Bill Moyers tonight - Judge Richard J. Goldstone - report on war in Gaza

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/10232009/profile.html

"The UN Human Rights Council released a report on the recent fighting between Hamas and Israel in Gaza. While concluding that both Israel's military and Hamas likely committed war crimes during the fighting, the report was particularly harsh in its condemnation of Israel's actions, saying they were "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." A political firestorm ensued, and some of the criticism was aimed at the head of the investigative mission, Judge Richard Goldstone.

Goldstone joins Bill Moyers on the JOURNAL to discuss the report, his critics and why he believes international humanitarian law is an important part of the peace process.

...The Conflict

In April, Goldstone agreed to lead a fact-finding mission investigating the conflict in the Gaza Strip. The Israeli army said they attacked Gaza in response to years of Hamas militants and other Palestinian groups launching thousands of crude rockets from Gaza into southern Israeli towns. In December 2008, Israel launched their military action.

During 22 days of fighting, more than 1,200 Palestinians died. Three Israeli civilians were killed and ten soldiers, four of them the result of friendly fire. When Israeli forces withdrew, the UN Human Rights Council called for an investigation, citing concerns about the destruction of not just military targets, but thousands of homes, as well as hospitals, schools and mosques. Goldstone agreed to lead it, but only after demanding an expansion of the mission's mandate to also include a look into Hamas' actions — and not just Israel's — something the original mandate neglected to do..."

Should be good

off to watch.

Thanks for the knr.

:)

:boring:

I'll be watching.

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/10232009/transcript1.html

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/10232009/profile.html


"RICHARD GOLDSTONE: Well now, it was a question of conscience really. I've been involved in investigating very serious violations in my own country, South Africa, and I was castigated by many in the white community for doing that. I investigated serious war crimes in the Balkans and the Serbs hated me, hated me for that. And I was under serious death threat, both in South Africa and in respect of the Balkans. And then I went onto Rwanda, and many people hated me for doing that. I've been a co-chair of the International Bar Association's Human Rights Institute, and for the last five years, I've been sending letters of protest weekly to countries like China and Syria and you name it, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, complaining about violations of human rights. So I've been involved in this business for the last fifteen years or so, and it seemed to me that being Jewish was no reason to treat Israel exceptionally, and to say because I'm Jewish, it's all right for me to investigate everybody else, but not Israel...

...BILL MOYERS: Your report, as you know, basically accuses Israel of waging war on the entire population of Gaza.

RICHARD GOLDSTONE: That's correct.

BILL MOYERS: I mean, there are allegations in here, some very tough allegations of Israeli soldiers shooting unarmed civilians who pose no threat, of shooting people whose hands were shackled behind them, of shooting two teenagers who'd been ordered off a tractor that they were driving, apparently carrying wounded civilians to a hospital, of homes, hundreds, maybe thousands of homes destroyed, left in rubble, of hospitals bombed. I mean there are some questions about one or two of your examples here, but it's a damning indictment of Israel's conduct in Gaza, right?

RICHARD GOLDSTONE: Well, it is outrageous, and there should have been an outrage. You know, the response has not been to deal with the substance of those allegations. I've really seen or read no detailed response in respect of the incidents on which we report.

BILL MOYERS: Why is that?

RICHARD GOLDSTONE: Well, you know, I don't know. I suppose people hate being attacked. There's a knee-jerk reaction to attack the messenger rather than the message. And I think this is typical of that. And of course, a lot of the allegations, I certainly don't claim anything like infallibility. But I would like to see a response to the substance, particularly the attack on the infrastructure of Gaza, which seems to me to be absolutely unjustifiable..."