Who Are You, Mr. Goldstone?

The US House of Representatives has rejected as "irredeemably biased" the findings of a UN-sponsored report which says Israel committed "war crimes" during its last military operation in the Gaza Strip (code named "Cast Lead").

The report, also known as "Goldstone Report", named after Richard Goldstone, a South African judge who headed the panel, accused Israel and (to a much lesser extent, the Hamas terrorist group) of war crimes during the 22-day conflict in December and January 2007-2008. It has been characterized as "a distorted picture" by Steny Hoyer, the Democrat House majority leader. Steven Rothman, a Democratic congressman from New Jersey said that the report "was not written to talk about 12,000 rockets intentionally sent by Hamas to slaughter Israeli men, women and children, versus the Israelis trying in many respects to minimize the damage to Palestinian civilians."

Israel refused to collaborate with the biased "investigation" and around the world, many voices were heard in defense of Israel and the IDF ("IDF is the most moral army in the history of warfare"). But many others took the opportunity to lash out against Israel and to use the conclusions of the report in order to further their anti-Israel (and often anti-Semitic) agenda, using charges of "war crimes" against the Jewish State.

Goldstone maintains his objectivity and impartiality. A recent article in the Israeli daily "Israel Ha'Yom", however, uncovers another side of Mr. Goldstone....

It seems that the "impartial" and "objective" judge Goldstone is anything but. According to the "Im Tirtzu" group, Goldstone was a member of the "International Center for Transitional Justice", a far left group masquerading as working "to redress and prevent the most severe violations of human rights", but has a history of accusing Israel of some of the worst abuses of human rights. On its website, the group quotes Goldstone as lamenting that he cannot understand how "Jews can act with racism".

Goldstone served in the Board of Directors of "Human Rights Watch" (although his name was removed from the organization's website after the group "Monitor NGO" publicized the judge's links with HRW). In its March 2009 report, HRW accuses Israel of "war crimes" during its "Cast Lead" operation in Gaza.

Today, Goldstone belongs to "Doctors for Human Rights", another self proclaimed global human rights organization which has a history of accusing Israel in the past of "violations of international human rights".

Impartial and objective? Goldstone's bias and lies are shameful to the very least.

'IDF Most Moral Army in History of Warfare'

Thank you, Mr. President.

I am the former commander of the British forces in Afghanistan. I served with NATO and the United Nations; commanded troops in Northern Ireland, Bosnia and Macedonia; and participated in the Gulf War. I spent considerable time in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, and worked on international terrorism for the UK Government’s Joint Intelligence Committee.

Mr. President, based on my knowledge and experience, I can say this: During Operation Cast Lead, the Israeli Defence Forces did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare.

Israel did so while facing an enemy that deliberately positioned its military capability behind the human shield of the civilian population.

Hamas, like Hizballah, are expert at driving the media agenda. Both will always have people ready to give interviews condemning Israeli forces for war crimes. They are adept at staging and distorting incidents.

The IDF faces a challenge that we British do not have to face to the same extent. It is the automatic, Pavlovian presumption by many in the international media, and international human rights groups, that the IDF are in the wrong, that they are abusing human rights.

The truth is that the IDF took extraordinary measures to give Gaza civilians notice of targeted areas, dropping over 2 million leaflets, and making over 100,000 phone calls. Many missions that could have taken out Hamas military capability were aborted to prevent civilian casualties. During the conflict, the IDF allowed huge amounts of humanitarian aid into Gaza. To deliver aid virtually into your enemy's hands is, to the military tactician, normally quite unthinkable. But the IDF took on those risks.

Despite all of this, of course innocent civilians were killed. War is chaos and full of mistakes. There have been mistakes by the British, American and other forces in Afghanistan and in Iraq, many of which can be put down to human error. But mistakes are not war crimes.

More than anything, the civilian casualties were a consequence of Hamas’ way of fighting. Hamas deliberately tried to sacrifice their own civilians.

Mr. President, Israel had no choice apart from defending its people, to stop Hamas from attacking them with rockets.

And I say this again: the IDF did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare.

Thank you, Mr. President.