The Human Rights Commission Goldstone Resolution: Hypocrisy With Devastating Effects

Today, the oxymoronically named UN Human Rights Commission voted 25-6 in favor of a resolution endorsing the Goldstone report, which accused Israel of committing war crimes in its military action against Hamas in Gaza. No analysis of this vote can be deemed comprehenseive without considering three fundamental factors: the nature of the report, the hypocrisy of the vote, and the decision's likely devastating impact.

Factor One, The Nature of the Report: The report itself is so fundamentally flawed that Richard Goldstone himself is now backing away from it. In a recent interview with the Forward, he acknowledged that the actions of his commission did not even rise to the level of an investigation, merely a "fact-finding mission." Further, he stated that it contained no actual evidence of wrongdoing by Israel, and that, "if this were a court of law, there would have been nothing proven."

For a detailed analysis of the 575 page report, including case studies of the its content, see Jonathan Halevi's article here: http://jcpa.org/JCPA/Templates/ShowPage.asp?DRIT=1&DBID=1&LNGID=1&TMID=111&FID=442&PID=0&IID=3086&TTL=Blocking_the_Truth_of_the_Gaza_War

In that article, Halevi points out that Goldstone's commission did not address certain activities which Hamas allegedly engaged in, such as:
Launching rockets at Israeli towns and villages from within residential dwellings;
Firing mortar shells into Palestinian neighborhoods when IDF forces were operating in or near the area;
Firing anti-tank missiles, rifles, and machine guns at Palestinian buildings in Gaza suspected of having been entered by IDF forces despite the presence of Palestinian civilians in the area;
Seizing private homes from which to ambush IDF forces;
Booby-trapping houses before and during the war and detonating the bombs;
Planting various types of anti-personnel and anti-vehicle IEDs near houses and detonating them;
Sniping and firing heavy machine guns at IDF forces within Palestinian residential areas.

Factor Two, the Hypocrisy of the Vote: Let's take a look at the list of those who voted in favor of the resolution. Many of those nations are apparently beset by memory problems. For example, there is Russia, which must have forgotten about its behavior when it invaded Georgia last year, and its tactics in Chechnya before that. Another is China, which has lost its recollection of the deaths of hundreds of people in conflicts with its own Uighar Muslims just a few months ago, it's oppression of Tibetans since the 1950's and its brutal repression of all dissent since 1949. Jordan must have voted Yes because Black September, that month back in 1970 when its own forces murdered thousands of Palestinians, has slipped from its mind. Others who were in favor of the resolution include such human rights luminaries as Saudi Arabia, Cuba and Egypt.

The Goldstone Report, with all its flaws, concluded that Hamas also committed war crimes. Why did the Human Rights Commission resolution only apply to Israel?

Factor Three, the Devastating Effects: The primary upshot of this vote is to reward the kind of tactics employed by Hamas and to punish the defense against them. In the middle east, the peace process between Israel and her neighbors has been chilled, if not frozen. The resolution creates a colossal disincentive for Israel to take risks for peace, not only with Hamas, who will not recognize Israel anyway, but with the Palestinian Authority, which, after all, pushed for today's vote. Of course, the effects go beyond the region. While the United States and its NATO allies will likely be considering constricting their actions in Afghanistan to avoid war crimes charges, the real criminal groups, like the Taliban, Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and their ilk around the world will feel a greater sense of freedom, protected as they now are by the United Nations.

In the final analysis, today's resolution is an act of a group of nations punishing one of its members for defending itself, and protecting terrorist acts committed by non-national criminal entities.