Edward Said once said,' it is is part of morality not to be at home in one's home.' This is the challenge for those who believe in the universality of human rights, especially when the charge of infringing on them, treads uncomfortably close.
On the afternoon of November 3, 2009, the United States House of Representatives voted in favor of House Resolution 867
(H.Res.867), an AIPAC-backed bill that urges both President Barack
Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to "oppose unequivocally
any endorsement or further consideration of the "Report of the United
Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict," referred to
commonly as the "Goldstone Report." With this vote, the US Congress has
not only enshrined its opposition to investigations into war crimes and
crimes against humanity found to be committed during last winter's
Israeli massacre of over 1,400 Palestinians in the closed-off Gaza
Strip, but has also affirmed its outrageous and unconscionable
commitment to Israel's continuous unfettered aggression and singular
unaccountability to international law, rules of military engagement,
human rights, and basic morality.
In their successful effort to (yet again)
shield the State of Israel from any and all scrutiny or criticism over
its illegal use of collective punishment and excessive force against an
imprisoned, impoverished, and defenseless civilian population,
Congressional supporters of H.Res.867 sought to discredit the UN's
575-page report
of meticulously-documented human rights violations. After visiting
Gaza, conducting 188 individual interviews of victims and witnesses,
studying more than 300 reports, submissions and other documentation
including medical reports and forensic analysis of weapons and
ammunition remnants collected in Gaza, amounting to more than 10,000
pages, and reviewing over 30 videos and 1,200 photographs, the Mission,
led by South African Justice Richard Goldstone, concluded that
"violations of international human rights and humanitarian law and
possible war crimes and crimes against humanity" were committed by both
parties (Israel and Hamas) during the Israeli assault on Gaza (A/HRC/12/48 p.423).
Goldstone's impeccable and unimpeachable credentials cannot be overstated. As a member of the South African Standing Commission of Inquiry Regarding Public Violence and Intimidation,
Goldstone was responsible for uncovering and publicizing allegations of
the extensive violence committed by Apartheid South African security
forces, paving the way for subsequent investigations by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission after South African democratization. He served as a judge for the Constitutional Court of South Africa, chairman of the Independent International Commission on Kosovo,
Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunals for the former
Yugoslavia and Rwanda, and was a member of the International Panel of
the Commission of Enquiry into the Activities of Nazism in Argentina
(CEANA), tasked to identify and prosecute Nazi war criminals who had
emigrated to Argentina. In 2004/5, he was a member of the Volker Committee investigation into the UN's Iraq oil-for-food program.
The Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz reports
that, according to a lecture Goldstone delivered in Jerusalem in 2000,
he "believes bringing war criminals to justice stems from the lessons
of the Holocaust," which he described as "the worst war crime in the
world." In Goldstone's view, the atrocities committed by the Nazis and
the lessons learned by the international community in the wake of their
discovery have "shaped legal protocol on war" and "constituted the
basis for the concept of universal jurisdiction."
Not only this, but in an interview with the Jerusalem Post, his own daughter Nicole (once a resident of Israel) even described
Goldstone, who is Jewish, as "a Zionist" who "loves Israel." Goldstone
currently serves as a trustee at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
Nevertheless,
the harrowing conclusions and reasonable recommendations of the UN
commission were quickly denounced by many US officials (not to mention
the pathetic 'who, me?' outrage and phony self-righteousness exhibited
by their Israeli counterparts), most of whom had not even read the
report in its entirety; their smug derision of the dispassionate facts
presented in the report made perfectly clear their intention to
cover-up Israeli war crimes and, in so doing, legitimize and endorse
Israel's ongoing suppression, dehumanization, starvation, occupation,
and slaughter of the Palestinian people.
As it has in the past, the US House Foreign Affairs Committee,
led by Chairman Howard Berman (D-CA) and Ranking Member Ileana
Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), rushed to Israel's defense. This is the same team
that, almost two weeks into the Israeli bombardment, co-sponsored House Resolution 34,
a Pelosi-led non-binding declaration that "recogniz[ed] Israel's right
to defend itself against attacks from Gaza" and "reaffirm[ed] the
United States strong support for Israel." H.Res.34 called upon the
House of Representatives to express "vigorous support and unwavering
commitment to the welfare, security, and survival of the State of
Israel as a Jewish and democratic state with secure borders, and [to
recognize] its right to act in self-defense to protect its citizens
against Hamas's unceasing aggression," in addition to claiming that
Israel had "facilitated humanitarian aid to Gaza" during the assault.
The resolution also called on "all nations" to "condemn Hamas for
deliberately embedding its fighters, leaders, and weapons in private
homes, schools, mosques, hospitals, and otherwise using Palestinian
civilians as human shields, while simultaneously targeting Israeli
civilians" and "to lay blame both for the breaking of the 'calm' and
for subsequent civilian casualties in Gaza precisely where blame
belongs, that is, on Hamas."
The resolution made no mention
whatsoever to the crippling Israeli blockade, the devastating and
ceaseless air and ground assaults by the Israeli military, or the fact
that it was the IDF that had, in fact, broken the ceasefire in the
first place. The resolution passed almost unanimously (390-5) on the
very same day that the Palestinian death toll in Gaza reached 765,
half of them children and women, with thousands more wounded, including
hundreds in critical condition. As Congress affirmed its "vigorous
support [of] and unwavering commitment" to Israel, municipal buildings,
homes, and mosques in Gaza were shelled relentlessly by the Israeli
military using US weaponry. Five days earlier, the Israeli Air Force
had launched an attack on a school run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in the northern Gaza town of Jabaliya, killing over 40 people and wounding over 100 more.
Over
seven months later, when the Goldstone Report was released,
Representatives Berman and Ros-Lehtinen returned to the drafting table.
Howard
Berman, the self-described liberal who voted for the invasions of Iraq
in 1991 and 2003 as well as the 2008 FISA Amendments Act, was described
in an article in the Jewish Daily Forward
as a "staunch supporter of Israel" and "a cautious backer of the peace
process" whose "interest in the Jewish state was one of the main
reasons he first sought a seat on the [House Foreign Relations]
committee." Berman, possibly in an effort to one-up Joe Biden,
boasts that "Even before I was a Democrat, I was a Zionist." Larry
Weinberg, an AIPAC board member, confirms Berman's ethno-supremacist
credentials saying, "I have known Congressman Berman for many years,
and I am continually impressed by his personal commitment to
strengthening the bond between the United States and Israel...He is not
only a leader on our issues, but he is a friend to many in the
pro-Israel community."
Berman is adamant about placing harsh
sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program, which he constantly
mischaracterizes as a "nuclear weapons" program. He, along with his
trusty sidekick Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, has recently
proposed HR 2194, the Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act, which seeks
to impose sanctions on companies that help Iran to import refined
petroleum products or that help it to increase its domestic refinery
capacity. In a September speech,
Berman claimed that the United States "will be in a much stronger
position to maximize our ability to obtain crippling sanctions because
of our sincere effort to engage [Iran]." What an enticing proposal for
Iran to engage! The speech also contained this brilliant nugget
regarding the terrifying menace of a nuclear-armed Iran: "We're not
talking about a regime that has the same calculus - that same sense of
restraint - as we do about the use of such a weapon." Perhaps the
Congressman forgot that, in addition to being the biggest stockpiler of
nuclear weapons on the planet in clear violation of its obligations to
the Non-Proliferation Treaty, the United States is also the only
country in the history of the world to ever use nuclear weapons. And it
used them on innocent civilians. Twice.
Ros-Lehtinen, meanwhile,
is not only the most senior Republican woman in the US House, a hawkish
Zionist, and a supporter of the Patriot Act, the invasion of Iraq, the
Military Commission Act, drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and the military coup in Honduras. She is also against the funding of stem cell
research, affirmative action (scoring a 31% favorability by the NAACP),
and civil rights (scoring a dismal 14% by the ACLU) encourages
continued sanctions against Cuba (the country of her birth), and has
openly called for the assassination of Fidel Castro.
Additionally, as journalist Franklin Lamb points out, Ros-Lehtinen, along with Democratic House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, is a pillar of the "fake US Congressional Human Rights Caucus,
founded in 1983 which in its quarter century of self congratulatory
investigations of Human Rights abuses has yet to find a single human
rights abuse by Israel, irrespective of any murders, slaughtering of
innocents, home demolitions, political incarcerations, religious
bigotry, illegal use of American weapons, illegal siege of Gaza, and
serial invasions of Lebanon, and the continuing theft of Syria's Golan
heights. Over the past few years the CHRC has become an
Iran-bashing forum for all manner of Zionist zealots and kooks
spreading falsehoods and defamations against Islam and the Islamic
Republic."
Once H.Res.867 was drawn up, it was rapidly co-sponsored by over 200 other representatives before hitting the House floor for a vote.
The
resolution itself neither addresses nor disputes any of the Goldstone
Report's actual findings or conclusions. Instead, via a series of
deliberately misleading, factually inaccurate, and unrelated "whereas"
clauses, it seeks to delegitimize the entire Fact Finding Mission as a
whole, oftentimes personally attacking its members in an effort to show
anti-Israel tendencies or bias. What the resolution actually amounts to
is a repetition of Israeli propaganda and Zionist apologia masquerading
as a legal and moral defense of indefensible Israeli military
aggression.
The wide support it received in Congress
demonstrates that the United States House of Representatives is
determined only to promote human rights and international law with
regards to how it relates to the protection of Israeli Jews and, in
equal measure, proves its unequivocal and unabashed disregard, if not
outright contempt, for the rights and lives of Palestinians.
The
text of H.Res.867 is rife with blatant inaccuracies, decontextualized
mischaracterizations, and a thorough lack of historical perspective.
Many of these factual errors were addressed and corrected in a letter written by Judge Goldstone himself to both Berman and Ros-Lehtinen on October 29.
For instance, in one of its 33 "whereas" clauses, the resolution claims:
"...the
mandate of the 'fact-finding mission' makes no mention of the
relentless rocket and mortar attacks, which numbered in the thousands
and spanned a period of eight years, by Hamas and other violent
militant groups in Gaza against civilian targets in Israel, that
necessitated Israel's defensive measures."
This is a deliberate, decontextualized falsehood. The mandate called for the UN Mission "to investigate all violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law that might have been committed at any time
in the context of the military operations that were conducted in Gaza
during the period from 27 December 2008 and 18 January 2009, whether
before, during or after." (A/HRC/12/48, p.13)
Palestinian
rocket attacks, in addition to Israeli military operations, were
clearly included in this mandate. Additionally, had those who wrote and
supported the House resolution actually read the contents of Goldstone
Report rather than simply making things up, they would have been well
aware that, in addition to Palestinian rocket attacks and their
consequences being mentioned at length in the report's Introduction,
there is also an entire 20-page chapter (XXIV, p.346-366) entitled "The
Impact on Civilians of Rocket and Mortar Attacks by Palestinian Armed
Groups on Southern Israel," which practically begins with the following
statement: "Since April 2001, Palestinian armed groups have launched
more than 8,000 rockets and mortars from Gaza into southern Israel."
After
exhaustively documenting the impact of these rocket attacks, including
Israeli fatalities, physical injuries, psychological trauma, mental
health, damage to property, the impact on the right to education and on
the economic and social life of affected communities (both Israeli and
Palestinian within southern Israel), the Mission states
that "There is no justification in international law for the launching
of rockets and mortars that cannot be directed at specific military
targets into areas where civilian populations are located" and
concludes that because these rockets cannot be aimed at specific
targets, "one of the primary purposes of these continued attacks is to
spread terror," an act which it explicitly states is "prohibited under
international humanitarian law." (A/HRC/12/48, p.365) It continues:
"...the
launching of unguided rockets and mortars breaches the fundamental
principle of distinction: an attack must distinguish between military
and civilian targets. Where there is no intended military target and
the rockets and mortars are launched into civilian areas, they
constitute a deliberate attack against the civilian population...
...From
the facts available, the Mission finds that the rocket and mortars
attacks, launched by Palestinian armed groups in Gaza, have caused
terror in the affected communities of southern Israel and in Israel as
a whole. Furthermore, it is the Mission's view that the mortars and
rockets are uncontrolled and uncontrollable, respectively. This
indicates the commission of an indiscriminate attack on the civilian
population of southern Israel, a war crime, and may amount to crimes
against humanity. These attacks have caused loss of life
and physical and mental injury to civilians and damage to private
houses, religious buildings and property and have eroded the economic
and cultural life of the affected communities." (A/HRC/12/48, p.366) (emphasis mine)
The Goldstone Report is perfectly clear. The House Resolution is deliberately false. Furthermore, as Jeremy R. Hammond of Foreign Policy Journal deftly points out,
the resolution "ignores the fact that even if Israel's military
operations were justifiable as 'defensive measures,' Israel would still
be legally obligated to conduct its operations in accordance with
international law, and to conduct investigations into alleged war
crimes conducted by its own forces."
The resolution and its
supporters repeatedly refer to the Goldstone Report as "one-sided,"
referencing comments made by both Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the US Ambassador to the United Nations Susan E. Rice, who called
its initial mandate "unbalanced, one sided and basically unacceptable."
However, as Goldstone himself explains, "the House resolution fails to
mention that notwithstanding my repeated personal pleas to the
Government of Israel, Israel refused all cooperation with the Mission.
Among other things, I requested the views of Israel with regard to the
implementation of the mandate and details of any issues that the
Government of Israel might wish us to investigate," continuing,
"This
refusal meant that Israel did not offer any information or evidence it
may have collected regarding actions by Hamas or other Palestinian
groups in Gaza. Any omission of such information and evidence in the
report is regrettable, but is the result of Israel's decision not to
cooperate with the Fact-Finding mission, not a decision by the mission
to downplay or cast doubt on such information and evidence."
The
Israeli government even denied the Mission entry to Israel in order to
interview witnesses and tour affected communities such as Sderot [sic;
the real name of the town is Najd] and Ashkelon [sic; the real name of the town is al-Majdal].
Israeli witnesses had to be flown to Geneva or Jordan to be
interviewed. Other interviews were conducted over the phone and via the
internet. "I believed that Israel would cooperate," Goldstone told Ha'aretz. "It turned to be a naïve expectation."
So what was Congressman Berman's response?
"Justice
Goldstone is correct. The Government of Israel decided not to cooperate
with the Mission, based on its biased mandate, as well as the UNHRC's
long history of anti-Israel bias. I find that position, at the least,
understandable."
Understandable or not, Berman's resolution
omits Israel's refusal to cooperate, while at the same time claiming
that Hamas, which did cooperate with the Mission and allowed its
members full access to Gaza, was "able to significantly shape the
findings of the investigation mission's report by selecting and
prescreening some of the witnesses and intimidating others." In turn,
Goldstone replied, "The allegation that Hamas was able to shape the
findings of my report or that it pre-screened the witnesses is devoid
of truth. I challenge anyone to produce evidence in support of it."
Berman's only "evidence" is his subsequent claim
that "the commission conducted some of its proceedings through holding
televised open hearings in Gaza. Given its total control of Gaza and
its ability to intimidate, Hamas almost certainly would have been able
to control the access and message of each witness attending a televised
open hearing. What is beyond doubt is that witnesses were keenly aware
that Hamas was monitoring the televised proceedings and likely to
inflict reprisals for any unwelcome testimony." The only thing that
seems "almost certainly" "beyond doubt" is Berman's ceaseless
proclivity to make baseless assumptions about a place he's never been
and an incredibly stalwart and resilient people he's never met.
It is doubtful that Berman would also conclude that past testimonies given by Israeli soldiers regarding the gross misconduct and war crimes committed in Gaza were also the result of militaristic intimidation, most likely agreeing with the aborted military probe
that, unsurprisingly, found the allegations to be "based in hearsay"
and "rumors," and declared an end to the probe. According to
Congressman Berman, the only apparent trustworthy source on what
happens in Gaza is the Israeli government. What a relief.
In reality, the Goldstone Report's findings
are unequivocal and unambiguous. Among many other conclusions, it found
that Israel's "repeated failure to distinguish between combatants and
civilians appears to the Mission to have been the result of deliberate
guidance issued to soldiers, as described by some of them, and not the
result of occasional lapses" and that "the destruction of food supply
installations, water sanitation systems, concrete factories and
residential houses was the result of a deliberate and systematic policy
by the Israeli armed forces. It was not carried out because those
objects presented a military threat or opportunity, but to make the
daily process of living, and dignified living, more difficult for the
civilian population." (A/HRC/12/48, p.407)
The Mission
found that Israeli operations, in many cases, constituted "an assault
on the dignity of the people" and included not only "the use of human
shields and unlawful detentions sometimes in unacceptable conditions,
but also in the vandalizing of houses when occupied and the way in
which people were treated when their houses were entered. The graffiti
on the walls, the obscenities and often racist slogans, all constituted
an overall image of humiliation and dehumanization of the Palestinian
population." (A/HRC/12/48, p.407)
Because the Israeli government has consistently claimed that all phases of "Operation Cast Lead" were thoroughly and extensively planned,
that legal opinions and advice were given throughout the planning
stages and at certain operational levels during the campaign, and that,
according to the Government of Israel, almost no mistakes made during
the planning or operation itself, the Goldstone Report concludes that
"what occurred in just over three weeks at the end of 2008 and the
beginning of 2009 was a deliberately disproportionate attack designed
to punish, humiliate and terrorize a civilian population, radically
diminish its local economic capacity both to work and to provide for
itself, and to force upon it an ever increasing sense of dependency and
vulnerability." Furthermore, "Whatever violations of international
humanitarian and human rights law may have been committed, the
systematic and deliberate nature of the activities described in this
report leave the Mission in no doubt that responsibility lies in the
first place with those who designed, planned, ordered and oversaw the
operations." (A/HRC/12/48, p.408)
Clearly, these revelations are far too damning for the US Congress, which funds the Israeli military apparatus to the tune of $3 billion each year and provides devastating weaponry with which to slaughter Palestinians by the hundreds,
to bear and therefore must be buried. With this in mind, it is all too
obvious that H.Res.867 is meant to be a distraction from the truth; it
is a deliberate and disingenuous deflection of well-documented, substantiated, and widely corroborated
evidence of Israeli war crimes that, in its reflexive
self-righteousness, reveals itself to be no more than a study in double
standards, moral relativism and selective outrage.
As such, the resolution and its uncreative backers in the House, resorted to obvious repetitions of hasbara
in a well-coordinated effort to silence all criticism of Israeli
actions, cover-up evidence of Israeli war crimes, and condone any and
all military aggression, invasion, and occupation - no matter how
illegal, inhumane, or truculent - committed by any so-called
"democracy" in the name of "self-defense."
When the resolution
made it to the floor of the House on Tuesday afternoon, Congress
members from all over the country lined up to lend their vocal support
to Reps. Berman and Ros-Lehtinen and the resolution. They all basically
said the same thing: that the wicked, blood-lusting terrorists of Hamas
used Palestinians as human shields and that a victimized, peace-loving,
democratic Israel, via the findings of the Goldstone Report, is being
unfairly condemned for merely acting out of self-defense.
Ros-Lehtinen,
in her defense of H.Res.867, called the Goldstone Report a "575-page
hatchet job" that "persecut[ed] Israel for defending herself," claiming
that the Mission "disregarded evidence that Hamas and other such groups
in Gaza used innocents as human shields and deliberately launched
attacks from schools, from hospitals, from mosques." (Congressional Record H12234 11/3/09)
By
the time these statements were made, Judge Goldstone had already
addressed them thusly: "It is factually incorrect to state that the
Report denied Israel the right of self-defense," he wrote in his letter to Berman. "The report examined how that right was implemented by the standards of international law."
The Report itself even addresses Israel's claim to self-defense. It concluded:
"While
the Israeli Government has sought to portray its operations as
essentially a response to rocket attacks in the exercise of its right
to self-defence, the Mission considers the plan to have been directed,
at least in part, at a different target: the people of Gaza as a whole.
In
this respect, the operations were in furtherance of an overall policy
aimed at punishing the Gaza population for its resilience and for its
apparent support for Hamas, and possibly with the intent of forcing a
change in such support. The Mission considers this position to be
firmly based in fact, bearing in mind what it saw and heard on the
ground, what it read in the accounts of soldiers who served in the
campaign, and what it heard and read from current and former military
officers and political leaders whom the Mission considers to be
representative of the thinking that informed the policy and strategy of
the military operations." (A/HRC/12/48, p.406)
In
response to the unsubstantiated, albeit constantly repeated, claims
that Hamas militants hide behind innocent civilians as a defensive
strategy, Goldstone notes
that the Mission found no conclusive "evidence that Hamas forced
civilians to remain in their homes in order to act as human shields.
Indeed, while the Government of Israel has alleged publicly that Hamas
used Palestinian civilians as human shields, it has not identified any
cases where it claims that civilians were doing so under threat of
force by Hamas or any other party."
Nevertheless, because the
issue of Hamas using civilians as "human shields" is so deeply
ingrained in the Zionist propaganda talking points of both Israeli and
American apologists for Israeli atrocities,
any contradiction of this assumed justification for the willful murder
of vast numbers of innocent Palestinians by the Israeli military is
brushed aside as an absurd fabrication and distortion of reality. As
such, despite relevant facts and evidence to the contrary, it is
repeated again and again by Israeli and American officials, parroted by
an uncritical media, and in entrenched in the psyche of the gullible
public to become indisputable doctrine.
Desmond Travers, who was one of the four members of Goldstone's UN Mission, addressed the "human shield" allegation in a recent interview with Harper's Magazine. A retired Colonel of the Army of the Irish Defence Forces
and the former Commandant of its Military College, Travers has also
served in "command of troops with various UN and EU peace support
missions." In response to a question regarding whether "Hamas
deliberately inserted its fighters among civilians" and therefore was
responsible for deliberately increasing the civilian death toll of the
conflict, Travers said this:
"We
found no evidence that Hamas used civilians as hostages. I had expected
to find such evidence but did not. We also found no evidence that
mosques were used to store munitions. Those charges reflect Western
perceptions in some quarters that Islam is a violent religion. Gaza is
densely populated and has a labyrinth of makeshift shanties and a
system of tunnels and bunkers. If I were a Hamas operative the last
place I'd store munitions would be in a mosque. It's not secure, is
very visible, and would probably be pre-targeted by Israeli
surveillance. There are a many better places to store munitions. We
investigated two destroyed mosques - one where worshippers were killed
- and we found no evidence that either was used as anything but a place
of worship."
As part of the House floor debate, Congressman
Ron Klein (D-FL) claimed that the Goldstone Report "does nothing to
advance peace and security in the Middle East" but rather "serves to
reinforce the deep mistrust that pervades the region and excuses the
actions of terrorist groups and their state sponsors." He did not
discuss how identifying war crimes and human rights violations would be
anathema to promoting peace and security.
"The Goldstone Report
ignores the facts," Klein continued. "The terrorist threat surrounding
Israel's defensive actions in Gaza require a decisive response, and any
sovereign nation would have and should have done what Israel did,"
adding, "I would urge U.N. member states to devote time and thoughts to
the realities of human rights around the world, not Israel." (CR H12233 11/3/09) Clearly, for Ron Klein, the 'realities of human rights around the world' and 'Israel' are mutually exclusive.
Eliot
Engel (D-NY) claimed that the Goldstone Report is "part of an ongoing
effort at the U.N. to single out Israel and to deny Israel the same
rights accorded to other nations" and that it "equates Israel's
long-delayed acts of self-defense [sic] with Hamas' 12,000 intentional,
indiscriminate attacks on Israeli civilians since 2001." He closed his
comments by urging Congress to "stand by" Israel. (CR H12235 11/3/09)
Eric
Cantor (R-FL) claimed that "For years, without provocation, Hamas and
other terrorists in Gaza launched thousands of deadly rockets at
Israeli civilians. The attacks laid siege to entire swaths of Israelis.
By last December, Israel said enough was enough." (CR H12235 11/3/09)
Steny Hoyer (D-MD) echoed Cantor's statements, saying,
"The
Goldstone Report largely neglects the context within which Israel's
action took place. Why is that context so vital, and why is the report
so empty without it? Because for years - for years - Israel has been
the target of asymmetrical warfare for terrorists who hide behind
civilians and aim to kill civilians. For 8 years before Operation Cast
Lead, Hamas, aided by Iran and others, launched deadly rockets and
mortar fire into Israel, even after Israel dismantled its Gaza
settlements, even after it withdrew its military. More than 6,000
rockets have fallen indiscriminately on southern Israel's cities and
towns. I can't imagine there is one of us in this Chamber that if
Canada or Mexico rained down six missiles on our civilian population -
not 6,000 on our population - that there would be a Member here who
would not want decisive response to stop that assault." (CR H12238 11/3/09)
Dan
Burton (R-IN) also chimed in with a short speech that sounded like it
was written in a joint fit of Alzheimer's disease and Tourette's
syndrome. In it, he declared that "Israel has been our friend forever,"
which is an odd thing to say considering that Burton was already ten
years old by the time the colonial European Zionist founders of the
State of Israel unilaterally declared its independence. Burton
continued:
"Ariel Sharon tried to reach out in a peaceful
way to give Gaza back to the Palestinians [sic]. And what happened?
Hamas goes in there and starts launching missile after missile after
missile at innocent people, blowing them up, trying to kill them. They
want to destroy Israel, as does Iran [sic]...
...There shouldn't be one vote, not one vote in this place against Israel.
And
the people who are making these comments on the other side of the aisle
really bother me, because Israel has been such a great friend of ours
and they have been trying to reach peace over there forever [sic]. And,
instead, they keep getting rocket attack after rocket attack, and then
they are criticized for human rights problems because they defend
themselves [sic].
If we launched missiles into Michigan, I
guarantee you, Michigan would be really ticked off at us and would want
to stop it and would do everything they could to stop it. We ought to
support Israel." (CR H12236 11/3/09)
Against
her better judgment, even Rep. Shelley Berkley (D-NV) decided to lend
her version of recent history to the Congressional Record:
"In
2005, Israel withdrew from the Gaza to allow the Palestinians to begin
building a state. They didn't. Instead, Hamas used the Gaza to
terrorize the Palestinian people and as a launch pad to rain missiles
on Israeli cities, 8,000 rocket attacks in a 3-year period. In the fall
of 2008, even more rockets fell on innocent Israelis and the situation
became untenable...For those who suggest that Israel used
disproportionate force, I say Israel used extraordinary restraint:
missile after missile, injury after injury, death after death, and year
after year." (CR H12236 11/3/09)
The
issues raised by these Representatives are indicative of a staggering
amount of misinformation that permeates the halls of Congress and
beyond. Hoyer's suggestion that the Goldstone Report neglects to
contextualize last winter's assault is a statement devoid of all fact,
due either to the Congressman's intentional desire to obfuscate the
truth or, perhaps more likely, his unfamiliarity with the Report's
actual contents. Part One includes extensive historical background of
Israel's policies toward Palestinians, including the devastating
three-year blockade (A/HRC/12/48, p.82-85), and Palestinian
resistance to ongoing oppression, subjugation, apartheid, and
aggression in both Gaza and the West Bank (albeit beginning in 1967,
thereby omitting the true context of a century of Zionist colonization
in Palestine, the Nakba, and almost two decades of martial law
for Arab citizens of Israel; chances are, however, this is not the
missing information Steny Hoyer wishes to include). The Report clearly states the importance of context:
"The
Mission is of the view that Israel's military operation in Gaza between
27 December 2008 and 18 January 2009 and its impact cannot be
understood or assessed in isolation from developments prior and
subsequent to it. The operation fits into a continuum of policies aimed
at pursuing Israel's political objectives with regard to Gaza and the
Occupied Palestinian Territory as a whole. Many such policies are based
on or result in violations of international human rights and
humanitarian law." (A/HRC/12/48, p.404)
Also
included is the Israeli disengagement from Gaza in 2005. Whereas the
Representatives speaking in favor of adopting H.Res.867 refer to the
withdrawal as an Israeli move toward peace that was met by Palestinian
violence, the Report provides a much more fact-based assessment of the
Gaza narrative, revealing that under the disengagement plan, "the
Israeli armed forces continued to maintain control over Gaza's borders,
coastline and airspace, and Israel reserved 'its inherent right of
self-defence, both preventive and reactive, including where necessary
the use of force, in respect of threats emanating from the Gaza
Strip.'" (A/HRC/12/48, p.49)
Israeli historian Avi
Shlaim, in an article written in the midst of the Gaza massacre early
this year and published in the Guardian, elaborates on the implications of the Israeli withdrawal:
"To
the world, Sharon presented the withdrawal from Gaza as a contribution
to peace based on a two-state solution. But in the year after, another
12,000 Israelis settled on the West Bank, further reducing the scope
for an independent Palestinian state. Land-grabbing and peace-making
are simply incompatible. Israel had a choice and it chose land over
peace.
The real purpose behind the move was to redraw
unilaterally the borders of Greater Israel by incorporating the main
settlement blocs on the West Bank to the state of Israel."
The Goldstone Report, both in its "Context" section (A/HRC/12/48
p.46-61) and Chapter IV (entitled "Applicable Law," p.71-81), discusses
how the Israeli military occupation of Gaza did not end with the
withdrawal, stating,
"Israel
removed both settlements and military bases protecting the settlers
from the Gaza Strip, redeploying on Gaza's southern border and
repositioning its forces to other areas just outside the Gaza Strip. In
addition to controlling the borders, coastline and airspace, after the
implementation of the disengagement plan, Israel continued to control
Gaza's telecommunications, water, electricity and sewage networks, as
well as the population registry, and the flow of people and goods into
and out of the territory while the inhabitants of Gaza continued to
rely on the Israeli currency." (A/HRC/12/48, p.49)
Shlaim is even more direct in his description of the aftermath of Israeli "disengagement":
"Gaza
was converted overnight into an open-air prison. From this point on,
the Israeli air force enjoyed unrestricted freedom to drop bombs, to
make sonic booms by flying low and breaking the sound barrier, and to
terrorise the hapless inhabitants of this prison."
The
focus on the number of Palestinian rockets and mortars fired from Gaza
into southern Israel (a statistic that ranges generally from 6,000 to
8,000) is oft-repeated and used, most recently by members of Congress,
to demonstrate the "asymmetrical warfare for terrorists" in Gaza
inflicted upon the innocent Israelis.
A quick look at the facts
reveals a very different perspective of what "disproportionate" really
means. The Goldstone Report states that, in the mere fourteen months
from the September 2005 disengagement until November 2006, "the Israeli
armed forces fired approximately 15,000 artillery shells and conducted
more than 550 air strikes into the Gaza Strip. Israeli military attacks
killed approximately 525 people in Gaza. Over the same period, at least
1,700 rockets and mortars were fired into Israel by Palestinian
militants, injuring 41 Israelis." (A/HRC/12/48, p.51-52)
Such
statistics show that for each homemade rocket we are told terrorizes
and traumatizes the children of Sderot, there are at least nine Israeli
shells on Gaza that bring death and destruction to Palestinian children
who are already forced to live in constant horror and humiliation.
In all of 2007,
five Israelis, none of whom were children, were killed in Israel in
incidents involving Palestinian violence. The same year, over three
hundred Palestinians in Gaza, 29 of which were children, were killed by
Israeli violence (another 91, including 14 children, were killed by
Israeli or settler violence in the West Bank). The following year,
up through October 2008, a total of 30 Israelis, including 4 children,
were killed by Palestinian violence. In contrast, in the first ten
months of 2008, 389 Palestinians, including 69 children, were killed by
Israel in Gaza alone, not to mention the 56 Palestinians killed in the
West Bank and Israel. Between December 27, 2008 and January 21, 2009,
the Israeli air force, navy, and army murdered 926 Palestinian civilians, including
313 children, 116 women, 497 civilian men, and 255 non-combatant police
officers, wounded over six thousand, and left tens of thousands
homeless. 236 Palestinian combatants were also killed.
Disproportionately, 10 of the 13 Israelis killed in those 26 days were
Israeli soldiers, four of whom died by friendly fire.
The
actual "asymmetry" of Israel's bombardment of Gaza is also evident when
considering that, as Hamas and other Palestinian resistance groups
fight with conventional weapons, homemade rockets, and thrown stones,
the IDF employs tanks, helicopters, fighter jets, unmanned drones,
howitzer artillery, as well as the illegal use of such destructive
weaponry as white phosphorous, flechette missiles, dense inert metal
explosive (DIME) munitions, and even depleted and non-depleted uranium.
(A/HRC/12/48, p.194-199)
Although resolution advocates
like Eric Cantor describe Palestinian rocket attacks as being initiated
"without provocation," the truth reveals something completely
different. It is clear from such New York Times, Reuters, Ha'aretz, Guardian, Yediot Ahronot, The Times (UK), BBC, and Amnesty International reports that Israel broke the ceasefire, leading to an escalation of events eventually culminating with Operation Cast Lead. It has even been conclusively proven
that, with regard to who breaks ceasefires more often, the Israeli
military or Palestinian militants, "a systematic pattern does exist: it
is overwhelmingly Israel, not Palestine, that kills first following a
lull. Indeed, it is virtually always Israel that kills first after a
lull lasting more than a week."
Even the Congressional Research Service (CRS), a governmental think tank that, according to its own website,
"serves shared staff to congressional committees and Members of
Congress" and whose "experts assist at every stage of the legislative
process" providing "Congress with the vital, analytical support it
needs to address the most complex public policy issues facing the
nation" found in a February report titled Israel and Hamas: Conflict in Gaza (2008-2009):
"For the first five months [of the Egyptian-mediated, six-month tahdiya
beginning in June 2008], the cease-fire held relatively well. Some
rockets were fired into Israel, but most were attributed to non-Hamas
militant groups, and, progressively, Hamas appeared increasingly able
and willing to suppress even these attacks. No Israeli deaths were
reported..." (CRS R40101, 2/19/09)
This corroborates the reporting of New York Times Jerusalem bureau chief Ethan Bronner, who wrote
on December 18, 2008 (over week before Israeli launched its ruthless
assault) that, in its efforts to abide by the truce, "Hamas imposed its
will [over other armed resistance groups] and even imprisoned some of
those who were firing rockets." In fact, the terms of the ceasefire
between Israel and Hamas included, not only the halting of rocket fire
from Gaza, but also the Israeli agreement to lift its brutal economic
blockade of Gaza, which had been in place before Hamas was even voted
into power. The siege, nevertheless, continued unabated. Therefore,
whereas Hamas upheld their obligations to the ceasefire, Israel did
not. Hamas leaders even offered
to extend the ceasefire beyond its December 19 expiration date. Israel
ignored the proposal, opting instead to carpet bomb civilian
neighborhoods and incinerate, mutilate, and dismember children with
banned and experimental weaponry.
Essentially, the
Congressional claims of relentless and unprovoked Palestinian
aggression against a peaceful Israeli population are not only
unfounded, they assume the exact opposite of the truth. The "What-if-Mexico or Michigan" analogies also fall short under even the most cursory scrutiny. All real evidence turns such suggestions into a preposterous joke at which no one is laughing.
At
one point, during the Congressional debate over H. Res.867, Maryland
Rep. Steny Hoyer's effort to place the blame for Israel's brutal
blockade, deprivation, starvation, collective punishment, and massacre
of Palestinians in Gaza squarely on the democratically-elected
leadership of Hamas took a tellingly racist turn. "Tragically,
civilians in Gaza suffered and continue to suffer. They suffer in major
part from the determination of their imposed leaders to pursue
indiscriminate terror," he began.
"Is there anybody here who
doubts that if those children living there for decade after decade
after decade were European children or American children or Jewish
children that they would still be there in those [refugee] camps? I say
to you, not the case. Why are they there? Because the Arab community
does not want to absorb them, and their leaders will not seek a
meaningful peace. That is why they're there." (CR H12238 11/3/09)
Why
Hoyer believes that "the Arab community" would be responsible, let
alone obligated, to "absorb" Palestinians is never explained.
Palestinians in Gaza don't ask for absorption elsewhere; their home is
Palestine, not Jordan, Lebanon, or Egypt. They were expelled from what
is now Israel and, under international law, are entitled - not to be "absorbed" by other countries - but to return to their homes.
Gary Ackerman (D-NY), who actually traveled to Israel
with NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg and police commissioner Ray Kelly (on the
Mayor's private jet) during the Gaza Massacre to show his support for
the murder of hundreds of defenseless Palestinians by the Israel
military, entered his remarks into the Congressional Record, calling
the Goldstone Report "a pompous, tendentious, one-sided political
diatribe" that, for all its "facts" and "context" contains "very little
truth" and "very little wisdom." (CR H12244 11/3/09)
Ackerman
makes clear his contempt for the authors of the Report by stating, "In
the self-righteous fantasyland inhabited by Judge Goldstone and his
colleagues, there's no such thing as terrorism; there's no such thing
as Hamas (and if it does exist, it's certainly nothing to fear);
there's no such thing as legitimate self-defense; and war is like a
sporting event, rather than the most ghastly, destructive, chaotic
phenomenon we human beings are capable of creating." Ackerman himself
could benefit from a reality check in the form of testimony by a young
Israeli reservist who, upon reflecting on his role as a remote operator
of Predator drones conducting airstrikes on civilian centers and
residential neighborhoods in Gaza, said the following:
"It
feels like hunting season has begun...Sometimes it reminds me of a Play
Station game. You hear cheers in the war room after you see on the
screens that the missile hit a target, as if it were a soccer game."
Although
Congressional opponents of H.Res.867 were few and far between, a number
of courageous Congress members took up the mantle of human rights,
international law, and even American legislative process by voicing
their dissent and urging their colleagues to side with morality and
legality, rather than denial and impunity.
Minnesota Congressman Keith Ellison led the opposition,
stating that the resolution "should be opposed because it suppresses
inquiry, inquiry that is the hallmark of democratic societies" (CR H12234 11/3/09)
and asking, "Why are we going to pass a resolution without holding a
single hearing? Why is the House voting for a resolution which condemns
a report that few Members have fully read?" (CR H12235 11/3/09)
Rep.
Barbara Lee (D-CA) addressed Palestinian rocket attack and the
humanitarian crisis in Gaza, remarking, "The urgency and the gravity of
these harsh realities on both sides require that Congress act always
with an eye toward peace and reconciliation." She concluded that
supporting H.Res.867 "doesn't lead us to securing Israeli peace and
security nor Palestinian peaceful coexistence and for their citizens a
life of respect." (CR H12235 11/3/09)
Rep.
Betty McCollum (D-MN) called the resolution "blatantly biased," stating
that it "damages U.S. credibility" and "seeks to hide the ugliness of
the Gaza war by covering up violent excesses committed against innocent
civilians by both Hamas and the Israeli Defense Forces," including the
use of "American-made white phosphorous shells" in civilian areas and
the needless killing of "hundreds of Palestinian women and children and
elders." McCollum also noted that the resolution calls for double
standards when evaluating war crimes. "There must be only one standard
for respecting human rights," she said. "A single standard by which we
must hold ourselves and our friends and our adversaries accountable.
Establishing situational standards for respecting human rights is
dishonest and only encourages actions that destroy human dignity and
life." (CR H12239 11/3/09)
Congressman
Jim Moran (D-VA) called the resolution "a deliberate diversion" and
challenged Congress "and the committees of jurisdiction to invest their
time and resources into more constructive efforts that further the
cause of peace." (CR H12236 11/3/09)
Rep.
John Dingell (D-NY) rose to oppose the resolution by stating, simply,
"This is a bad bill. It's a bad resolution. It is unfair. It is unwise.
It contributes nothing to peace. It establishes a bad precedent, and it
sets up a set of circumstances where we indicate that we're going to
just arbitrarily reject a U.N. finding and a U.N. resolution and that
we're going to have that as a precedent. This is bad." Dingell spoke to
the universality of international law:
"Neither Israel nor
Hamas, nor any other country or other non-state political act is exempt
from international human rights laws or free of consequence for
violations of them. If nothing else, the Goldstone Report should serve
as a document from which Israel and Hamas, and the rest of the
international community can use to ensure that future human rights
violations do not take place in civilian areas and that their
militaries and fighters are actively working toward minimizing civilian
casualties in the future." (CR H12237 11/3/09)
Two of the strongest opponents of the resolution were Brian Baird (D-WA) and Dennis Kucinich (D-OH). Baird, in a statement
released the night before the vote, stated, "if our own country is
truly to stand for human rights and the rule of law, and if facts
matter, how can we do other than insist that legitimate questions and
evidence are followed by further investigation and, if necessary and
warranted, appropriate consequences?" The statement continued:
"H.Res.
867 is very serious business. If, as Goldstone asserts and the evidence
I have seen supports, there were in fact gross violations of
international law and human rights on all sides, we cannot in good
conscience support H.Res. 867.
This is about much more than just
another imposed political litmus test that we are all too often asked
to perform. This is about whether we as individuals and this Congress
as an institution find it acceptable to drop white phosphorous on
civilian targets, to rocket civilian communities, to destroy hospitals
and schools, to use civilians as human shields, to deliberately destroy
non-military factories, industries and basic water, electrical and
sanitation infrastructure. This is about whether it is acceptable to
restrict the movement, opportunities and hopes of more than a million
people every single day."
On the floor of the House, Baird,
who has visited Gaza and seen first-hand the affects of Israel's
assault, made one last appeal to his colleagues. "Do not pass this
resolution. Support this fine jurist," he said. "Give justice, true
justice, a chance to be heard." (CR H12237 11/3/09)
Kucinich
reprimanded fellow Congress members for their suppression of the truth
in supporting H.Res.867, declaring, "Almost as serious as committing
war crimes is covering up war crimes, pretending that war crimes were
never committed and did not exist," continuing, "Behind every such
deception is the nullification of humanity, the destruction of human
dignity, the annihilation of the human spirit, the triumph of Orwellian
thinking, the eternal prison of the dark heart of the totalitarian."
The Ohio Representative stated that "if this Congress votes to condemn
a report it has not read concerning events it has totally ignored about
violations of law of which it is unaware, it will have brought shame to
this great institution." He accused resolution supporters of "tacitly
approv[ing] violations of international law and international human
rights" and warned that "if we close our eyes to the heartbreak of
people on both sides by white-washing a legitimate investigation?" (CR H12237-8 11/3/09)
Nevertheless, despite the noble objections of these representatives and the call of numerous human rights organizations to oppose the bill and support the Goldstone Report's findings and recommendations, Congress voted overwhelmingly
to pass H.Res.867, thereby white-washing war crimes in a successful bid
to allow Israel to unconditionally slaughter Palestinians with impunity.
Brooklyn Representative Yvette Clarke was one of only 36 members who voted against the legislation. The day after the vote, a statement
appeared on her website, explaining her position. "Consideration of
this resolution completely circumvented the legislative process,
preventing an accurate and thorough vetting of the findings of the
Goldstone Report," she wrote. "This highly unusual legislative
maneuver, which denied members a single subcommittee hearing, raises
questions regarding the claims in this resolution." She also stated
that the "language stating that it should be U.S. policy to 'oppose
unequivocally any endorsement or further consideration...in multilateral
fora' is excessively broad and inconsistent with our national
commitment to human rights and the rule of law."
This national
commitment to human rights and the rule of law was recently affirmed by
Dr. Esther Brimmer, Assistant Secretary of the US Bureau of International Organization Affairs in her September 14, 2009 remarks to the High-Level Session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva, in which Brimmer declared
that the United States was pleased to rejoin the community of nations
on the United Nations Human Rights Council due to the Obama
Administration's renewed efforts to advance "one of the most
fundamental roles of the state: to protect and advance human rights."
Brimmer continued,
"We can not pick and choose which of
these rights we embrace nor select who among us are entitled to them.
We are all endowed at birth with the right to live in dignity, to
follow our consciences and speak our minds without fear, to choose
those who govern us, to hold our leaders accountable, and to enjoy
equal justice under the law. These rights extend to all, and the United
States can not accept that any among us would be condemned to live
without them."
During a press briefing two week later,
Brimmer added that the United States "must do everything in our power
to end the suffering of innocent Israeli and Palestinian civilians."
Addressing the findings of the Goldstone Report, she said,
"We encourage domestic investigations of credible allegations of
violations of international human rights and humanitarian law."
The
United States Congress, at the bidding of AIPAC and the Israeli
government, did not heed this call, nor did they act as true
representatives of their constituents. A Rasmussen poll
from December 31, 2008, taken just days after Israel launched its
devastating assault on Gaza when Israeli propaganda was at its height
and revelations of war crimes were far from being exposed, found that
Americans generally "are closely divided over whether the Jewish state
should be taking military action against militants in the Gaza Strip."
While the American public at large slightly favored Israeli aggression
(44-41%, with 15% undecided), Democratic voters overwhelmingly opposed
the Israeli offensive - by a 24-point margin (31-55%). Despite such a
majority of Democratic disapproval of Israeli military action at the
time, a staggering 70% of Democratic Representatives (179 out of 255)
voted in favor of H.Res.867 on Tuesday.
On January 2, 2009, Salon.com commentator Glenn Greenwald posed the following query:
"Is
there any other significant issue in American political life, besides
Israel, where (a) citizens split almost evenly in their views, yet (b)
the leaders of both parties adopt identical lockstep positions which
leave half of the citizenry with no real voice? More notably still, is
there any other position, besides Israel, where (a) a party's voters
overwhelmingly embrace one position (Israel should not have attacked
Gaza) but (b) that party's leadership unanimously embraces the exact
opposite position (Israel was absolutely right to attack Gaza and the
U.S. must support Israel unequivocally)? Does that happen with any
other issue?"
The answer is a resounding no because the US Congress adheres to the strict doctrine of "Israel Über Alles" at all times, no matter what the facts are.
The late Edward Said wrote,
"The paramount thing is that the struggle for equality in
Palestine/Israel should be directed toward a humane goal, that is,
co-existence, and not further suppression and denial."
The Goldstone Report came to the same conclusion,
echoing the voices of those struggling for the universal values of
human rights, social justice, legal equality, and basic morality, when
it stated:
"The international community as well as Israel
and, to the extent determined by their authority and means, Palestinian
authorities, have the responsibility to protect victims of violations
and ensure that they do not continue to suffer the scourge of war or
the oppression and humiliations of occupation or indiscriminate rocket
attacks. People of Palestine have the right to freely determine their
own political and economic system, including the right to resist
forcible deprivation of their right to self-determination and the right
to live, in peace and freedom, in their own State. The people of Israel
have the right to live in peace and security. Both peoples are entitled
to justice in accordance with international law." (A/HRC/12/48 p. 404)
With
the passing of H.Res.867, two days after what would have been Edward
Said's 74th birthday, Congress made perfectly clear that it not only
seeks to deny and suppress the truth, but is itself, in the words of
its own resolution, "irredeemably biased and unworthy of further consideration or legitimacy."
Not
only does the United States House of Representatives not accurately
represent the views of the American people, let alone those of the rest
of world, it is - unequivocally - no home to morality.
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