Judge Goldstone's weak knees

Goldstone

Richard Goldstone, the South-African judge who in 2009 headed the mission to Gaza which resulted in the so-called 'Goldstone Report', stirred some emotions last week with an Op-Ed in the Washington Post, in which he seemed to take back some of the more damning conclusions.    
 ''We know a lot more today about what happened in the Gaza war of 2008-09 than we did when I chaired the fact-finding mission appointed by the UN Human Rights Council that produced what has come to be known as the Goldstone Report," Goldstone wrote, adding, "If I had known then what I know now, the Goldstone Report would have been a different document." 
In his article Goldstone gives some examples of what might have been different. First he quotes 'the final report by the U.N. committee of independent experts — chaired by former New York judge Mary McGowan Davis — that followed up on the recommendations of the Goldstone Report'. According to Goldstone  it ''has found that 'Israel has dedicated significant resources to investigate over 400 allegations of operational misconduct in Gaza' while 'the de facto authorities (i.e., Hamas) have not conducted any investigations into the launching of rocket and mortar attacks against Israel.'
Secondly he argues that ''our report found evidence of potential war crimes and “possibly crimes against humanity” by both Israel and Hamas. That the crimes allegedly committed by Hamas were intentional goes without saying — its rockets were purposefully and indiscriminately aimed at civilian targets. The allegations of intentionality by Israel were based on the deaths of and injuries to civilians in situations where our fact-finding mission had no evidence on which to draw any other reasonable conclusion. While the investigations published by the Israeli military and recognized in the U.N. committee’s report have established the validity of some incidents that we investigated in cases involving individual soldiers, they also indicate that civilians were not intentionally targeted as a matter of policy.
Goldstone then give sthe example of the killing of  29 members of the Al-Samouni family, which was attacked after the Israeli army had ordered them to assemble in the house of one of them. About this case, which became also famous because the Israeli's refused ambulances or aid workers entry into the area so that the surviving family members (several of them young kids) had to stay several days without help with their dead family members, he writes that 'The shelling of the home was apparently the consequence of an Israeli commander’s erroneous interpretation of a drone image, and an Israeli officer is under investigation for having ordered the attack. While the length of this investigation is frustrating, it appears that an appropriate process is underway, and I am confident that if the officer is found to have been negligent, Israel will respond accordingly. The purpose of these investigations, as I have always said, is to ensure accountability for improper actions, not to second-guess, with the benefit of hindsight, commanders making difficult battlefield decisions.
While I welcome Israel’s investigations into allegations, I share the concerns reflected in the McGowan Davis report that few of Israel’s inquiries have been concluded and believe that the proceedings should have been held in a public forum. Although the Israeli evidence that has emerged since publication of our report doesn’t negate the tragic loss of civilian life, I regret that our fact-finding mission did not have such evidence explaining the circumstances in which we said civilians in Gaza were targeted, because it probably would have influenced our findings about intentionality and war crimes.''

In other words: the difference is that Goldstone now gives the impression that he is no longer convinced that Israel committed war crimes during its 'Cast Lead' Operation of December 2008-January 2009. New facts seem to indicate that there was no intention to kill civilians and if he had known eralier, it would have influenced the conclusions of the Goldstone-report. Goldstone bases his new assumptions on the report filed by judge Mary McGowan Davis and her commission of experts that had to follow up on the actions undertaken by the parties concerned (Israel and Hamas) on the basis of the Goldstone report. It is, however, highly questionable whether such assumptions are warranted. This bis what  the'Indipendent Commission of Experts' reported in March:  
Ms. McGowan Davis said that the Government of Israel refused to cooperate with any aspect of what it called the “Goldstone process” and exp["ressed gratitude to the Palestinian Authority for the extensive cooperation provided throughout the term. Ms. McGowan Davis went on to say that Israel had dedicated significant resources to investigating over 400 allegations of operational misconduct in Gaza, but given the scale of this undertaking, much remained to be accomplished. There was no indication that Israel had opened investigations into the actions of those who designed, planned, ordered and oversaw Operation Cast Lead as called for by the by the Fact Finding Mission Report. (Report of the Commission of Independent Experts).
What is said here is in fact that Israel did not cooperate at all with the Independent Commsision, so that it had to make do with what was already known from the Israeli press, i.e. that - behind closed doors - Israel started some 400 investigations of which we - some two years later - know very little. Also that it refused adamantly to look into the part that was played by politicians, planners and commanders. And what were thebrsults of these 400 investigations? So far we know of no more than one conviction of a soldier who stole a credit card, a reprimande for two offciers who ordered a strike with white fosfor on an U.N compound and an idictment of a corporal who shot and killed a woman who was carrying a white flag.

Dahiyeh

These are hardly convincing results, if you ask me. And then we don't even talk about the use of white fosfor in populated areas which in itself constitutes a war crime, or questions like whether a war like this with heavy weapons in one of the most populous areas of the world was justified a all, or to what extend the killing of civilians on a large scale can be called a war crime, even if it may not always have been intenional in individual cases. It is worthwhile to remember that Israel, back in 2006 coined twhat is called the Dahiyeh doctrine, after the Dahiyeh quarter of Beirut (a Hizbollah stronghold) that was completely flattened from the air during Israels campaign in Lebanon of that year. In the words of general Gadi Eisenkot, commander of Israel's northern sector at the time: 'What happened in the Dahiya quarter of Beirut in 2006 will happen in every village from which Israel is fired on. [...] We will apply disproportionate force on it and cause great damage and destruction there. From our standpoint, these are not civilian villages, they are military bases. [...] This is not a recommendation. This is a plan. And it has been approved.
It is sad that judge Goldstone, who had a splendid reputation as a member of South Africa's High Court and as a criminal investigator for the international tribunals for former Yugoslavia and Ruanda among other things, now is backtracking from his much praised Golkstone Report  on such flimsy grounds. We must however take in consideration the enormous pressure he was exposed to after the Goldstone Report was published. In Israel he was accused of having been biased and even called a traitor. South African Jewry made it all but impossible for hi to attend his grandsons's Bar Mitzva in Cape Town. The Hebrew University in Jerusalem quietly removed him from the Board of Trustees. Haaretz writes that he complained that close friends kept away from him and even some family members had reservations. For a man like Goldstone, a zionist  who had a daughter living in Israel, it must have been something of nightmare. Stll it is somewhat pathetic to see how all this pressure caused even a person of his stature to get weak knees.
But for Israel - this goes without saying - the Op-Ed in the Washington Post was a cause for great joy. Prime minister Netanyahu said that Israel is planning to launch an international campaign to persuade the United Nations to retract the Goldstone Report altogether. According to defense minister Ehud Barak Israel now must force Goldstone to appear before international forums to explain the revision of his account. Minister of Foreign Affairs Lieberman said Israel would have set a dangerous precedent had it cooperated with the Goldstone commission's investigation and in the saem breath he accused some groups – primarily the New Israel Fund – to have provided information that led to the formulation of Goldstone's report. And president Shimon Peres, always good for the hypocritical statement of the day,  said that Goldstone should apologize, as his fact-finding mission had ignored the central reason Israel had gone to war against Gaza. 

Israeli soldier, who ignored white flag in Gaza and killed two women, indicted for manslaughter

The Israeli military Advocate General major-general Avichai Mandelblit decided Tuesday to charge a soldier with manslaughter for allegedly shooting and killing two Palestinian women during Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip last year. The incident took place on January 4 in Juhar a-Dik, near Gaza City, when a group of about 30 Palestinian civilians, including women and children, approached an Israeli military position.
The group, according to several eyewitness accounts, was waving white flags.At a certain point, one of the IDF soldiers from the Givati Brigade opened fire, killing a mother and daughter – 35-year-old Majda Abu Hajjaj and her 64-year-old mother Salama. The incident was later thoroughly investigated by B’Tselem and mentioned in the Goldstone Report. During a military probe shortly following the incident, one soldier was picked out as responsible for opening fire at the group of civilians. 
The Israeli army also announced Tuesday that Mandelblit had decided to launch a new criminal investigation into an air force bombing of a home in the Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza City which was occupied at the time by close to 100 members of the A-Samuni family. 

Human Right Watch
 There were in fact 11 cases during the Gaza war in which Israeli soldiers unlawfully shot and killed Palestinian civilians, including five women and four children, who were in groups waving white flags to convey their civilian status, Human Rights Watch said in a report released on 13 August 2009. HRW urged the Israeli military in the report to conduct thorough, credible investigations into these deaths to tackle the prevailing culture of impunity. The 63-page report, “White Flag Deaths: Killings of Palestinian Civilians during Operation Cast Lead,” was based on field investigations of seven incident sites in Gaza, including ballistic evidence found at the scene, medical records of victims, and lengthy interviews with multiple witnesses – at least three people separately for each incident.

A third soldier may be indicted for misconduct during Cast Lead operation

 The Abu Hajjaj family house, Photo B'tselem

Wow, after 18 months of investigations into the conduct of the Cast Lead operation in December-January of 2008-2009 during which more than 1400 Palestinians were killed, Israel may indict a third soldier for not behaving in a proper way, Ynet reports. The man, a sergeant of the Givati Brigade, is said to have opened fire at a group of 31 people who were fleeing an area where shots were fired and who were carrying white flags. The sergeant had not received orders to shoot. A mother of 64 and her daughter (35), both belonging to the Abu Hajjaj-family were killed as a result of his shooting. 
Israeli military prosecution has already submitted two earlier indictments against soldiers who participated in the Gaza operation – one for theft and illegal use of a credit card, the other for overstepping authority in a case where soldiers ordered a Palestinian child to open suspicious bags for them. Now a decision is expected on the most sensitive case. 
Ynet tells us:  About two months ago the military advocate told the soldier that before the case was decided he would be entitled to a hearing. However, the case was described as a "killing", indicating the advocate's intention to indict the soldier for a serious offence, though it is possible that a milder indictment may be submitted in the end.  Because of the sensitivity of the case, the military police will be present during the hearing. Military sources said to Ynet that it is a complex case that requires thorough investigation. They noted that the case had been handled with no regard for the allegations in the Goldstone Report.
Goldstone? No God forbid, this was an Israeli investigation. And since it was a' complex' one, we have to understand that it took 18 months to reach this stage. Still it is unclear what kind of indictment will follow. For those who want to read about what happened: B'tselem published a testimony of  Farhaneh Abu Hajjaj, one of the family members, in April 2009. It can be found here. 

New Weapons research group finds toxic substances in Gaza victims

 Gazans look in astonishment at a crater in Gaza City, after Israel bombed a police station, 29 December 2009.  

Findings by the New Weapons Committee confirm earlier found disturbing evidence about the use of toxic materials in weapons used in the 'Operation Cast Lead' that, among other things, could lead to genetic mutations:

PRESS RELEASE - 2010 may 11th
Toxic and carcinogenic metals, able to produce genetic mutations, have been found in the tissues of people wounded in Gaza during Israeli military operations of 2006 and 2009. The research has been carried out on wounds provoked by weapons that did not leave fragments in the bodies of the victims, a peculiarity that was pointed out repeatedly by doctors in Gaza. This shows that experimental weapons, whose effects are still to be assessed, were used.
The researchers compared the quantity of 32 elements present in the tissues through ICP/MS (a type of highly sensitive mass spectrometry) . The job, carried out by laboratories of Sapienza University of Rome (Italy), Chalmer University (Sweden) and Beirut University (Lebanon), was coordinated by the New Weapons Research Group (Nwrg), an independent committee of scientists and experts based in Italy, who is studying the use of unconventional weapons and their mid-term effects on the population of after-war areas. The relevant presence of toxic and carcinogenic metals found in the wound tissues points to direct risks for survivors, but also to the possibility of environmental contamination.
Biopsies of tissues were performed by doctors of Shifa hospital, in Gaza city, who selected and classified the type of wounds. Research was conducted on 16 tissue samples belonging to 13 victims. Four biopsies were taken in June 2006, during the operation “Summer Rains”, while the others were taken in the first week of January 2009, during the operation “Cast Lead”. All tissues were appropriately preserved and then examined by each of the three universities.
Some of the elements found are carcinogenic (mercury, arsenic, cadmium, chromium, nickel and uranium), others are potentially carcinogenic (cobalt and vanadium), others are also fetotoxic (alluminium, copper, barium, lead and manganese). The first ones can produce genetic mutations; the second ones can have the same effect on animals, but they are not proven to do the same on people; the third ones have toxic effects on people ad can affect either the embryo or the foetus in pregnant women. All metals found in high amounts have pathogenic effects on human respiratory organs, kidney and skin and affect sexual and neurological development and functions.
"Nobody – says professor Paola Manduca, spokesperson for the New Weapons Research Group, genetics teacher and researcher at the University of Genoa – had never conducted bioptic analysis on tissue samples from wounds. We have focused on wounds made by weapons that do not leave fragments, as the doctors from Gaza reported on them repeatedly. We wanted to verify the presence of metals that remained on the skin and in the derma. It was suspected that these metals were present in the weapons that leave no fragments, but it had never been demonstrated before. To our surprise even the burns provoked by white phosporus contain high amount of metals. Moreover, the presence of these metals in the weapons implies that they have been dispersed in the environment, in unknown amounts and range; they have been inhaled by the victims and by bystanders, thus constituting a risk for survivors and for people that were not directly hit by the bombing."
The research follows two previous studies conducted by Nwrg. The former was published on december 17th 2009 and statued the presence of toxic metals in areas around the craters provoked by the Israeli bombing on Gaza Strip. The latter was published on March 17th 2010 and it pointed out the presence of toxic metals in hair samples of Palestinian children of Gaza Strip area hit by Israeli bombings. Both point to the presence of environmental contamination, aggravated by the living conditions on the ground and often in shelters exposed to wind and dust, due to the impossibility to rebuild housing imposed by the Israeli blockade to the entrance of needed building materials and tools.

Goldstone critics forget that they live in a glass house

L

Menachem Begin, Moshe Dayan and YItzhak Rabin with in their midst the South African apartheid-prime-minister John Vorster. (Picture Sa'ar Yaacov, 1976).

Sasha Polakow-Suransky, author of the book 'The Unpspoken Alliance, Israel's Secret Relationship with Apartheid South Africa', reacted in Foreign Policy to what is apparently a new smear campaign against judge Goldstone, orchestrated by the Israeli Foreign Ministery, with the help of some hired guns (or rather hired pens) among the Israeli press mosquitos and some hasbara friends of the present government. Below I already mentioned our old friend Alan 'The Case for Israel' Dershowitz who likened Goldstone to Josef Mengele, no less.The whole story is about th fact that apparently some people dove into Goldstone's past as a South African judge, during which period he -as a member of a court of appeal - confirmed a number of  death sentences.
Here goes Polakow-Suransky

 The Israeli government has it in for Richard Goldstone. Ever since Goldstone, a Jewish South African judge, issued a report in September charging Israel (and Hamas) with war crimes during the January 2009 invasion of Gaza, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has attacked him -- and his report -- as a grave threat to Israel's legitimacy.
On Thursday, leading Israeli government officials escalated their campaign against Goldstone, accusing him of sending 28 black South Africans to their deaths while serving as a judge during the apartheid years.
"The judge who sentenced black people to death … is a man of double standards," Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin proclaimed. "Such a person should not be allowed to lecture a democratic state defending itself against terrorists." Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon insisted, "This so-called respected judge is using this report in order to atone for his sins," likening Goldstone's statement that he was forced to uphold the laws of an unjust regime to "explanations we heard in Nazi Germany after World War II."
And the newspaper Yediot Ahronoth declared breathlessly -- with nods of approval from Jeffrey Goldberg and Jonathan Chait -- that "the man who authored the Goldstone report criticizing the IDF's actions during Operation Cast Lead took an active part in the racist policies of one of the cruelest regimes of the 20th century."
So did Israel's government.

Goldstone's apartheid-era judicial rulings are undoubtedly a blot on his record, but his critics never mention the crucial part he played in shepherding South Africa through its democratic transition and warding off violent threats to a peaceful transfer of power -- a role that led Nelson Mandela to embrace him and appoint him to the country's highest court.
More importantly, Ayalon's and Rivlin's moralism conveniently ignores Israel's history of arming the apartheid regime from the mid-1970s until the early 1990s. By serving as South Africa's primary and most reliable arms supplier during a period of violent internal repression and external aggression, Israel's government did far more to aid the apartheid regime than Goldstone ever did.
The Israel-South Africa alliance began in earnest in April 1975 when then-Defense Minister Shimon Peres signed a secret security pact with his South African counterpart, P.W. Botha. Within months, the two countries were doing a brisk trade, closing arms deals totaling almost $200 million; Peres even offered to sell Pretoria nuclear-capable Jericho missiles. By 1979, South Africa had become the Israeli defense industry's single largest customer, accounting for 35 percent of military exports and dwarfing other clients such as Argentina, Chile, Singapore, and Zaire.
High-level exchanges of military personnel soon followed. South Africans joined the Israeli chief of staff in March 1979 for the top-secret test of a new missile system. During Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon, the Israeli army took South African Defense Force chief Constand Viljoen and his colleagues to the front lines, and Viljoen routinely flew visiting Israeli military advisors and embassy attachés to the battlefield in Angola where his troops were battling Angolan and Cuban forces.
There was nuclear cooperation, too: South Africa provided Israel with yellowcake uranium while dozens of Israelis came to South Africa in 1984 with code names and cover stories to work on Pretoria's nuclear missile program at South Africa's secret Overberg testing range. By this time, South Africa's alternative sources for arms had largely dried up because the United States and European countries had begun abiding by the U.N. arms embargo; Israel unapologetically continued to violate it.(....)

 Writing in the New York Times, Thomas Friedman estimated that the two countries did $400 mllion to $800 million of business in the arms sector in 1986. According to declassified South African documents, the figure was likely even greater: A single contract for modernization of South African fighter jets in the mid-1980s amounted to "approximately $2 billion," and  arms sales in 1988 -- one year after Israel imposed sanctions against the apartheid regime -- exceeded $1.5 billion. As the former head of the South African Air Force Jan van Loggerenberg told me bluntly: "Israel was probably our only avenue in the 1980s."

Polakow-Suransky's main point is that Israel and its apologetics are hyprocritical to say the least when they reproach judge Goldstone that he once functioned under Soutnh Africa's Apartheid's laws. His article 'Gold stones Glass Houses' can be found here.

It's rather sickening these smear campaigns, full of distortions, which so easily forget that Israel itself, sent - in the course of its policy of 'targeted killings'  - hundreds to their death without even a process, many among them innocent bystanders, not to mention the 1200 and 1400 people that were killed in recent nnecesaary wars in Lebanon and Gaza.
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But as far as the record of judge Goldstone is concerned, it is worth reading what Richard Silverstein writes to his defense. Silverstein puts him in the context of the South African juridical system at the time. He may not deserve a medal for the fact that he once operated within this system and - together  with others confirmed death sentences. But, and here Silverstein is right, so do American judges, and likening Goldstone's role to those of nazi judges (or Josef Mengele.as Dershowitz does) is simply ludicrous and therefor scandalous. The more so because Goldstone's  critics, as Silverstein quotes from another article by Polakow-Surasky in the Huffington Post,

…Fail to acknowledge Goldstone’s crucial role in facilitating South Africa’s transition to democracy by chairing the investigative Commission on Public Violence and Intimidation from 1991-1994. Among other things, this commission exposed the apartheid government’s links to a so-called Third Force–made up of government security and ex-security operatives seeking to derail peaceful democratic elections.
The Goldstone Commission’s revelations outraged Nelson Mandela, leading him to conclude that F.W. de Klerk’s government had organized covert death squads…Goldstone’s work earned him Mandela’s respect and, in 1994, South Africa’s first black president appointed Goldstone to the Constitutional Court…

Silvestein also points to the fact that it was Goldstone's ruling which overturned the so called Homeland  (Thuisland) policy, which effectively ended the Apartheid. And from somewhere he digs up an opinion of the (black) American federal judge Thelton Henderson who visited South Africa in the eighties, came in trouble over there, and met Goldstone, an opinion which is remarkably favourable for Goldstone. (See Silverstein's blog for all this)
In the meantime the question is: does it matter? And the answer is: Yes it does. All these attempts - concerted attempts  - by functionairies of Israeli ministries and journalists and hasbarists, reveal to which low the Israeli society and estabsihsment have sunk. A level at which critiicism in whatever shape or form has become so threatening that it can only be answered by smearing the crictics, prosecute them, expellt hem from the country, or refuse them to enter it  While looking into the cases in question obviously is no longer a viable option at all. The only democracy in the Middle East is no longer capable of a critical look in the mirror and to invstigate its own flaws and faults. Which is a pity and of course 'a schand'...

Goldstone as yet welcome at grandson's bar mitzva

Cartoon by Jonathan Shapiro (Zapiro) of the South African Guardian and Mail. The good news is that in the meantime the Board of Deputies of the Jewish Community in Johannesburg has reversed its decision. Richard Silverstein, the blogger who was the first to publish the fact that Goldstone had been banned from his granson's bar mitzva, was also the primary source for the good news that  Judge Goldstone as yet is welcome to attend the bar mitzva and will have a meeting with the South African Zionist Federation and other Jewish representatives to discuss the so called Goldstone report aftrards. A great victory for the bloggibg community, kol hakawod to blogger Silverstein.

Rabbi's to Goldstone: 'we want to offer you our deepest thanks for upholding the principles of justice'

Dear Judge Goldstone,
As rabbis from diverse traditions and locations, we want to extend our warmest mazel tov to you as an elder in our community upon the bar mitzvah of your grandson. Bar and Bat Mitzvah is a call to conscience, a call to be responsible for the welfare of others, a call to fulfill the covenant of peace and justice articulated in our tradition.
As rabbis, we note the religious implications of the report you authored. We are reminded of Shimon Ben Gamliel's quote, "The world stands on three things: justice, truth, and peace as it says ‘Execute the judgment of truth, and justice and peace will be established in your gates’ (Zekharya 8:16)." We affirm the truth of the report that bears your name.
We are deeply saddened by the controversy that has grown up around the issuing of the report. We affirm your findings and believe you set up an impeccable standard that provides strong evidence that Israel engaged in war crimes during the assault on Gaza that reveal a pattern of continuous and systematic assault against Palestinian people and land that has very little to do with Israel's claim of security. Your report made clear the intentional targeting of civilian infrastructures such as hospitals, schools, agricultural properties, water and sewage treatment centers and civilians themselves with deadly weapons that are illegal when used in civilian
centers.
This is the ugly truth that is so hard for many Jewish people to face. Anyone who spends a day in Palestinian territories sees this truth immediately.
Judge Goldstone, we want to offer you our deepest thanks for upholding the principles of justice, compassion and truth that are the heart of Jewish religion and without which our claims to Jewishness are empty of meaning. We regret that your findings have led to controversy and caused you not to feel welcome at your own grandson's Bar Mitzvah. We believe your report is a clarion call to Israel and the Jewish people to awaken from the slumber of denial and return to

Rabbi Everett Gendler
Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb
Rabbi Brant Rosen
Rabbi Brian Walt
Rabbi Haim Beliak
Rabbi Michael Lerner
Rabbi Arthur Waskow
Rabbi Michael Feinberg
Rabbi Shai Gluskin
Rabbi David Shneyer
Rabbi David Mivassair
Rabbi Laurie Zimmerman
Rabbi Douglas Krantz
Rabbi Margaret Holub
Rabbi Rebecca Alpert
Rabbi Mordecai Liebling
Rabbi Phyllis Berman
Rabbi Zev-Hayyim Feyer
Rabbi Eyal Levinson
Rabbi Doron Isaacs

More names added:
Rabbi Gershon Steinberg-Caudill
Rabbi Erin Hirsh
Rabbi Michael Rothbaum
Rabbi Benjamin Barnett
Rabbi Julie Greenberg
Rabbi Linda Holtzman
Rabbi Ayelet S.Cohen
Rabbi Jeffrey Marker
Rabbi Nina H.Mandel
Rabbi Victor Reinstein

This comes from the Mondoweisss  and Tikun Olam sites:The letter is supported by Taanit Tzedek- Jewish Fast for Gaza , Shomer Shalom Institute for Jewish Nonviolence, Tikkun and the Shalom Center. Whoever is a rabbi and would like to add his/her name to this statement, send an e-mail to Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb (rabbilynn at earthlink dot net. I would think  there's room for more rabbi's).

Update 22/4:  In a letter to the South-African newspaper BusinessDay, Goldstone accused chief rabbi Warren Goldstein of South-Africa that he made it 'less, and not more' possible for him to attend his grandson's bar mitzva.

Goldstein one day earlier wrote in the same paper that he empathised with Goldstone’s “anguish as a grandfather”, but called on him to understand the pain his report had caused. “Under difficult circumstances and amid heated emotions I, together with the rabbi and executive of the Sandton shul, ensured that he would be free to attend the bar mitzvah; and we did our utmost best to persuade those who wished to protest not to.

But people did not need his permission to protest in a “free democracy”, he said.


Goldstone is his letter condemned the chief rabbi’s “questionable and unfortunate approach”, saying Goldstein had “brazenly politicis e(d)” a family occasion.“His rhetoric about ‘open synagogues’ simply does not coincide with how my family and I have been treated,” he said.The chief rabbi had at no stage “reached out” to his family.

UN-Assemblee grants Israel, Palestine five more months for credible investigations of war crimes

UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- The U.N. General Assembly voted Friday to give Israel and the Palestinians an additional five months to conduct independent investigations of alleged war crimes during last year's conflict in Gaza and warned of possible ''further action'' by U.N. bodies, including the Security Council, if they don't.

Israel makes the blitz with help in Haiti, while WHO signals deteriorating situation in Gaza

 

 'This came through the wall of the hospital'. Picture Saryn Lock.




 It's not only me (on my Dutch blog), Ken Silverstein, or the blog Mondoweis who were struck by the cynical way in which Israel is going out of its way with providing rescue operations and medical and other services to Haiti, while around the corner the Palestinians in Gaza, beause of the Israeli blockade are at the brink of starvation, cannot rebuild the damage of the 'Cast Lead' attack of one year ago and lack medical services. 


Of course Haiti at this moment is much worse off than Gaza and needs all the help it gan get. But there are some serious doubts about how effective the Israeli help to Haiti really is (see Silverstein's blog) And the way Israel is using this opportunity to gain as much public relations profit from it is tasteless, to say the least.  While Gaza is lacking elementary equipment, training facilities and whatever is needed to perform complicated thorax and heart surgery, or cancer treatments, Israel sends a complete mobile hospital, including maternity clinic, two state of the art operation rooms and more, to Port au Prince - 'Port au Hasbara' in Mondoweiss's words. And at the same time that there - applauded by the Israeli media en big American networks -  a first baby is born (which after suggestions by the medics is called Israel - the poor thing), people in nearby Gaza are dying because they don't get a travel permit to get the care they need outside the hermetically closed Strip. 
      

And as if it had to be that way, coinciding with Israels operation in Haiti, the World Health Organization issued a report about the health situation in Gaza. It says:

The closure of Gaza since mid-2007 and the last Israeli military strike between 27 December 2008 and 18 January 2009 have led to on-going deterioration in the social, economic and environmental determinants of health.

Many specialized treatments, for example for complex heart surgery and certain types of cancer, are not available in Gaza and patients are therefore referred for treatment to hospitals outside Gaza. But many patients have had their applications for exit permits denied or delayed by the Israeli Authorities and have missed their appointments. Some have died while waiting for referral.

1103 applications for permits for patients to cross Erez were submitted to the Israeli Authorities in December 2009. 21% had their applications denied or delayed as a result of which they missed their hospital appointments and had to restart the referral process.
Two patients died recently while awaiting referral - one in November and one in December. 27 patients have died while awaiting referral since the beginning of the year.


DEATH OF FIDAA TALAL HIJJY

Fidaa Talal Hijjy, 19 years old, was diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease in 2007, and was treated at Shifa Hospital in Gaza. Her health deteriorated and she was told she needed a bone marrow transplant. This procedure is not available in Gaza. Her doctors referred her to Tel HaShomer Hospital in Israel on 20 August 2009 and she obtained a hospital appointment for 23 September 2009 for a transplant.

The District Liaison Office submitted an application for Fidaa to cross Erez on the date of her appointment but the Israeli Authorities did not respond to her application and she lost her appointment with Tel HaShomer Hospital. She secured a new appointment for 20 October 2009 and a new application was submitted to cross Erez. She had no response from the Israeli Authorities. Her health condition deteriorated further. She was given a new appointment at Shneider Hospital in Israel for 9 November 2009 and submitted an urgent application to cross Erez. No response was received.

Fidaa died on 11 November 2009. The Israeli Authorities approved her request on 12 November 2009, three days after her hospital appointment and one day after her death.

 Supplies of drugs and disposables have generally been allowed into Gaza. However, there are often shortages on the ground mainly because of shortfalls in deliveries.Delays of up to 2-3 months occur on the importation of certain types of medical equipment, such as x-ray machines and electronic devices. Clinical staff frequently lack the medical equipment they need. Medical devices are often broken, missing spare parts or out of date.

- Health professionals in Gaza have been cut off from the outside world. Since 2000, very few doctors, nurses or technicians have been able to leave the Strip for training eg to update their clinical skills or to learn about new medical technology. This is severely undermining their ability to provide quality health care. An effective health care system cannot be sustained in isolation from the international community.

ECONOMY IN COLLAPSE

Rising unemployment (41.5 percent of Gaza's workforce in the first quarter of 2009²) and poverty (in May 2008, 70 percent of the families were living on an income of less than one dollar a day per person³) is likely to have long term adverse effects on the physical and mental health of the population.


WATER: OVER-EXTRACTION, SALINITY AND NITRATE LEVELS
The increasing salinity and high levels of nitrates in water supplies from the over-extraction of the ground water and the intrusion of salt water is a major concern for the safety of drinking water, particularly for children they are most vulnerable to high nitrate levels⁴. Salinity levels in water wells in most parts of the Gaza Strip are above the 250 mg/liter limit established by WHO, and nitrate concentrations exceed WHO guidelines of 50 mg/liter (up to 331 mg/l).

OPERATION "CAST LEAD": IMPACT ON FACILITIES AND STAFF

- 16 health workers killed and 25 injured on duty

- Damaged health services infrastructure:
• 15 of 27 Gaza's hospitals
• 43 of its 110 Primary Health Care services
• 29 of its 148 ambulances

- The lack of building materials is affecting essential health facilities: the new surgical wing in Gaza�fs main Shifa hospital has remained unfinished since 2006. Hospitals and primary care facilities, damaged during operation 'Cast Lead', have not been rebuilt because construction materials are not allowed into Gaza.

Maybe the right thing to do here is to quote Juan Cole's blog Informed Comment. Cole argues that the blockade of Gaza is meant to weaken Hamas, but

Collectively punishing 1.5 million Gazans in order to weaken Hamas is in any case strictly illegal in international law and is a war crime. According to Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949:

'Articl 33. No protected person may be punished for an offense he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited.

Pillage is prohibited.

Reprisals against protected persons and their property are prohibited.'

Not only is today's ongoing blockade a war crime, but it follows on and continues destructive policies of the Israeli military during the Gaza War, as the Goldstone Report for the United Nations concluded.