Goldstone Agonistes
The tough-on-Israel, easy-on-Hamas UN report on the Gaza war isn't exactly playing out the way its author may have hoped.
Judge Richard Goldstone is hinting these days at possible disappointment.
His dream — that Israel will launch a judicial investigation into its own war last winter in Gaza or, failing that, that Israeli leaders will be hauled before the International Criminal Court in the Hague — is in doubt. The idea of an investigation has run into staunch opposition in Israel, particularly from Defense Minister Ehud Barak. And the possibility of the UN Security Council referring Israel to The Hague looks dimmer by the day with veto-wielding council members like the United States and China saying last week that they oppose it.
Indeed, in an interview last Thursday to the Qatar-based Arab TV station Al Jazeera, Goldstone expresses his displeasure with the U.S. — saying, with a mien of wounded innocence, that he “ha[s] yet to hear from the Obama administration what the flaws in the report that they have identified are. I would be happy to respond to them, if and when I know what they are.”
Goldstone is even less content with Israel. The interviewer — clearly no lover of the Jewish state — declares: “You talked in the past about the need for international humanitarian law, the designation of crimes against humanity as having sprung from the Holocaust, as being so important, and now you have the Israeli government saying, well, we’re being criticized, perhaps we should change international humanitarian law to fit what we do, what do you think of that?”
Could the interviewer be implying that the Israelis are the “new Nazis” — a charge so common in the Arab world as to be atmospheric? Goldstone — showing no sign of having noticed, let alone being offended as a Jew — replies: “Well, I think it’s sad and I think it’s clutching at straws, because international law can’t be changed because one party doesn’t like the rules, it’s much more complex than that.”
Yes, indeed more complex — as Goldstone, to his less-than-philo-Semitic interlocutor, casts the Israeli government as both criminal and boorish. The argument, of course, is that the classic documents of international law were written before the era when Hamas and other terror organizations routinely took shelter among civilians so as to exploit the scruples of democratic armies that were fighting them.
The interviewer presses on: “The report has these very horrific examples, I mean, in one case, the shooting of children at pointblank range whose family members were holding white flags, what are we supposed to think about how this happens?”
Nothing new there — horrible Israel, Jews as child killers; if you think there’s been any substantial change in the Arab world toward accepting Israel, watch the words and expressions of the intelligent, polished interviewer. In this case — to the interviewer’s chagrin — Goldstone gets around to saying he “would have confidence” in an Israeli investigation of the war. But clearly the Al Jazeera venue, ethos, and audience of the interview Goldstone is granting and the fact that he’s further stoking flames of hatred don’t trouble him a whit.
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P. David Hornik is a freelance writer and translator living in Tel Aviv. He blogs at http://pdavidhornik.typepad.com/
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39 Comments
1. Marc Malone:Ho-hum. Another Jewish race traitor. Aka, Useful Idiot. Aka, the last one into the oven… or maybe the first. How is it the Jews just seem to produce so many of these idiots, even with the omnipresent oppression they suffer? More than anyone else, you’d think THEY’D know better. (sigh)
Oct 26, 2009 - 3:25 am 2. Fnord:WHile the arguments pro and contra the Operation Cast Lead are many, this is a bed that Israel has made for itself by refusing to participate in the UN comission. Al Jazeera were broadcasting the death of children at the same time that Israel was declaring itself the most moral military force in the world. It doesnt matter that Hamas are indeed ideologicaly crazy, what matters is that Israel have been openly anti-muslim, arrogant and scornful of their own public image. Now Turkey, the US main ally in the region (who have troops in Afghanistan as the only muslim troops there, btw) are openly siding with the Iran/Syria axis against Israel. If the choice comes between Israel and Turkey, Indonesia, the Gulf states and Saudi Arabia, who do you think the US should choose?
Oct 26, 2009 - 3:28 am 3. John "birther" Samford:Wasn’t it “Alice in Wonderland” where they had the verdict first and trial second to save time? Or was it the former Soviet Union?
It appears that the UN and the Nobel Prise people are competing to see who can make the most foolish decisions.
After all is said and done, what is happening here is that Israel is being censured for defending itself. Isn’t self defense a inherent right in the UN Charter?
{Snipped}
Article 51
“Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security. Measures taken by Members in the exercise of this right of self-defence shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and responsibility of the Security Council under the present Charter to take at any time such action as it deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and security. ”
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/un/unchart.htm
Israel is a member of the UN and Hamas shooting rockets into Israeli cites should be condsidered an ‘armed attack’.
Oct 26, 2009 - 3:47 am 4. SAF:So what’s the beef here? That Goldstien…. er Goldstone fellow isn’t much of a lawyer. Thick as a brick we would say in this neck of the woods.
#3 John “birther” Samford: There you go again, insulting bricks.
Oct 26, 2009 - 4:03 am 5. adam:“If the choice comes between Israel and Turkey, Indonesia, the Gulf states and Saudi Arabia, who do you think the US should choose?”
If the choice is between Islamist forces seeking to impose Shariah throughout the world and free countries trying to resist, the US should choose the free countries. Or perhaps one thinks that the Muslims will love us so much for helping them destroy Israel that they will… what, exactly?
Oct 26, 2009 - 4:31 am 6. gboisjo:How a fellow Jew can describe the Palastinians the way the Goldstone Commission does is beyond comprehension. I wish there was a way to take Goldstone back in time to Hitlers Germany so that he might expierence the anti-semite in full mode. Maybe then Goldstone would better understand (if he survived) the plight of the Jew and its nation of Israel. A Jew serving up a Jew with everything Israel faces today from Its neighbors can only be described as shameful fear and an act of cowardice.
Oct 26, 2009 - 4:38 am 7. Gary Ogletree:No phone calls and leaflets next time. No ceasefire until the Hamas surrender. Time to get off the UN treadmill.
Oct 26, 2009 - 5:03 am 8. Kenneth:I think the US should choose Israel because, in fact, it does matter that Hamas, Fatah and all the rest are a bunch of crazy fanatics. This isn’t a public relations exercise, it’s a war where Israel is under attack.
And, btw, the war in Afghanistan is not a war against Islam, it’s a war against the same sort of crazy fanatics who are trying to wipe Israel off the map.
Oct 26, 2009 - 6:15 am 9. paul_unalaska:A good article of Al Jazeera, again clouding fact with fictitious emotion.
‘..Warren Goldstein, legal scholar and chief rabbi of Goldstone’s native South Africa,..’.
Goldstein hailing from ‘South Africa..’ South Africa – another country attempting to appease its past only to fall more quickly than envisioned.
I don’t know how many South Africans I’d met in Western Africa who emigrated north for work is non-existent or given to the undeserving.
Goldstein, a rabbi whose not content with the destruction of not 1, but 2 key democracies in their respected regions. In S.A.’s case, a continent!
Spreading the word of hate and masking/selling it as ‘deserved empathy’. Though the modus operandi incorporated worldwide in this day and age. Infinite-like instances to support this..
Oct 26, 2009 - 6:23 am 10. pelaut:And “Don’t see any nukes here” Mohammed Al Baradei?
Oct 26, 2009 - 6:46 am 11. paul_unalaska:So UN Jews are anti Israel and UN Arabs are pro-Arab.
Take back our money and kick ‘em out.
Fnord, ‘Al Jazeera’s broadcasting the death of children..’. Whether the footage is doctored, in many instances it was pathetically apparent. Or, if indeed caused by aggression, perhaps Hamas shouldn’t have used these children as shields or stored their weapons in public used buildings.
The flyers given to those occupying Gaza is similar to those who refused to leave New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina was days away from making landfall. ‘Someone else has to lay claim to blame’. Moronic..
I applaud Israel for not participating in the UN commission. It’d be moronic to do so. The UN has overrun its welcome/ usefulness for nearly 50 years. See how well the UN has ‘recognized’ Israel’s plight since the country’s inception.
Oct 26, 2009 - 6:58 am 12. Ruvy:I live in Judea and Samaria – in ISRAEL. I don’t give a tinker’s dam about what some South African ignoramus who insults the rest of us by claiming to be a Jew says or thinks. I don’t give a tinker’s dam what the UN thinks, either. Heck, the best kind of urban renewal New York needs is a drone with a micro-nuke to hit and destroy the UN building. Putting up a project in its place, or mid-Manhattan slum where illegal workers could live, would be more appropriate.
The war in Gaza was an unnecessary exercise, and only served to increase the number of votes that Kadima (read cowardly traitors) and Labor (read treasonous cowards) got in the election in February 2009 in Israel.
Bunker busters, air raids, cutting off water, fuel, food and electricity, destroying hospitals and making sure that Gazan Arabs understood very clearly that “war is hell” by making their lives hell, were the appropriate strategies to be followed – if attacks were to be pursued at all.
However, the trash in Gaza are not worth my son, or any Israeli’s son’s life. NO ISRAELI SOLDIER SHOULD HAVE HAD HIS LIFE PUT ON THE LINE. FULL STOP.
Oct 26, 2009 - 7:07 am 13. Skip:Let’s face facts. Most American Jews (and others not living in Israel) think of Israel as an obstical and embarassment rather than an asset.
Oct 26, 2009 - 7:26 am 14. Ruvy:At least you are honest, Skip. So, let’s get to the bottom line, real fast and skip through all the baloney. Jews outside of Israel – not to mention the rest of you – need us far more than we need you. We can get by without you. We do not need your money – we certainly do not need your expertise – we do not need anything you pretend to offer – including your military aid. When the American economy collapses American Jews will be blamed – do note how Obama surrounds himself with Jews to be blamed when the ships hit the iceberg. And Jews will run from persecution and hatred – and will have nowhere to run to.
Also note that when the American economy fails – and it will – ours will not; only the fools who have tied themselves to America will be hurt.
Mark my words.
By the way, Skip – it’s obstacle.
Oct 26, 2009 - 8:33 am 15. Elliot:I am no longer impressed with these UN judgements. I tend to ignore them because clearly injustice is being done to those forced into fighting against an asymmetrical force that breaks all the rules set forth in another time.
International law would have to be amended to take into consideration that conflicting parties are being held to vastly different standards. It is imparative that new law be written and agreed on before I could take these accusations seriously again. Leaving the rules to stand as they have been will allow the unscrupulous homicidal/suicidal bombers of noncombatants to continue using these tactics into perpetuity without penalty.
Oct 26, 2009 - 8:41 am 16. Elliot:Who is investigating the Palestinian side of this matter again ? The transparency in all this is just gobsmacking and should cause shame among those who play this decades old game.
Oct 26, 2009 - 8:52 am 17. Dave K.:Yes, Israel is held to higher standards because Israel is a Western-style democracy.
Nobody holds Hamas to any standards, because there aren’t any standards low enough to hold them against.
Oct 26, 2009 - 9:03 am 18. don:Are these not the same people from the UN human rights commission on forbidding disparaging political speech about religions and sexual orientations? I wasn’t aware that Riyadh Saudi Arabia was a destination resort for transgender Jews? Do they do a lot of sex change operations in Mogadishu Somalia? Mogadishu was quite the popular place for the hippies in the sixties, don’t you know, and we do have a President from Students For A Democratic Society, after they morphed into the Weather Underground; the Weathermen name was deemed too sexist and politically incorrect.
Oct 26, 2009 - 9:43 am 19. w chase:Goldstone has said that he wants to see criticism of the substance of his report on Israel’s actions in Gaza, and this article doesn’t do that. In fact, no one has launched a credible criticism of substance to date. They attack Goldstone and all manner of things, but the substance of the report doesn’t seem to interest anyone. Question is, is it accurate about what it says about Israel? Anyone care to answer that? Hamas commits a war crime every time it launches a rocket into Israel. Goldstone says that in the report.
Oct 26, 2009 - 9:53 am 20. Joel:To no. 19–the Goldstone Commission has been heavily criticized for interviewing “witnesses” in Gaza who were Hamas members or civilians picked and/or intimidated by Hamas. This article goes into the depth on the issue:
http://jcpa.org/JCPA/Templates/ShowPage.asp?DRIT=1&DBID=1&LNGID=1&TMID=111&FID=442&PID=0&IID=3086&TTL=Blocking_the_Truth_of_the_Gaza_War
Goldstone himself said in an interview to the Forward that: “We had to do the best we could with the material we had. If this was a court of law, there would have been nothing proven.”
quoted from here:
Oct 26, 2009 - 10:19 am 21. Thomas_L......:http://www.forward.com/articles/116269/
w chase – Caroline Glick answers it quite well.
http://www.carolineglick.com/e/
Oct 26, 2009 - 10:29 am 22. Moho:The Hamas de-facto administration in the Gaza Strip received nothing but respect from the Goldstone [Commission], which never mentioned it was an Islamist, fascist, terrorist organization, that it supported the murder of the Jews in “Palestine …,” threw rival Fatah supporters off roofs and shot them in the knee, had taken over the administrative institutions of the Gaza Strip in a military bloodbath and were currently imposing on the Gaza Strip Islamic law (the Sharia), with its binding restrictions on women and with its gross, blatant disregard for basic human rights.
On the contrary, the Goldstone [Commission] viewed the Hamas de-facto administration as legitimate in every respect and made an artificial distinction between it and the “Palestinian armed groups operating in the Gaza Strip,” as if such “groups” did not kowtow to Hamas and had somehow spent eight years methodically launching rockets and mortar shells into Israel in opposition to Hamas policy.
David Hornik, are you really this stupid? Or is it that you think your readers are? You’re not fit to critique a fifth grader’s report card, much less a report on atrocity. Here’s the basic idea that you’re missing. In a war crimes investigation, it doesn’t matter what the other side did. The “bad guys” can be Hitler and Ming the Merciless rolled into one, but that doesn’t justify crimes against humanity, nor does Israel’s “democratic” nature. For god’s sake, you’re simply arguing that if a state is “democratic” it can go around doing whatever it wants. The stupidest thing I’ve read…and I do read Self-Pwnage Media.
Oct 26, 2009 - 10:30 am 23. Ruebacca:why does anyone care about palistien? i just don’t get it.
Oct 26, 2009 - 10:52 am 24. SkyDiver:Skip #13. Did anyone call you an IDIOT before? And Why do you speak for ALL Jewish People???? I think in your case, it shows a degeneration on molecular level.
Unbelievable.
Oct 26, 2009 - 11:07 am 25. biblio44:23. Ruebacca: “why does anyone care about palistien?”
CARE about it? I’ve never even HEARD of it!
Oct 26, 2009 - 11:29 am 26. Moho:It’s pronounced Frankenstien!
Oct 26, 2009 - 11:34 am 27. Anonymous:“…..that doesn’t justify crimes against humanity, nor does Israel’s “democratic” nature.”
Who said either did? The accusations will always be that “crimes against humanity” occured, whatever actually occured. Whomever it is, when dealing with folks in the ME, as a general rule, just expect there will be the same old, same old, trumped up charges of crimes against humanity.
” For god’s sake, you’re simply arguing that if a state is “democratic” it can go around doing whatever it wants.”
Nah. Firstly, I doubt anyone can establish that the Israeli state is into killing infants and minor children. That is simply an outrageous charge. One would have to be predisposed to think like that, or believe such a premise, to begin with, in order to write such a sentence. So, Israel doesn’t/didn’t “want(s)” to even if they are a democratic state.
Oct 26, 2009 - 11:44 am 28. Fnord:So, let me get this straight: You all think that “the war on terror”, that is the battle against the international jihadis trying to impose the Kaliphate is less important than Israel? You are willing to loose the two current wars in order to defend, lets face it, an extreme right government of a increasingly anti-american natuion in the Middle East? Lets put the patriot test to work: Youre willing to fight against the US supreme commander on behalf of a foreign power? Youre willing to let some two-bit state with illusions of grandeur and a religious crazy-ass attitude not unlike certain muslim folks tie your strategy down and cost you american lives? Turkey has contributed far more than Israel in the GWOT. They are the real keystone to fighting AQ.
If you put Israerl before the US, you should say so openly. From a strategic pov Israel is becoming a crazy little sister that the US has to deal with like aN EMBARASSMENT. Read the comments on Jerusalem Post, where racism is open and religious hatred is really really really cool. Now think how that must make our Turkish allies, fighting and dying with their US brethern in Afghanistan, feel.
Oct 26, 2009 - 11:57 am 29. don:Re; 22. So the defacto Hamas tribe in charge in Gaza provided reliable “witnesses” to “war crimes” who were not going to report the Hamas tribal line against the Zionist entity? My, we have a lot of brave Palestinians who volunteer for civic democratic duty to achieve justice and equality for all. Gee, I’m reminded of all those Germans who claimed they knew nothing about the ovens, and the Iranians and most of the Middle East today who claim there were no ovens, but I suppose it is possible the Gaza Arabs are different and the United Nations is really about rationing out truth and justice for all.
Oct 26, 2009 - 11:58 am 30. Elliot:Is there a reason my post,#27, was credited to “anonymous” ?
Oct 26, 2009 - 12:39 pm 31. biblio44:12. Ruvy: “… Kadima (read cowardly traitors) and Labor (read treasonous cowards) …”
No comment needed.
Oct 26, 2009 - 12:59 pm 32. Michael:If an organization uses blackmailed innocents to be terror bombers, if they fire mortars and rockets from hospitals and schools, if they use children as shields when they attack then civilians will be killed. The question is whether it will be your civilians or theirs. It will be a cruel choice which, but will it be a difficult one?
Oh, and I don’t recognize any dictatorship, any government without free elections as a valid government.
Oct 26, 2009 - 2:12 pm 33. Ruvy:Fnord,
I love guys like you. You make all my arguments for me, though you do not realize it at all.
Looking at all this through MY lens, you Americans, and your idiots in Washington – be they Democratic or Republican, “liberal” or “conservative” – are the LIABILITY. It is WE who need to ditch YOU. Let’s start with the small stuff.
Our native made rifles are better than the M16’s your Defense Department would “sell” us. They don’t jam, they use the same ammo, and they are smaller and more compact, making them easier to carry – even in mud.
Our soldiers come from a society where things are usually lacking. This means they have to be creative and have to act on the spot. They need to improvise merely to survive. That means they perform better in the field.
Say what you will about the Turks. They are folks who committed genocide, and are unwilling to own up to that fact. Even the lousy Germans and Austrians will own to the fact that they committed genocide (however resentfully). These are not the kind of folks I would want to watch my back, and frankly you Americans are welcome to them. When they decide you are liabilities, they’ll stab you in the back – just like you Americans have back-stabbed countless trusting “allies” (ask the Gruzini, the Georgians).
YOU are in hock to the Chicoms, the Russians, the Arabs and other lovelies. THEY are your masters, unless you are willing to nuke them. They call the tune and you play. Obama is just the second of many presidents who will lead you down the humiliating path to irrelevance in the world economy.
Let’s amplify that point just a bit. At this point, you have what is called a “consumer” economy. This means that folks all over the world work for slave wages and you Americans consume what they produce – overspending like drunk pigs in a bar. At some point the leaders of the countries whose people work for slave wages will decide that they don’t need the “consumer” anymore – particularly when your money starts losing its value. That’s when you Americans go under the bus, and learn to consume a whole lot less – because nobody will sell to a bankrupt with bad money.
Now, Fnord, you still with me here? In the end, the only “assets” you have are your nukes. With those nukes, you can try to intimidate anybody – until they think it all through. The killer radiation the use of those nukes creates eventually gets back to Hawaii, San Francisco, LA, Seattle; if there is enough of it, it gets to Minneapolis, Chicago, New York, Philly, Boston…. Are you getting the picture? You use your nukes to get rid of your creditors – but you die of radiation poisoning as a result. You are debt-free – and dead.
So much for the value of your nukes.
Do you now see why you Americans are a liability? Do you see why we need to eventually ditch you? The Turks probably already have figured this out. So have the Russians, the Chinese, the Persians, even the Arabs. Do youseriously think such pathetic BS like “fellow western democracies” will keep Israeli leaders from reaching the inevitable conclusions?
So, in not too long a time, you guys, who produce only movies these days, go under the bus.
It’s a damned shame. When I was a kid, America was the richest, and greatest nation on the planet. I was proud to live in America. Now pfffftt…. At least I don’t live there anymore.
Go ahead, buddy up to the Halvásh (Turks), Fnord. It is you who will be eating Halvá (a Turkish food served to mourners) in the end.
Oct 26, 2009 - 2:14 pm 34. John "birther" Samford:#19 W,Chase, actually I did at post #3.
You either skipped it, missed it, or have substandard reading skills. Is American/English a second language?
Let me try again with simpler words.
For something (anything) to be illegal, it has to break a law. With me so far?
Goldstien….er. Gold scum… ehrr ..Goldstones did not read the UN charter.
If he had he would have found the section that allows EVERY UN member the right of self defense. So to argue Israel committed a crime ( broke a law), you have to argue that Israel has no right of self defense, which it plainly does as a member of the General Assembly. Or you have to argue that shooting rockets in towns and villages isn’t a nattack. Good luck there.
I posted a link to the UN Charter and snipped the relevant section and pasted it. Now I have brought that to you attention. I cannot force you to read it and wouldn’t if I could. I have never found profit in educating fools.
Oct 26, 2009 - 3:08 pm 35. Jack in Silver Spring:David -
I just want to point out what a clever stroke it was for the anti-Israel crew to have Goldstone appointed to investigate Israel for war crimes. For them his appointment was a win-win appointment, and that’s because he’s Jewish (or at leas his mother was). The anti-Israel crew’s calculus would be this way: If he exonerates Israel for war crimes, we can say: What do you expect, he’s Jewish; then we can demand that someone who is neutral do a real investigation — and that would keep the story alive yet longer. On the other hand, if he indicts Israel for war crimes, we can say: You see how heinous Israel is, even a Jew finds her guilty of war crimes.
Goldstone, being the useful idiot he was, played out their second scenario.
Oct 26, 2009 - 3:28 pm 36. w chase:I don’t recall Goldstone questioning the legitimacy of Israel taking military action against Hamas in Gaza. Personally, I don’t think Israel could continue to sit back and do nothing while Hamas bombed it. I also expect some collateral damage in war including the death of civilians. My understanding is that Goldstone looked into whether Israel followed the rules of war. I think he had some success in showing Israel did not follow those rules in many cases. He thinks that Israel ought to look into that and hold itself accountable. We expect this of the US in Afghanistan and Iraq whenever civlilians die after military actions. We investigate and we apologize. Why should we expect less of Israel? It will give them more legitimacy in the world as a democracy that follows international laws in war, not prevent them from defending themselves and render tham somehow weaker. And if you don’t believe that wars should have rules, by that logic, Hamas should be able to bomb civilian targets too.
Oct 27, 2009 - 7:17 am 37. w chase:I watched this interview by Bill Moyers of Gladstone this weekend. He is actually looking for critics who want to challenge his specific findings. He agrees that historically the UN Human RIghts Commission has biased toward Israel. They had to toe the line before he would accept the task. He initially refused because the language was so biased against Israel.
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/index-flash.html
Oct 27, 2009 - 7:50 am 38. Trainwreck:In the new world order:
To defend yourself against terrorist attacks is a crime against humanity.
To criticize radical Islamists is hate speech, and punishable by law in most of Europe.
To investigate Muslims acting suspiciously (eg, flying imams case) is profiling and bigotry.
In the new world order, the only acceptable way to remember 9/11 is:
Oct 27, 2009 - 8:03 am 39. John "birther" Samford:http://awolcivilization.com/?p=1001
“My understanding is that Goldstone looked into whether Israel followed the rules of war. I think he had some success in showing Israel did not follow those rules in many cases.”
There are no “rules of war”. It’s a common mis-perception.
The closest thing is the Geneva Conventions. Once there was a thing called the Hague Conventions.
http://www.answers.com/topic/hague-conferences
{snipped}
Series of international agreements signed at The Hague (1899, 1907). The first conference was requested by Russia to discuss rules to limit warfare and attempt arms limitations. Twenty-six countries attended and approved several proposed conventions, including prohibition of the use of asphyxiating gases (not renewed in 1907) and creation of a Permanent Court of Arbitration. The 1907 meeting, called by Theodore Roosevelt, was attended by 44 countries and also had arms limitation as a goal, which again went unmet. ”
Most of the governments that were there no longer exist. Which is an interesting fact of international peace treaties.
GENEVA CONVENTIONS;
http://www.answers.com/topic/geneva-conventions
{snipped}
“One of a series of agreements first formulated at an international convention held in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1864, establishing rules for the treatment of prisoners of war, the sick, and the wounded.”
The GC ( Geneva Conventions) covers various aspects of war. To call them the rules of war is misleading at best, duplicity at worst.
Oct 28, 2009 - 6:08 amThe real problem is there are so many of the GC’s. A “war crime” depends on which version you are talking about. In the latest version (1977 IIRC) anything human or reasonably close is considered a “protected person”. In the 1948 version, which is the one Israel and the USA ratified, guerrillas, insurgents, “freedom fighters”, etc. are NOT covered by the GC, as they were not covered by ANY ‘laws of warfare’ until the GC V (1977). That is why the USA, Isreal and several other nations wouldn’t get onboard with it. Before GC V, you could do anything you wanted with captured terrorists. Hang ‘em, shoot ‘em, broil ‘em, stir fry ‘em, what ever. SOP for guerrillas was either hanging or shooting depending on the available bullet to rope ratio.
What Goldthing was trying to do is charge Israel under laws that didn’t apply to Israel. So if Israel had participated, it would have indirectly acknowledged it was bound by a treaty it didn’t sign. Ancient legal principal. If you agree to a trial, you agree to the law. It was a legal trap, one that failed.
Remember, under a modern legal system involving a jury, the law is on trial in EVER case. Laws can be and are struck down. International Law doesn’t use juries which makes the whole concept of international law suspect.
The difference between law and thugs with guns is a jury.