STRIKING BACK AT SLANDER: P. DAVID HORNIK

Posted By on October 27th, 2009

– FrontPage Magazine – http://frontpagemag.com –

Striking Back Against Slander – by P. David Hornik

Posted By P. David Hornik On October 27, 2009 @ 12:05 am In FrontPage | 1 Comment

Up to the latest meeting of Israel’s security cabinet last week, the Israeli media kept proclaiming that the meeting would decide whether or not to appoint a commission to investigate the Gaza war. It turned out in the end that the meeting didn’t even discuss that issue; Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s opposition to such an investigation was reportedly so great that he blocked attempts to table the issue by the attorney-general.

Proponents of such an investigation, like Deputy Prime Minister and Intelligence Minister Dan Meridor, argue [1] that by investigating the war itself—as distinct from the investigations already launched by the IDF into specific charges of misconduct—Israel could shield itself from further damage stemming from the Goldstone Report.

That report was commissioned by the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, which has adopted more resolutions condemning Israel than all 191 UN member states combined. The report, which not surprisingly charges Israel with war crimes in Gaza, has been called [2] by Warren Goldstein, legal scholar and chief rabbi of South Africa, “a disgrace to the most basic notions of justice, equality and the rule of law.” It is feared, though, that it could result in Israeli military and political leaders being hauled before the International Criminal Court in The Hague, or to arrests and trials of such leaders in various countries abroad.

Israeli opponents of a domestic commission on the war, who include Barak, Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi, and the IDF top brass in general, say the IDF is capable of investigating itself where appropriate, and appointing such a commission would essentially mean putting in the dock an army that fought a difficult and dangerous war well, with all that entails for morale and performance in future conflicts.

Indeed, past war-related investigatory commissions in Israel were set up in response to massive public pressure stemming from what were perceived to be major blunders. The 1973-1974 Agranat Commission investigated the intelligence and decision-making failures that turned the Yom Kippur War into a near-catastrophe. The 1982-1983 Kahan Commission investigated the failure to prevent the Sabra and Shatila massacre by Christian Phalangist forces in Beirut. The 2006-2008 Winograd Commission investigated poor planning and chaotic decision-making in the Second Lebanon War.

Last winter’s Gaza war, however, is widely perceived as at least partially successful: it substantially reduced rocket fire from Gaza; dealt Hamas at least a temporary blow; and restored some of the IDF’s confidence and deterrent image that were impaired by the bungling in Lebanon. Setting up a domestic commission to investigate the Goldstone charges would smack of submission to the malign forces, both in the UN Human Rights Council and in Hamas itself, that generated those charges, and could be justified only as a way of forestalling damage seen as otherwise inevitable.

There are signs, however, that such damage may not be inevitable. The U.S. ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice—earlier perceived as one of President Obama’s least Israel-friendly appointments—said [3] last week that the U.S. has “very serious concerns about many recommendations in the [Goldstone] report” and “believe[s] [its] appropriate venue [to be] the Human Rights Council.” She reportedly “promised” [4] to President Shimon Peres that “the United States will continue to stand by Israel as a loyal friend in the fight against the Goldstone report.”

Also during the week another major player, China—which, unlike the U.S., voted in favor of the recent formal endorsement of the report by the HRC—reportedly came out against [5] discussing the report in the Security Council or using it to enable anti-Israeli lawsuits at The Hague.

Israel’s top officials have indeed been working hard to convince foreign officials of the report’s demerits. On Friday Deputy Foreign Minister Sylvan Shalom took the issue to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, and told [6] Israel’s largest newspaper that he

“told the secretary-general that the report was composed by a committee that was set up in sin which included Iran, Cuba and Saudi Arabia.

“Our army is a moral one. We suspended combat every day in order to allow for the delivery of aid to Gaza’s civilians, we phoned people at their homes in order to warn them before striking terrorists that took shelter among them. No other army in the world would do that.

“I told him that I request the report not reach the Security Council. The secretary-general responded saying, ‘You know it can reach the General Assembly (via a third- party country).’ I answered saying there is a difference between him taking it forward to the General Assembly and a country like Libya doing so.”

Shalom, in sum, said he was “more optimistic that Ban won’t pass the report on to the Security Council.” His cautious optimism looks more appropriate at this point than the pessimism that says Israel has no choice but to salvage itself by subjecting its army to a demeaning and undeserved inquiry.

The Goldstone Report is basically a counteroffensive by terror and its backers and a further push for the increasingly common terror tactic of exploiting Western scruples by firing from among civilians. Successfully fighting barbarism in the future requires trashing this report and not Israel.

[7]

——————————————————————————–

Article printed from FrontPage Magazine: http://frontpagemag.com

URL to article: http://frontpagemag.com/2009/10/27/striking-back-against-slander-by-p-david-hornik/

URLs in this post:

[1] argue: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1122551.html

[2] called: http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1255450652253&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull

[3] said: http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1253198148804&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull

[4] “promised”: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1122612.html

[5] came out against: http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1256037273263&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

[6] told: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3794423,00.html

[7] Image: http://www.addtoany.com/share_save?linkurl=http%3A%2F%2Ffrontpagemag.com%2F2009%2F10%2F27%2Fstriking-back-against-slander-by-p-david-hornik%2F&linkname=Striking%20Back%20Against%20Slander%20%26%238211%3B%20by%20P.%20David%20Hornik

Click here to print.

Copyright © 2009 FrontPage Magazine. All rights reserved.

Categorized under: BOOKS.
Tagged with: no tags.

Comments are closed.