilian population. Presumably, the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the FARC in Colombia, and other armed groups unlawfully controlling territory in any part of the world would enjoy similar protections under the Report authors’ worldview, which differs materially from the established principles of international law.



The following are examples of the Report’s logic:


Justification for terrorism. The Report supports the so-called "right" of Hamas to use force against Israel in the name of self-determination (¶ 269), while ignoring the consistent approach of Hamas – as evident in its Charter and the statements of its leaders - which not only rejects the peace process agreed by Israel and the PLO but explicitly calls for the destruction of Israel. The Report describes the rocket attacks from Gaza, including those which immediately followed Israel's withdrawal of all forces and civilians from the area, as “reprisals” (¶109, ¶1662-1665(2)), in clear contradiction to the decisive position of the international community that terrorist acts are "in any circumstances unjustifiable".[16] At the same time, the Report fails to acknowledge that stopping the rocket attacks was a valid objective and discusses the rocket attacks almost as an afterthought. (¶1212).


Minimizing the impact of terrorist attacks on Israel. The Report seeks to limit the scope of a State's response to terrorist threats by downplaying and minimizing the effects of such attacks. For example, describing rocket and mortar attacks on the Israeli town of Ashdod, the Report describes the impact as "a brief interruption to [its] economy brought about by the temporary displacement of some of their residents"(¶ 107), simply ignoring the death and injury to Ashdod's residents caused by missile attacks.


Finding that use of force against terrorists operating in proximity to civilians is unlawful.
The Report effectively suggests that Israel was not permitted to fire upon terrorists located in proximity to civilians (¶ 42, ¶ 520, and ¶ 698). In reaching this conclusion, the Report effectively validates the terrorist tactic of hiding behind the civilian population. Moreover, the Mission acknowledges that Hamas fighters mingled with the population (¶ 35), but then, disregarding the explicit admission of a Hamas officials of the use of human shields, and the overwhelming corroborative evidence, the Report concludes that the Mission “found no evidence to suggest that Palestinian armed groups either directed to civilians to areas where attacks were being launched or forced civilians to remain within the vicinity of attacks.” (¶ 492)


Legitimization of Hamas based on its de facto control over civilian activities in the Gaza Strip. The Report scarcely acknowledges that Hamas is a terrorist organization and instead refers to its leaders as “Gaza authorities” (e.g. ¶ 380-90)[17]. The Report states, that even if military components of Hamas are terrorist, the organization has “distinct political, military and social welfare components.” disregarding the determinations of the European Union and other countries drawing no such distinction. With regard to the targeting of Hamas infrastructure, the Report fails to investigate the multitude of military uses to which Hamas has put ostensibly civilian targets (¶ 384-389). Furthermore, the Report has refused to give any weight to the fact that the targeting of infrastructure by Israeli forces has been consistent with a number of engagements, such as those by NATO forces in Yugoslavia, that have been found to be lawful in the past. (¶¶ 1197-98).

Here's another detailed assessment done by Camera.


Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books. To see or subscribe to his blog, Rubin Reports.

Sympathy for the Devil

By Barry Rubin

Visiting Washington, I saw the small memorial to George Mason, one of America’s revolutionary founders and author of the Virginia Declaration of Human Rights. It is mainly a beautiful purple-flowered garden near the Jefferson Monument on the Potomac, along with a rather whimsical statue of Mason.

Alongside, on the wall are inscribed words from the Declaration which read:

“The freedom of the press is one of the greatest bulwarks of liberty and can never be restrained by despotick (sic) governments.”

But just a few days earlier, the U.S. government co-sponsored along with a despotick (sic) regime, Egypt, a UN resolution in the Human Rights Council (whose members are mostly governments that deny human rights) threatening the very basis of a free press and free speech generally.

The resolution urges states not just to condemn but to make into a criminal act: "Any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence" as well as "negative stereotyping of religions and racial groups,"

This is in the context of a campaign by the Organization of the Islamic Conference and a huge number of other forces to stop criticism of any aspect of Islam or even of political Islamism. The best-known example was the right of publications to print cartoons from Denmark that Muslims didn’t like.

True, the Obama Aministration thinks that it "fixed" the resolution by making changes but it didn't, leaving in such languge as that the duty and responsibility of the media involves "taking action against anything meeting the description of `negative racial and religious stereotyping.'" Several delegates from Muslim majority states made it clear that they viewed this as applying to any criticism of Islam as such.

Either this is a case of the U.S. government seeking consensus and popularity at any cost or it really doesn't understand the mistake it has just made.

That the surrender of freedom of speech and of the press was a shocking departure for Western countries was buried under an avalanche of epithets like racism, Islamophobia, or hurting people’s feelings—seasoned with a spicy blend of death threats.

After publishing an op-ed recently by a radical Israeli professor urging a boycott of Israel, the Los Angeles Times editorial page editor, Jim Newton, said, “Had Hitler submitted an excerpt from Mein Kampf in the late 1930's [I would have published it] because the world would have benefitted from exposure to evil ideas."

I’ve discussed this behavior in an earlier article which you can read here.

Mr. Newton seems to sincerely believe in hard-hitting, unapologetic journalism only regarding certain targets. Following the op-ed mentioned above he ran a piece by a Palestinian writer, Daoud Kuttab, not about Palestinian Authority repression or extremism or support for terrorism but about what a darn good government it is. That’s media balance twenty-first century style.

Oh, and now he has published an op-ed by Hamas and Hizballah apologist Alistair Crooke about how these terrorist groups are just dandy organizations.

Newton seems to have adapted the famous old New York Times motto (All the news that’s fit to print) into: All evil ideas are fit to print….Often….And hardly ever contradicted.

I do not, however, favor censorship of the media regarding such materials, though I’m not sure any more how the Obama Administration stands on censoring what the world’s main purveyors of hatred deem to be unacceptable hatred. I just wish the media would spend a bit more time on points of view that don’t bash democratic societies, slander Israel, and praise terrorism.

And yes I still agree with Mason that the media “is one of the greatest bulwarks of liberty.” I just wish they’d stop promoting so extensively those who want to destroy liberty.

Meanwhile, in Turkey, the Islamist-oriented regime has set a fine on the Dogan news group of $2.5 billion, more than the entire value of the company, in a harassment originating when the company's newspapers exposed government corruption. The ruling AK party has already raised its control over the media from 20 to 50 percent, with much of the rest--as I've witnessed personally--being intimidated.

Too bad the U.S. government is blind to the growing anti-American, Islamist, and dictatorial orientation of the Turkish government, which the Obama Administration seems to be holding up as some kind of good example of moderate, democratic political Islam.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books. To see or subscribe to his blog, Rubin Reports.

What to Expect at the UN Session

By Barry Rubin

The UN session is shaping up to be a bit more interesting than the usual. Here are briefly some things to look for:

1. Will President Barack Obama engineer a meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas? If so, this will be a big public relations’ gimmick. Actually, and this is a fair reading, Obama will proclaim as a great achievement in September what he could have accomplished the previous February more easily. It was Obama’s big initiative on freezing construction on settlement that was then taken up by Abbas as an excuse to postpone any talks.

By the way, to show how things work in the world, a journalist interviewing me asked if Netanyahu would change his position and meet with Abbas at the UN. Of course, Netanyahu has been seeking a meeting for months but so intense is the idea of Netanyahu as “hardliner” and Abbas as “moderate” purveyed by much of the media it is understandable journalists would turn things on their head.

2. How will Obama do in his speech? There is the normal question of how it will be perceived but also the special one of the extent to which Obama talking about a world without nuclear arms will play into the hands of Iran and North Korea who complain, Why should we stop building nuclear weapons until everyone gives them up? In other words, will Obama do harm to his own efforts to stop Iran from doing so?

3. Will there be prominent photos of Obama shaking hand or being hugged by the Libyan and Iranian delegates?

4. Will the United States stand up to the ever-stronger radical bloc or seek excessive compromises thus emboldening them on various issues?

5. How tough a stand will the U.S. government take against the dreadful Goldstone report which plays into Hamas’s hands and bashes Israel?

6. Is there going to be any sign of increased support for higher anti-Iran sanctions, especially from Russia and China or will Obama’s strategy have failed (despite West European support which could lead to higher sanctions. (And incidentally how long will the U.S.-Iran engagement effort go on, for just one meeting or for months and months? How much will the Russians and Chinese use this as an excuse for opposing sanctions?

7. What will Libyan dictator Muammar Qadhafi and Iranian dictator Ahmadinejad say and how will they be received. How will the level of applause they are given compare to that received by Obama?

8. One question that’s already easy to answer: Will the Obama Administration campaign vigorously against the UN’s rampant corruption, extreme ideological bias, and domination by dictatorships? No, because that would make it unpopular.

The UN Goldstone's Report: A Victory for Terrorists and War Criminals

update: September 21: Hamas has endorsed the Goldstone report (contrary to some Western news reports that it criticized both sides equally) and seeks to use it for propaganda against Israel, as predicted in this article.

By Barry Rubin

There will be many detailed critiques of the UN’s Goldstone report, created for the purpose of bashing Israel over the Gaza war with phony claims of “war crimes.” Some brief overview, however, is required.

Imagine there's a war going on in which one side has openly declared it will commit genocide on the other, wiping if off the face of the earth. Imagine that the regime ruling this place has openly, daily, and officially referred to its enemies as sub-humans who conspire to rule the world and are responsible for everything evil in history. Imagine that this regime is a dictatorship that wins over some as passionate adherents and intimidates others in a society where conformity already reigns.

Now imagine that an outside group composed of some who are naïve and some who are dedicated collaborators with that regime’s cause come into that place and ask: Tell us how evil and terrible your enemy (i.e., would-be victim) is and we will write it all down and use it to isolate, demonize, and put on sanctions against that enemy.

What do you expect the result will be?

This is precisely what happened in the Gaza Strip. The witnesses made propaganda against Israel; the UN collated, endorsed, and broadcast it. Yet amazingly little hard evidence was presented and generally the more the specific the allegations, the easier it is to refute.

I have deliberately chosen here the man who was almost certainly the most moderate, rational and even liberal Palestinian witness who appeared before the commission. I do not say this lightly. Dr. Iyyad El-Sarraji [I use the report's transliteration, which is terrible] has been celebrated in the New York Times, he was critical of Yasir Arafat, and he is from the left, not an Islamist or even an Arafat follower.

But what is not reported in the Western media about Sarraji is that he has publicly spoken out against the 1993 Oslo Accords and argued that the Palestinians should never have abandoned armed struggle which, to put it most charitably, has always included—and Sarraji knows this—a huge component of anti-civilian terrorism.

[I will bet that virtually not a single Palestinian interviewed in the investigation supports a two-state solution. Virtually every single one of them wants Israel destroyed and saw this commission as a wonderful opportunity to further that goal.]

Here’s a sample of Sarraji’s testimony and to give you the flavor I must quote at some length:

“The Palestinian in the eyes of the Israeli soldier is not an equal human being. Sometimes this Palestinian even becomes a demon in their eyes. Therefore it is a state of demonization. This is unfortunately, uh, what can be seen in the behavior of the Israeli soldier not only killing children or fathers before the eyes of children….This is the base of everything and then there is the fact that there is no restraint, no discipline within the army and, uh, uh, even there’s an encouragement. This is part of the Israeli military institution and previously we have seen many stories of how the Palestinians are being killed either at the hand of soldiers or settlers and then the accused or the, uh, responsible is, uh, found innocent, sometimes even a statute is put up for him as a hero.”
Each point of this testimony is demonstrably a lie. The reference to a statue has a grain of truth that demonstrated my point. Some settlers put up a statue of the Jewish terrorist Baruch Goldstein. It was torn down by the Israeli army within 24 hours.
Goldstone asked Sarraji don’t the Palestinians demonize Israelis?

After two sentences of agreement that the Palestinians also demonize Israelis, Sarraji continues:

“But we, the Palestinians have a greater capacity, in my view, to deal with the Israelis as equal human beings, as a whole human being…. Inside Israel there is an identification with the aggressor, the Nazi. Once a mayor of one of the settlements, he said, `I do not want the Palestinians in my farm and if they come we must put signs on their shoulders.’ This is what was done by the Nazis to the Jews. Chief of Staff Eitan in Israel, he also once said, `The Palestinians are cockroaches, grasshoppers. We must put them in a bottle close the bottle and throw them away.’ This was his view of the Palestinians. These were some Nazi expressions used against the Jews. Some of the Israeli generals had the same uniforms as the Nazis.”

So this is the statement of the most moderate person who testified on the Palestinian side. Any honest person who heard this would conclude:

Such individuals as this are incapable of representing the situation fairly. They make up things and are unreliable witnesses intent only on further their side’s interests without any limit. The quote from Eitan and the remarks on the statue, lack of punishment for Israeli soldiers who act wrongly, the claim Israeli soldiers are encouraged to murder Palestinians, and the uniforms is false, t the alleged statement of the mayor is undocumented (indeed, on many settlements Palestinians have been employed to do much of the construction and agricultural work).

Instead, the commission concluded that everything the witnesses said was true, and on that basis they have condemned an entire nation.

Aside from a campaign to put sanctions on Israel, what will be the effect of this report?

First, damage to the cause of peace.

--If Israelis are such monsters why should the Arabs or Palestinians make peace with them?

--If Israel is being portrayed as such monsters why shouldn’t the Arab and Palestinian side deliberately avoid peace since the tide is on their side? Just do nothing and wait for the world to force Israel to give up everything, even to assist in the destruction of the state of Israel?

--If attacks from Hamas, no matter how much material damage it inflicts on Palestinians, bring material advantages to it, isn't this the strategy to follow?

Second, it encourages of repression, aggression, and real war crimes.

--If the Hamas strategy of attacking Israel with rockets, mortars, and cross-border raids along with tearing up a ceasefire and then make gains by portraying itself as a victim works, why not attack Israel and others in similar conflicts?

--If antisemitic propaganda and genocidal goals bring no negative reaction from the world, why should one not use these themes and seek this outcome?

--If Hamas can use civilians as human shields, intimidate people into supporting its line, use hospitals or mosques or schools as military positions and then turn this into a political victory by having their enemy branded as a war criminal for attacking these places even a few times, this is a splendid strategy that others should use. We will be seeing more of it in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia, and many other places in the world.

Completely aside from the individual lies and nonsense—for example, counting Hamas police and hundreds of men whose obituaries praised them for being brave militia fighters as civilians—this report is a disaster for human rights and peace.

It will legitimate one of the world’s most war-provoking, repressive regimes and validate a strategy that uses civilian suffering and war crimes as central features.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books; To see or subscribe to his blog, Rubin Reports