Those who claim the
Goldstone Report was written simply to blacken Israel's name
are missing the point. That is and can be done almost daily by
directly feeding the media half truths and propaganda to use in
articles that reinforce the narrative of Palestinian suffering at
the hands of the occupying Israelis.
Rather, the purpose for producing the
Goldstone Report was to provide a "rationale" for domestic
courts around the world that are sympathetic to militant Islam to
arrest Israelis -- whether they be political leaders, military
officials or ordinary soldiers -- and prosecute them for war
crimes under so-called " universal jurisdiction" laws.
Universal jurisdiction is the principle that if the
political and legal institutions countries will not go after
leaders or citizens who participated in crimes against humanity
similar systems in other nations, at any level, can arrest and
prosecute. It was a confection originally spun by leftists who
believed that it provided the only means to hold war criminals
accountable, particularly if their own country lacked the legal
system to do so. Universal jurisdiction advocates maintain that
such individuals can be jailed and prosecuted without due process
or other legal restraints. Universal jurisdiction and the
International Criminal Court are only supposed to be applied when
a country does not or cannot act to prosecute and in limited
cases. But as Henry Kissinger has observed: who decides when a
country can't act or doesn't want to? Does it depend on the
outcome someone wants?
In 2001 Kissinger (who himself was the subject of a
universal jurisdiction arrest warrant) warned of an unprecedented
movement to turn international politics into legal proceedings.
Now universal jurisdiction is being used to bring about Israel's
annihilation.
Goldstone can't do enough to recast the report and his
leadership as a wholehearted effort to save the Zionist
experiment from itself. However, anyone who took the time to read
the 650-page report can see the inquiry was structured in a way
to establish the grounds for universal jurisdiction:
First, show the operation amounted to crimes against
humanity. The Goldstone Report dismisses all military tactics
designed to eliminate the risk of engaging in asymmetrical
warfare as "so-called operational necessity." Israeli military
plans to hit targets, clear positions, hold areas based on
intelligence and on the ground observation of units are dismissed
as premeditated crimes. One example of a war crime: Attacking the
Gaza police who are trained by Hamas, armed by Hamas, and blend
in with Hamas to launch rockers.
Second, conclude that Israel's operation in Gaza was part a
systematic effort to oppress the Palestinian people. Goldstone
cites the razing of a chicken farm -- which provided eggs in Gaza
-- and the bombing of a sewage system as war crimes, for
instance, even as he treats the well-known use of Gazans as human
shields by Hamas as mere speculation. It regards Operation Cast
Lead as an extension of a policy of "repression" that has
systematically deprived people in Gaza of their freedom.
Finally, the report claims, because Israel is unwilling to
respond to the "repression" of which the war crimes are merely a
part with "criminal investigations that comply with international
standards the Mission supports the reliance on universal
jurisdiction as an avenue for States to investigate violations of
the grave breach provisions of the Geneva Conventions of 1949,
prevent impunity and promote international accountability."
Goldstone missed the hundreds of civil and military court
investigations of IDF actions in Gaza.
The UN Human Rights Council has adopted Goldstone's
recommendation encouraging every nation to prosecute Israelis for
war crimes. And both were was taking their cue from anti-Israel
NGOs they know, including the French pro-Palestinian
organizations who sued the Israeli president, foreign minister
and defense minister at the start of the war. As international
law expert David Kaye notes: "…numerous
prosecutors, particularly in Europe, will take the conclusions of
the Report and initiate investigations under their domestic
universal jurisdiction laws." Several Israel leaders have already
canceled travel plans because they might be arrested.
Universal jurisdiction was conceived to insure that war
criminals would be unable to hide from judgment anywhere on the
globe. The Goldstone Report characterizes the soldiers (including
my son who served in Operation Cast Lead), political officials
and military leaders of Israel as a criminal element in the world
community. Through universal jurisdiction it permits its enemies
to turn the Jewish state into the Warsaw ghetto, another venue
for keeping tabs, according to the Nazis, on the "criminal
class." To the extent the Obama administration and American
Jewish organizations such as J Street give legitimacy to the
report by supporting investigations of the military operation
Israel launched in response to terrorist attacks, they are
complicit in this strategy. If that happens, Israel may truly be
a nation apart.
topics:
Israel, Goldstone Report, Universal Jurisdiction
