Soon To Appear At A New Goldstone Report Website Critique

How the Goldstone Commission Supports Terrorism

Avi Bell

Israeli critics of the report of the recent UN Human Rights Council Commission headed by Richard Goldstone on the Gaza war have criticized the commission for treating the terrorist group Hamas and the democratic state of Israel as moral and legal equivalents. For instance, aides to Defense Minister Ehud Barak reportedly told journalists that the Commission’s “comparison between those who foment terrorism and its victims is unconscionable.”

The Israeli critics are wrong. It’s much worse than that. The Goldstone Commission doesn’t treat Hamas and Israel as equivalents. The report is quite clear in finding, repeatedly, that one of the two parties has committed crimes of terror. It is just as clear in letting the other side off the hook on charges of terror. But perversely, the Goldstone Commission finds that Israel is the side guilty of terror.

The Goldstone Commission report repeatedly mentions two provisions of international law that bar acts of terror: article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention and article 51(2) of Geneva Additional Protocol I. In five different places —paragraphs 60, 880, 1169, 1718 & 1724 — the Commission accuses Israel of violating these laws by committing acts of terror.

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