THE GOLDSTONE HUSTLE AT THE UN
Updated: Fri., Feb. 5, 2010, 3:55 AM
The Goldstone hustle
By BENNY AVNI
Last Updated: 3:55 AM, February 5, 2010
Posted: 12:48 AM, February 5, 2010
An important battle in the global War on Terror takes place today on the East River, as the UN General Assembly resumes its hearings on knocked-together allegations that Israel committed war crimes in Gaza last winter.
The chosen tool of the world Israel-bashing lobby is South African Judge Richard Goldstone, whose now-infamous report made an overstated and poorly substantiated case against the Israel Defense Force. He also charted a careful road map for taking the job of prosecution away from Israel’s unbiased, independent and long-admired justice system and handing it to the Hague-based International Criminal Court.
The ICC, set up just eight years ago, has yet to prove its judicial merits. More important, it clearly lacks jurisdiction here.
To start with, the 1998 Rome Statute (which created the ICC) plainly allows the court to step in only when national courts are unable or unwilling to try war crimes. In fact, Israeli courts have long done so. Second, the ICC has no power over countries that haven’t joined it — such as Israel and the United States.
To override all this international law, Goldstone has asked every UN body that might listen to sit in judgment over whether Israel’s own investigations are “independent, credible and in conformity with international standards.” If, after a period of six months, the United Nations deems that Israel has failed, it would refer the matter to The Hague. (Goldstone isn’t picky: He’s also called on European national courts to take up the supposed Israeli war crimes.)
Why would the United Nations have any standing here? Goldstone’s report also ginned up a narrative claiming that Israel’s true aim in Operation Cast Lead wasn’t to end Hamas’ daily barrage of rockets at civilians but was instead part of a grand strategy to beat Gazans into submission. A country intent on such evil, Goldstone claimed, can’t be trusted to investigate its own crimes.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is due to report today to the General Assembly on how Israel has responded; he will likely pass along a letter Israel has written to him without judging its merits. Next week, the Assembly will decide how to proceed.
This process, which allows UN members to put one country’s war tactics in the dock, is highly volatile, to put it mildly. Most UN member states have never had their own independent judiciaries. They cast their UN votes on the basis of the self-interest of their rulers, with only the barest effort to justify the decision on higher moral grounds. And animosity toward Israel is the rule in the General Assembly chamber.
In its letter to Ban, Israel’s foreign ministry easily disposes of the notion that its army “can’t investigate itself” — describing how the IDF’s advocate general is institutionally independent of the military chain of command and is ultimately answerable to the country’s highly esteemed Supreme Court.
The letter also details how, as an initial result of 150 ongoing investigations into allegations of wrongdoings in Gaza, two top army commanders were reprimanded for employing too much firepower in civilian areas.
But as international pressure grows, Israeli politicians are divided on how to continue. Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman is pushing to establish an independent investigative body of acclaimed Israeli jurists to counter Goldstone. But Defense Minister Ehud Barak warns that once you open that door, Israeli soldiers would drag with them a personal lawyer to the next battlefield to protect them from future international prosecution.
America has heroically stood by Israel at the United Nations so far, letting everyone know that it would veto any Security Council attempt to send Goldstone’s allegations to the ICC. But the Obama administration has also reportedly used the case as a club to beat Israel into yielding on such issues as settlements and reopening the Gaza border — telling Jerusalem officials, Our fight against Goldstone would be much easier if . . .
Such an approach is clearly wrongheaded. Israel has always been the enemy’s first target in the War on Terror.
From plane hijackings to suicide bombings, every terrorist tactic was created and perfected by anti-Israel terrorists before migrating to American and European shores. (The latest innovation: Gaza fishermen this week floated explosive-filled barrels to shore, forcing Israeli surfers and swimmers to abandon beautiful winter beaches.) Similarly, the Palestinian terrorists’ use of Palestinian civilians’ suffering to enrage world opinion was quickly copied in other theaters of war.
If Goldstone’s tactics succeed, future imitators will surely build cases for “war crimes” in Iraq, Afghanistan or Yemen. Indeed, the ICC’s top prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, has already expressed interest in trying allegations against NATO troops, including Americans, operating against al Qaeda in Afghanistan.
The United States should protect Israel in this case as if it were protecting itself — because it is. beavni@gmail.com
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