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Posts Tagged ‘goldstone report’

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IDF Investigates Commander in al-Samouni Gaza Massacre

Sunday, October 24th, 2010
col. ilan malka accused of ordering al samouni massacre

Col. Ilan Malka, under investigation for ordering al-Samouni massacre (Dudu Azoulay)

Several months ago, the IDF announced publicly that it had begun investigations into two senior commanders for decisions they made during Operation Cast Lead which had been specifically singled out by the Goldstone Report as potential war crimes.  The Haaretz article reporting this, specifically mentioned one inquiry involved the use of white phosphorus against military rules in a civilian area.  That report, it turns out was incomplete.

In the past days, the IDF revealed that the second officer, Givati brigade commander Col. Ilan Malka, was responsible for the sector in which the al-Samouni clan was massacred on January 5, 2009, resulting in the deaths of nearly 30 family members taking refuse in a building to which they had been directed by Molko’s troops.  Molko specifically approved the IAF missile attack on their compound.  Before he approved the strike, several air force officers warned him that the target site might contain civilians, a warning he ignored.  Malka himself denied he had received such a warning.

For this, he is being investigated by the military prosecutor general, who has not yet decided whether to pursue any charges against him.  It should be noted that there have already been two military investigations of the al-Samouni incident in which the IDF found nothing remiss in its troops actions.  The first cleared troops of any wrongdoing.  But after the Goldstone Report singled out this assault as one of the three worst potential breaches of the laws of war that occurred during the Operation, the IDF tried again.  This time the second investigation suggested that the prosecutor take a further look at the matter.  No guarantee that anything will come of this.  But at least there is some accountability in the sense that an officer has been publicly named as being responsible for the carnage, even if he is never officially penalized for it.

al samouni family mourns dead

Al-Samouni family survivors mourn their dead (AP)

An Amira Hass article in yesterday’s Haaretz described the events that transpired to put the Samouni in the target sites of an Israeli jet.  Her account makes clear that there are officers even higher up the chain of command who bear responsibility for the grievous errors of judgment that precipitated the attack.

The day before the incident the IDF had directed 100 members of the family to evacuate a large home in which they had congregated and instead to transfer to another family residence it had already searched and cleared.  The Givati troops turned the first home into an outpost that was located some 90 feet from the second building.  After they moved, the Samounis presumed they would be safe from attack since the IDF would know their whereabouts and spare them.

Here is what led to the series of fateful blunders ending in the family’s massacre:

Several of the Samouni men even left the house on Monday morning (January 5 ) to collect wood for a fire, hoping to bake pita and heat up tea…

A small wooden structure stood next to the house, and several of the men apparently began climbing onto it to take apart the boards. This activity was seen in drone photographs shown on the screen in the war room headquarters, which according to testimony obtained by Breaking the Silence is of poorer quality than the screen before the person operating the aircraft.

In the war room, the poles the men were holding were taken to be RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades ) and the people carrying them were marked as a squad of terrorists who should be shot immediately. First the group of men outside the house was struck. They ran into the home, which was then struck twice. The structure was not destroyed, but because it was so crowded inside, dozens were killed and wounded.

Hass analyzes the technical failures that led to the decision to fire missiles on a house packed with civilians whom IDF troops had ordered there to begin with:

Until now, the order to bomb a house full of civilians has been explained and understood as an ostensibly legitimate interpretation on the part of the brigade commander of drone photographs displayed on the screen in the war room. According to the findings of human rights organizations and Haaretz investigations, during the course of Cast Lead many other civilians were killed and wounded by aerial strikes, in a similar process: based on how drone photos on war-room screens were interpreted.

The many incidents described in the human rights organizations’ reports indicate that the drone photographs are not as precise or clear as they are said to be, or that the technology considered “objective” also depends on commanders’ interpretation: Children playing on the roof are liable to be regarded as “scouts,” people trying to speak to their relatives over the phone are liable to be “signal operators for a terrorist brigade,” and families that went to the garden to feed the goats, squads of Qassam launchers.

In the case of the Samounis, the possibility of cross-referencing sophisticated technological information with human information from the field was available…

In this case, Malka was essentially warned by air force personnel that what they were seeing on the drone screens might not be what the commander thought it was.  It is a clear case of a commander in the field who is unaware of the deficiencies of the technology on which he is basing his judgments (or aware of them and proceeding anyway), placing too much trust in blurry pictures viewed by someone in a remote war room.  Further, it is crystal clear that Malka’s own troops had placed the family in the target location and somehow this intelligence was not passed to him.  No matter how this happened, whether it was Malka’s fault or that of the troops who moved the family, it is the commander’s ultimate responsibility and a grievous one.  In an army that was serious about accountability, such an officer would be relieved of his command.

Making matters worse, Malka explicitly ordered that no ambulances would be allowed in his zone of operations.  He feared they might be exploited by Hamas to capture his troops.  Testimony from veterans of Cast Lead to Breaking the Silence reveal at least four Gaza civilians bled to death after being shot by Givati soldiers under Malka’s command.  One family testified that a week after a member was injured they finally managed to walk the two miles to a rendezvous point where they met an ambulance (since none were allowed in the Givati sector).

And further testimony on this score:

According to one soldier who spoke with Breaking the Silence, brigade commander Malka insisted that if there were wounded, they should be taken on foot. But according to many reports from the field, sometimes even convoys of civilians were not allowed to progress on foot and the soldiers fired at them.

Haaretz reports that Malka’s boss and the IDF chief of staff-designate, Gen. Yoav Galant, lobbied against the current investigation, which certainly raises questions about his integrity and desire to sweep the matter under the rug.

We will see whether there is impunity or accountability in the ranks of the IDF over this incident.  No doubt the IDF wishes to do just enough but no more to mollify its international critics.  The prosecutor will make a big show of examining the evidence, may even call Malka and others to testify.  But in the end it will undoubtedly find insufficient evidence to bring a prosecution.  And so another crime of the Occupation will be swept under the rug, at least as far as Israel is concerned.  But the problem is that this method works less and less successfully.  The world tends not to forget these incidents and places declining faith in the IDF’s word that it has done its best to ensure these things don’t happen.  That’s why Goldstone has had remarkable resonance and why there have been as many serious investigations by the IDF as there have.

The Independent is also worth a read on this.

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IDF Officer Accused of Manslaughter in Cast Lead

Monday, September 13th, 2010
idf officer accused of manslaughter in cast lead

IDF officer, C.S., accused of manslaughter for murdering unarmed Palestinian women holding white flags during Cast Lead

The Israeli military prosecutor has filed the most serious charge ever against an IDF officer regarding the Gaza massacre, Operation Cast Lead.  The charge of manslaughter against the Givati staff sergeant known only by the initials, C.S., (from his light-skinned complexion and blond hair, he appears to be of Russian origin) in the military indictment as released to the public, comes two years after the war and in the aftermath of the Goldstone Report.  In fact, one could say the officer is the equivalent of the Yom Kippur goat sent to Azazel, a sacrificial victim whose guilt will assuage international pressure and prevent the indictment of higher-ups who, by right, are the ones who really should be in the dock.

Not that C.S.’ behavior is anything worth defending.  The accusation is that while positioned next to his commanding officer he shot two Palestinian women holding white flags and that he did so without authorization from the commander.

Here is the victims’ family’s account of the incident from Ynetnews:

Youssef Abu Hajaj will never forget the day he lost his mother and sister. In the early hours of January 4, 2009, his family’s home near Gaza City was shelled. “My 13-year-old niece was injured so we rushed through the trees and bushes to the Safadi family’s home. We were looking for a hiding place a little further from the tanks,” he told Ynet.

Then came the incident over which an Israel Defense Forces soldier is slated to stand trial for Operation Cast Lead’s most severe violation, and is likely to face charges of manslaughter.

Hajaj said residents of the neighborhood were instructed to evacuate the area in the afternoon. “My sister Majda and Ahmad Safadi, the man who we were staying with, were waving white flags that were cut from sheets. We walked some 400 meters and then we were fired at.

“We fled again in the direction of the Safadi family home, but some 300 or 400 meters later, as we were returning in a group of 27 people, half of which were children – they opened fire at us again.”

He said his 35-year-old sister Majda, who was carrying a white flag, was hit in the shooting. “The fire was so intense that we had to leave her behind. My mother shouted, ‘Majda has fallen, Majda has fallen’. We prayed for her and kept going. Some 100 meters on there was another blow of fire, and this time, the bullets hit my mother Raya, 64-years-old, in her chest. She collapsed and we were forced to leave her behind as well.”

Hajaj said there was nothing unusual about their movement. “We were in a completely open area, but they still opened fire. We returned to the Safadi family’s home until the end of the war, and all attempts to coordinate the removal of the bodies were unsuccessful. Only at the end of the war, over two weeks afterwards, did we bury my mother and my sister.”

In his defense, the officer claims he felt the group of unarmed Gaza civilians waving white flags and walking toward him were a potential threat to his comrades and that he fired at their lower body.  The mother who was killed was shot in the chest.

C.S. was only questioned about the incident by investigators in 2009, doubtless as a result of the Goldstone Report.  Were it not for that and the testimonies compiled by B’Tselem of this and other incidents, the officer would’ve gotten away with impunity.  A lieutenant colonel and captain will also be disciplined in this incident.  Most likely their membership in the officer’s club will be suspended for a week (that’s a joke, I realize there likely isn’t an IDF officer’s club).

Sergeant C.S. must feel gratified to know that there is a Facebook group established to defend his honor, Alone Against All: Supporting S. in His Legal Fight.  One commenter on the Wall notes they explored NGOs that might help but that “there weren’t many whose mission was to help soldiers in this type of trouble.”  Hmmm.  I wonder why.  Perhaps they haven’t heard of Honenu, which is right up their alley.  Settler Assassin?  Call Honenu.  Killed an Arab or prime minister in cold blood?  Call Honenu.  Committed a war crime?  Call Honenu.

Ynet misleadingly labels this the worst case from Cast Lead, when in reality it is the worst one in which charges have been filed.  Goldstone and B’Tselem have identified other cases even worse (notably the Samouni massacre, the mosque bombing, and the UNWRA white phosphorus attack) but no charges have yet been filed in those cases.

Reasonable people will feel a sense of gratitude to Israeli NGOs like B’Tselem without which this case would’ve gone unnoticed.  For right-wing Israelis however, this is precisely the reason such NGOs should be driven out of existence.  I know which side I’m on.

H/t to reader Yakov.

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Israel’s Attack on Goldstone Belies Its Own Support of Apartheid

Wednesday, May 19th, 2010

Sasha Polakow-Suransky writes tellingly in Foreign Policy and Huffington Post about the current smear campaign against Judge Goldstone mounted by the Israeli government with the help of willing collaborating journalists like Tehiya Barak, Jeffrey Goldberg and Jonathan Chait. It was Barak who opened the floodgates with his Yediot Achronot hit-piece, undoubtedly inspired by material developed by the Lieberman-Ayalon foreign ministry.  Don’t ya just love the incestuous relationship the hacks in government ministries have with the hacks in the newsroom?

Since Barak claims that his story is a “special Yediot investigation,” let’s do the same thing it claimed to do to Goldstone’s record and shine a light on its journalistic claims. Well, it falls short right from the beginning when it claims that Goldstone “asserted that Israel committed war crimes.” He did nothing of the sort. What he DID assert was that his commission had amassed enough evidence that there MAY have been war crimes committed by BOTH sides that the charges should be investigated formally by both sides themselves.  Goldstone said many times that he was not a finder of fact as a judge would be in a formal legal proceeding.

The Yediot hit-piece continues with this breathless commentary:

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.

During his tenure as sitting as judge in the appellant court during the 1980s and 1990s sentenced dozens of blacks mercilessly to their death.

This claim too falls by the wayside. Goldstone, as an appellate judge, reviewed sentences handed down by lower courts. And as such courts function everywhere, he could only overturn a verdict if he found a flaw in procedure or the earlier ruling.  Appellate judges don’t make law. They apply existing law. And in the rare instances in which they do innovate and plow new ground, they must do so in the context of the legal and legislative system in which function.

Not to mention that Goldstone only actually sentenced two individuals to death. The other 26 cases were appeals in which he upheld a lower court ruling.

The Goldstone smearmeisters have it all figured out with their 20-20 hindsight view of history. Goldstone’s responsibility was either to overturn capital punishment or resign his judgeship and emigrate from South Africa. Don’t you just love it when 20 years after the fact the smug hypocritical moralists come along and give advice about how others should behave in order to retain their moral purity?

Here Barak accuses Goldstone of committing the heresy of writing in favor of capital punishment, a crime committed–surprise, surprise–by most judges in this country who’ve ever affirmed such a sentence:

Goldstone sentenced at least 28 black defendants to death. Most of them were found guilty of murder and sought to appeal the verdict. In those days, he actually made sure he showed his support for the execution policy, writing in one verdict that it reflects society’s demands that a price be paid for crimes it rightfully views as frightening.

We’re going to have Supreme Court confirmation hearings soon for Elena Kagan. Would these same hypo-moralists demand that Kagan renounce capital punishment in her hearings? And if she couldn’t get four of her colleagues to agree that capital punishment should be overturned should she resign her seat and leave the country in disgust?

And keep in mind that Barak is in high moral dudgeon about South Africa’s policy of capital punishment when his own army regularly executes Palestinian militants without any trial. Is that the pot calling the kettle or what?

Here is another claim about which the only proper response is–not so fast, Barak:

Even when it came to far less serious offenses, Goldstone sided through and through with the racist policies of the Apartheid regime.

Actually, Barak is abysmally ignorant of the real history of the era as corrected by Polakow-Suraksy, who argues that the critics:

…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…

Further, it was Goldstone’s landmark ruling that overturned the Homelands policy that was a bulwark of the apartheid system. Amazing how an ignorant journalist with an axe to grind can reduce history to a steaming heap of rubble.

U.S. Federal Judge Thelton Henderson went to South Africa in the 1980s and according to a close friend of his who wrote me, discovered this about Judge Richard Goldstone:

Thelton first went to South Africa in the 1980s. In fact, being African-American, he was detained there and endured a very unpleasant experience. He will tell you about black leaders repeatedly telling him there were three good judges in the country, and the best of the three was a remarkable man, Richard Goldstone. In addition to being regarded for his fairness and justice in the courtroom, he was known by prisoners for his regular visits to the prisons. He went regularly because he was concerned about their being tortured and about their not getting medical care. (Another friend has told me about this aspect of Richard and that some black prisoners felt he literally saved their lives as a result of his visits to prisons.)

This is the very same judge who “sided through and through” with the apartheid regime. Shameful.

And then you have the outright lies of Alan Dershowitz which Yediot quotes as if they were halacha l’Moshe mi’Sinai:

“Goldstone took a job as an apartheid judge. He allowed dozens of black people who were unfairly tried to be executed,”

How does Dersh know they were “unfairly tried?” Did he do any research into the cases? Or does he argue that anyone sentenced to death under apartheid was tried “unfairly.” And would Dersh concede the same about Palestinian civilians killed by the IDF during the Gaza war? No, of course he wouldn’t. That’s his double-standard. He can denounce the sins of apartheid with clean hands and a clear conscience. But he refuses to acknowledge any sins of Occupation.

Dersh then goes on to quote his infamous comparison of Goldstone to Mengele, which I’ve eviscerated in a previous post:

“You know, a lot of people say we just followed the law, German judges… That’s what Mengele said too. That was Mengele’s defense and that was what everybody said in Nazi Germany. ‘We just followed the law.’ When you are in an apartheid country like South Africa, you don’t follow the law,” Dershowitz added.

I pointed out in that post that Mengele never mounted such a defense because he was never prosecuted for his crimes.

Here Dershowitz also uses a rhetorical smearing technique he accuses the far left of using against Israel: the Nazi charge. When you want to pull out all the stops and prove you have absolutely no sense of historical proportion liken your opponent or the regime your opponent supports to Nazis.

Was apartheid evil? Certainly. Was it worthy of comparison to Nazis? I don’t know. Perhaps as worthy as comparing Israel to Nazis. If you’re uncomfortable with the abuse of one historical analogy you should be uncomfortable with the other. Did South Africa commit genocide against Blacks? I don’t think so. Crimes yes. Injustice yes. But genocide?

Personally, I think someone ought to give Alan Dershowitz a Valium and get him to calm down a bit. He really does a grave disservice to his side every time he opens his mouth.

Both Barak and the Israel foreign ministry make a telling admission in this quotation from a ministry statement about the Yediot report (and this is why I believe this is an orchestrated government sponsored campaign):

A Foreign Ministry official referred to the investigation as “explosive PR material”

“PR material?” Really. Is that what working in the Israeli foreign ministry has become? PR flackery? Hasbara? Is that what this campaign against Goldstone is all about? Two-bit fakery?

The Yediot story quotes Knesset speaker Reuven Rivlin making this specious claim against the South African jurist:

“Such a person should not be allowed to lecture a democratic state defending itself against terrorists, who are not subject to the criteria of international moral norms…”

The actual truth of the matter is that Goldstone did not quarrel with Israel’s right to defend itself or respond to the rocket attacks by Palestinian “terrorists,” which he conceded might be war crimes.  What he DID concern himself with was the Israeli attacks which killed 1,100 civilians, 300 of them children.

yitzhak rabin john vorster

Menachem Being, Moshe Dayan and Yitzhak Rabin fete South African prime minister John Vorster in 1976 (Sa'ar Ya'acov)

The enormous contribution that Polakow-Surasky makes to this debate is his revelation of the deep ties between Israel and apartheid era South Africa.  I’m just beginning to read his new book, The Unspoken Alliance.  It uncovers the hitherto secret dealings between the two nations which brought much-needed cash to Israel in return for nuclear weapons technology and advanced weapons systems which South Africa used in its wars in Namibia and Angola.  In fact, Israel was the apartheid nation’s primary arms supplier ($1.5 billion worth in 1988 alone) and violated international sanctions to do so.  South Africa was Israel’s single largest customer for military exports.  Overall, the former country was Israel’s second or third largest trading partner after the U.S.  And this during a period when there were strict international sanctions in place to prevent precisely such trade.

In 1980, the UN voted for an oil embargo against South Africa much as Israel is urging the world body to do against Iran.  Where was the Israeli representative at the time?  Absent.  Is that how Israel showed its opposition to apartheid?  By failing to cast its vote when it had a chance?

So what you have is a current Israeli government hypocritically complaining about the alleged collaboration of one South African Jewish judge with a system which the entire Israeli military establishment at the same time was propping up with all the might at its disposal.  Who committed the worse sin?  Richard Goldstone or the State of Israel?  Was it worse for Goldstone to allow blacks to be sent to their execution or that Israel expedited South Africa’s development of a nuclear weapon?

We complain about the threat of nuclear proliferation if Iran gets a nuclear bomb.  We complain about Pakistani scientists giving WMD secrets to North Korea?  What about Israeli’s role in exporting such nuclear technology to South Africa?  We complain that Russia and China aren’t willing to coöperate with punishing sanctions against the Iranian regime to prevent it from getting nuclear weapons.  What about Israel’s own surreptitious violation of similar sanctions?

And what is Israel’s defense for its actions then?  We had few friends.  It was a relationship of convenience.  We had something they needed and vice versa.  We did what we had to do.  And is Israel’s excuse much different or superior to Goldstone’s own defense of his actions?

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Burston on Gaza War as Root of All Israeli Evil

Sunday, February 14th, 2010

Brad Burston, Haaretz’s columnist can be a helluva fine writer.  I’ve written at least one laudatory post about him.  After doing so, I read pieces by Burston which seemed almost to be written by a different person.  They were churlish pieces attacking Israel’s Jewish critics.  I chalked it up to a journalist feeling that it was his duty to show he could criticize both the right and left.  I thought I would never find a reason to write about his work again, till tonight.

Burston has written one of the most powerful, cogent and hard-hitting critiques–not only of the Gaza war, but of the current mess in which Israel finds itself in–I’ve ever read.  Seemingly every Israeli NGO or peace activist is under savage attack.  At the present moment, Israel faces a civil liberties crisis as dire as the U.S. faced during the McCarthy era.  The New Israel Fund, a classical Zionist NGO if there ever was one, is under mortal threat.  Its leader, Naomi Hazan has been publicly and graphically attacked in terms that would’ve made Goebbels proud.  Richard Goldstone has been called a traitor to his people.  Alan Dershowitz as much as put a price on his head.  Jewish women have been arrested for trying to leyn Torah at the Wall.

So it is like a balm in Gilead to read such graceful, soaring language from Burston:

This is about fear of the dark. Of the monstrous. In this case, the terror of finally uncovering what we ourselves are really made of.

This is about the lengths we will go, and the depths, in order to protect what we so desperately need to believe about ourselves. This is about how many others we will need to blame, vilify, assault, scapegoat and smear, before we actually take one wholly honest long look in the mirror.

This is about the war we made in Gaza, and what it did to Israel. This is about how Israel’s conduct of the war has done more damage to the Jewish state than all the thousands and thousands of Palestinian rockets and mortar shells put together. It has been a year and more since a truce was called in Gaza, and – thanks in no small part to Israel’s freely admitted policy of hamstringing and stonewalling UN investigators – the world is still at war with Israel.

The result is only now becoming felt. In a thousand ways, in new ways every single day, we have brought the war home.

Israel’s battle plan, which effectively called for bludgeoning Hamas and the whole of Gaza into a state of shock, had the further effect, intentional or not, of inducing shock in Israel itself.

Here Burston presents a daring thesis for an Israeli audience–that Goldstone was right:

In some cases, shock expresses itself in combativeness. A lashing out even at those who are trying to help.

In our state of shock, we were unable to see that Richard Goldstone was trying to save us. And that the Goldstone Report is exactly what Israel needs. We fought him every step of the way, convincing ourselves – just as in Gaza – that the unfolding catastrophe was the best of the available scenarios.

Had Israel cooperated with the panel, it might have begun to learn how to prevent another war like this one, and how to fight future wars entirely differently. Only now, with the shock beginning to subside, have Israeli military and legal officials begun publicly to concede that battling the Goldstone panel was a colossal blunder.

Burston here also propounds an unpopular idea in Israeli circles, that the Gaza siege is as much a blunder as the war itself was.  And this argument segues into the most important point of his column–that the war has led inexorably to the current attack on Israeli democracy and the peace movement:

And it is this Israeli government, in continuing its siege of Gaza, in denying Gazans access to concrete and other materials needed to rebuild homes destroyed by Israeli fire during Cast Lead, that lends further credence to the Goldstone Report’s suspicions that Israel’s policy has been and continues to be one of collective punishment of a civilian population.

Despite the nightmarish numbers of civilians killed in Gaza, the right has argued again and again that the problem with the war was that it was not pursued aggressively enough. Now, at home, they are getting their way. Finally, the war is being pressed to the full – with peace activists and human rights workers as the primary targets.

The Dahiya Doctrine of overkill and unimaginable, unremitting force, is being applied against the elements of Israeli society most strongly defending democracy and elemental rights. Finally, the war at home is being run the way the right wants. No holds barred. A fresh new onslaught on democracy every single day.

And if his thundering column had ended with the following passage I would’ve called it a masterwork of decency and humanity:

The Goldstone Report is, indeed, deeply flawed. But it is exactly what Israel needs. A deeply flawed report for a deeply flawed country. A country which will not, and cannot, begin to heal itself, repair itself, right itself, unless it faces with honesty and courage the issues and allegations raised by the report.

As long as Israel ducks the report, and keeps buried the whole truth about Cast Lead, it will not recover from this state of shock. Israel will be more vulnerable than ever to destruction from within.

But alas, he didn’t.  And this goes to my criticism of Burston, where he seems to lose the courage of his convictions and lapses into standard anti-Palestinian rhetoric:

Gaza, ruled by a Hamas which wants to see Israel exterminated – and which has only grown richer, better armed, and more popular as a result of the Israeli embargo – will continue to hold the whole of Israel in a crippling, withering, ultimately destructive state of siege.

The notion that Hamas wants Israel exterminated is a beloved trope of the very Israeli right Burston has spent this entire column deriding.  I have no problem with criticizing Hamas.  But if you want to do that you have a responsibility to do it accurately and precisely.  And this anti-Hamas slur is neither accurate nor fair.  But I do very much like Burston’s closing image of a Hamas which, by the very nature of Israel’s siege of Gaza, holds Israel under siege as well.

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Israeli Rightists Blame New Israel Fund for War Crimes Charges Against Israeli Leaders

Monday, February 1st, 2010

Ehud Barak, Tzipi Livni and Gabi Ashkenazi featured in mock New Israel Fund jail (Issachar Roess)s

The incitement against the New Israel Fund just keeps coming.  Today, right-wing Im Tirzu activists demonstrated at the annual Hertzeliya conference (Israel’s equivalent of Davos).  They featured a prison cell with cut out figures of Tzipi Livni, Ehud Barak and Gabi Ashkenazi in striped prisoner uniforms.  The placard above them read: “New Israel Fund prisoners.”

It reminded me of an image I saw before Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination featuring a picture of him on a placard dressed in a kapo uniform.  This was the same type of hate and incitement that led to his murder.  I shudder to think what others are capable of in the same settler movement which produced Yigal Amir, Baruch Goldstein and Jack Teitel.  Teitel was the one who exploded a bomb outside Prof. Zeev Sternhell’s home which injured him.  Before this, Teitel had posted notices offering a reward for the death of Peace Now’s Yariv Oppenheimer.  How long before someone takes a potshot at Naomi Hazan or Oppenheimer?  And even more sadly, would many care if it hit its mark?  Well, of course they would care.  Until the glare of bad publicity wore off.  Then it would be back to business as usual.  The Occupation continues.  The land thefts continue.

Imagine, it is the very Shin Bet who fomented this incitement against NIF who are responsible for protecting its leaders from the settler crazies who would harm them.

All this is brought to you with the assistance of Christian Zionist zealot John Hagee and his $100,000 taxa-deductible donation to Im Tirtzu.

And the truth is that this rightist group is inadvertently revealing the harsh truth to Israel.  Its leaders are culpable for possible war crimes.  Im Tirtzu can attempt to pin the blame for this on NIF all they want.  But the blame lies in one place: those who prosecuted the war in Gaza.  This little stunt is a feeble attempt to blame the messenger.  NIF is speaking truth to power as any good NGO should in a liberal democracy.  Don’t blame NIF for Israel’s own behavior.  If Israel didn’t want to face this outcome it shouldn’t have conducted the war as it did.  Given that it did over the protestations of much of the international community whose outcry warned them that they’d overstepped the bounds of law and morality, they will have to face the bitter music.

Someone may go to jail and Israel will have only itself (and not the NIF) to blame if that happens.

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Israeli Rightists Warn IDF Soldiers of Prison Time Thanks to New Israel Fund

Monday, February 1st, 2010

Some interesting developments today regarding the Im Tirtzu assault on the New Israel Fund.  Both Israeli and American Jewish peace groups came out swinging today in this article in the Jerusalem Post.  I’m astonished after being savaged by three prior separate Post articles (including one last week by Dershowitz) to read a respectful characterization there of my views:

The American Jewish blogosphere was also alive with comment and criticism on Monday, with well-known writers such as J.J. Goldberg, editorial director of The Forward, [and] Richard Silverstein chiming in on the Im Tirtzu report and coming to the NIF’s defense.

“I do not have a problem with anyone, whether Right or Left, expressing their views on the issues,” Silverstein wrote on his blog “Tikun Olam.”

“It is good to criticize Goldstone or New Israel Fund if you feel they’ve got things wrong. But it is dead wrong to call your opponent ‘evil’ or use Der Sturmer tactics to turn your opponent into a subhuman,” he continued, referring to the full-page caricature of Chazan.“

The Facebook Im Tirtzu is Fascist page is here.  Thanks to Americans for Peace Now and J Street for releasing strong statements of support for NIF and Prof. Hazan.

There has been one little noticed feature of the Im Tirtzu campaign, which is this ad in the Hebrew language press.  It features a “prison calculator” at the top which states:

Served in Operation Cast Lead?

Calculate how much [time] you’ll do.  It’s important how you answer–the prison calculator will aid you in determining how many years imprisonment you have coming to you:

In which branch did you serve?

How many days?

At what rank?

How many Israeli did you save from rockets?

This is meant by Im Tirtzu to be the equivalent of a wake up call for their supporters in the IDF, but think of what this really means.  They’re really runnin’ scared.  They really believe the ICC may end up getting them.  Frankly, I never thought this movement could get this far in impacting Israeli consciousness.  But it has.  And we must not let up.  Leaders must be held accountable either in Israel or New York or The Hague.

Let’s not forget that the good Pastor John Hagee is supporting this poison to the tune of $100,000 this year.

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Israel, in Concession to Goldstone, Disciplines 2 Senior IDF Officers for ‘Endangering Human Life’

Monday, February 1st, 2010

Brig. Gen. Eyal Eisenberg (Roee Edan)

I don’t know whether this is a case of throwing a piece of meat to howling dogs to get them off your scent or whether this is a meaningful admission by Israel (or both), but I find this story potentially quite important:

An Israel Defense Forces brigadier general and another officer with the rank of colonel endangered human life during last year’s military campaign in the Gaza Strip by firing white phosphorous munitions in the direction of a compound run by UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, the Israeli government says.

The finding aknowledges [sic], at least in part, allegations by international organizations. It was contained in a report that the government provided to the United Nations over the weekend in response to last September’s Goldstone Commission report.

Gaza Division Commander Brig. Gen. Eyal Eisenberg and Givati Brigade Commander Col. Ilan Malka, were the subject of disciplinary action by GOC Southern Command Maj. Gen. Yoav Gallant after headquarters staff found that the men exceeded their authority in approving the use of phosphorus shells that endangered human life, the Israeli government report said.

Col. Ilan Malka (Dudu Azoulay)

The incident in question occurred on January 15 of last year, two days before the end of Operation Cast Lead, in the southern Gaza City neighborhood of Tel al-Hawa, at a time when the Givati brigade and other Israeli forces were in the area.

…The munitions disperse hundreds of pieces of felt impregnated with phosphorus and at least some of the pieces fell into the UNRWA compound, causing injury to an UNRWA employee there as well as to two Palestinian civilians who took cover at the location.

UNWRA compound shelled during Cast Lead (AFP)

A few interesting observations: first, Ynetnews adds that hundreds of Gaza civilians were sheltering in the UNWRA compound when it was shelled, which means they all could’ve been burned alive.  Second, the facility shelled contained most of the food used to feed Gazans, which also easily could’ve gone up in smoke.  Third, endangering human life appears to be the IDF equivalent term for “war crimes,” though you’ll notice that the officers were “reprimanded” for their actions. A reprimand seems quite a lenient judgment for the use of white phosphorus.  Fourth, this was the incident which led Israel to pay the UN $10.5 million for damages to the facility.  Fifth, nice to see that the IDF acknowledges that Palestinians are “human” life (as in “endangering human life”).

It goes without saying that both the IDF and Israeli government will use this incident to prove that they are policing their own and that IDF internal investigations are sufficient to satisfy the demands of Goldstone. This simply won’t do and the Israelis have got to know this. And it’s in this sense that possibly these two officers are sacrificial lambs thrown to the UN in order to try to save Israel from the worse fate of being hauled before the ICC.

What is interesting about this finding and what must frighten IDF senior command and Israeli politicians is that the admission of “endangering human life” may be a first creeping step toward the admission of war crimes if the uproar over Goldstone doesn’t let up and Israel feels forced to make further concessions/admissions. Given this, it is no accident that Israel’s foremost Doberman Dershowitz has been on the prowl calling Justice Goldstone a “traitor to the Jewish people” and an “evil, evil man.”

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Dershowitz Calls Goldstone ‘Evil,’ ‘Traitor to Jews;’ Shin Bet Urges NIF Investigation

Sunday, January 31st, 2010

Israeli far-right goes 'Der Shturmer' on Naomi Hazan in Jerusalem Post ad.

I’ve never felt this more than tonight.  There is deep evil afoot among elements of the IDF, Shin Bet, and in the halls of hasbara represented by Alan Dershowitz and the like.  Much of it revolves around the hysterical reaction by the Israeli military and political elite to the Goldstone Report.  We knew all this before.  But the attacks have never been so vicious as those of the past few days, bordering on incitement to violence.  The phrases being voiced remind me of the environment just before Yitzchak Rabin was assassinated by the same type of rabid Israeli nationalist as the ones calling for blood from Israeli peace activists.  I know many of us have been critical of the Israeli left and the peace movement.  I remain so.  But it is now time to pick whichever portion of the Israeli left we can most support and do so wholeheartedly.  The Israeli left is under attack as never before.

Two developments in particular have chilled me to the bone, and I thank Jerry Haber for posting about Dershowitz’s latest eruption and Didi Remez for posting about the IDF’s machinations against Prof. Naomi Hazan and New Israel Fund.  And I urge you after reading this to do everything in your power to support the forces under assault.  Make contributions to New Israel Fund.  Send messages of support to Prof. Hazan.  Call your local Israeli consulate to complain about the assaults on her and Justice Goldstone.  This must stop.

I do not have a problem with anyone whether right or left expressing their views on the issues.  It is good to criticize Goldstone or New Israel Fund if you feel they’ve got things wrong.  But it is dead wrong to call your opponent “evil” or use Der Sturmer tactics to turn your opponent into a subhuman (note the rhino horn on Prof. Hazan’s head in the graphic I’ve posted here–the Hebrew word for “Fund” is the same as “horn,” which explains the rather foolish-looking horn on her head).

We MUST turn the conversation away from this assault and back on the substance of the Goldstone Report.  We must support the UN process outlined in Goldstone which could bring the report for consideration by the Security Council and International Court of Justice if the Israelis and Hamas refuse to investigate their misdeeds.  This is where attention needs to be.  And not on accusations of treason and other McCarthyite red herrings.

Please spend time reading the articles linked here and listening to the Dershowitz radio interview and disseminate this as widely as possible with the added message that we will not take our eyes off the ball that is Goldstone.  We will stand by our allies in Israel and outside it when they are under attack.

Alan Dershowitz gave a radio interview to Israeli army radio, Galey Tzahal, in which he launched a full frontal attack on Justice Goldstone.  Keep in mind that the Israeli officials discussing whether and how to create the least effective investigative panel that would satisfy the Goldstone conditions have bandied about the name of this thug as a potential member of the panel.  Here are some of the interview’s key passages:

D: The Goldstone Report is a defamation written by an evil, evil man.  Goldstone is an evil man.  No one should mince words about it.  He allowed his Jewishness, the fact that his name is Goldstone, and that he has connections to Israel–he allowed himself to be used to give…a heksher, a certification of purity to a defamation.

It would be as if the Czar when he wrote the Protocols of the Elders of Zion he asked a prominent to Jew to edit the report and sign the Protocols in order to show that it had credibility.

Galey Tzahal: Do you hint Prof. Dershowitz that he is a moser, someone who betrays his own people?

D: Absolutely.  There is a prayer that is said every day for people like him: La-malshinim al t’hi tikvah (“there shall be no hope for the betrayers”).  He is a man who uses his language, his words against the Jewish people.  I regarded him as a friend.  I now regard his as an absolute traitor.

Eyal Nir, on my Facebook page makes a perceptive comment (Hebrew) about the Protocols: either Dershowitz is claiming that the Protocols were based on true testimony or he’s claiming that Goldstone is the same type of fraud as the Protocols.  Perhaps Dersh wants us the believe Cast Lead never happened or all those Gazan civilians didn’t die?  Can anyone doubt this man is a charlatan?

Later in the interview Dershowitz says he hasn’t been asked to serve on the committee.  With mock modesty he ventured Justice Aharon Barak as a better candidate for the panel.  Jerry Haber points out that when the Goldstone Report was first issued Defense Minister Barak approached Dershowitz and Barak to spearhead the campaign in Israel’s defense.  You can see what Dersh’s reply was.  Barak refused.  And given this performance, how likely does anyone think it will be for Aharon Barak to answer this tainted call to serve?

If you understand Hebrew, also listen to the remainder of the interview with Shulamit Aloni who savages Dershowitz, calling him a “patriot nutcase” and Ehud Barak, saying she believes he deliberately wanted to kill Gaza civilians during Cast Lead.  She also calls him “the most dangerous man in Israel” and a “Napoleon” (which is rendered even funnier by the fact that Barak is quite short).

Didi Remez translates part of the story by Maariv’s Ben Caspit which reveals that the Knesset’s foreign affairs and security committee will deliberate about New Israel Fund’s alleged role in collaborating with the Goldstone Report by passing incriminating IDF documents to it, thereby blackening Israel’s name in the process.  These documents were forwarded to the Attorney General by the Shin Bet, requesting an investigation be launched.

In an earlier story on the affair, Caspit writes this incendiary claptrap about NIF (as reported in Noam Sheizaf’s blog post):

“Israel’s image is at an all-times low. International pressure is mounting, and with it the calls for boycott. All this was fueled by the Goldstone report, which was in itself fueled by Israeli sources. The funding for these sources is provided by, amongst others, the NIF. The question is whether the New Israeli Fund is indeed for Israel.”

Caspit mentions 300 grassroots and social organizations receiving funds through the NIF, and asks: “is all this activity just intended to serve as a front for radical subversive activity, acting against the very foundations of the state?”

Other Knesset members are proposing ending cooperation between all government agencies and NIF grantees (NIF funds various social justice, human rights and anti-poverty NGOs and initiatives in Israeli Jewish and Arab communities).

Far-right Israeli nationalists protest outside Naomi Hazan's home. Placards say: "Love Naomi--Hate Tzahal" (Flash 90)

The far-right nationalist group, Im Tirtzu, is campaigning against NIF and Naomi Hazan, its Israeli chair, placing the ad displayed here in the Jerusalem Post.  The Israeli right have demonstrated outside Hazan’s home dressed in in mock Hamas kefiyes and thanking her for her support.

Here are some of the shenanigans the Israeli right and intelligence services have planned for NIF:

..The materials exposed…are familiar to the IDF authorities and the legal authorities in Israel. Some of them were given half a year ago to the Military Advocate General Brig. Gen. Avichai Mandelblit.He checked the material and gave it to the Atty. Gen., with a recommendation to open an official investigation. No such investigation has been made so far. The Shin Bet is also familiar with the material and the sensitive issue. Taking action against this is not simple because NIF is a registered association in the US. Also, it is noteworthy that a large part of the fund’s activities in Israel are devoted to social and public issues of the first order.

“It will be hard to connect this activity to political subversion,” said a security source, who is well familiar with the affair. “But on the other hand, there is clearly a worrisome pattern here that is causing Israel serious damage and helping its worst critics tie the IDF’s hands and undermine the legitimacy of the Jewish state in general and its right to defend itself in particular.”

Im Tirtzu is now planning to launch a large public campaign, both against the New Israel Fund in general and personally against its head, Prof. Naomi Hazan. Dozens of movement activists demonstrated last night in front of Hazan’s house dressed up as Hamas activists and carried signs thanking Hazan and the fund.

For the past few months and until tonight, I’d broken off contact and support for NIF over the treatment of fellow blogger, Shamai Leibowitz several years ago.  Since Ben Caspit played an instrumental role in this affair as a conduit of the Shin Bet in smearing Shamai, it’s appropriate to bring it up now.  Shamai came to the U.S. to study international human rights and receive a law degree from George Washington University.  He came with the support of an NIF fellowship.  Leibowitz taught a State Department language, culture and politics course for new U.S. diplomats being sent to Israel.  That is, he taught the course until Aipac found out about it and conveyed this information to the Israeli government, which in turn leaked the information to Caspit, who published it as a juicy piece of gossip: defender of convicted terrorist Marwan Barghouti teaching U.S. diplomats about Israeli culture.  You get the drift.  Shamai lost the job.

Later, Shamai made a speech endorsing the BDS movement in Cambridge which was also reported back to the powers that be in Israel.  Such pressure was exerted that NIF dropped Shamai from the program.  When I learned of this I was so angry I wrote to the then NIF director, Larry Garber, berating him for his betrayal of Shamai.  He never responded.  That’s when I cut my ties to NIF.

But as far as I’m concerned, the Israeli power structure is out to castrate NIF and I simply won’t allow it to happen.  It’s all hands on deck.  Do not let this ship go down.

Those of you who follow the Israeli media closely should note the role that Ben Caspit is playing in this little escapade.  Some journalists’ interests are so closely allied with the security services their salaries might as well be paid by them.  Caspit is one such.

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