The perpetrators must be held to account

No!
That was the Israeli response to one of the main recommendations issued by the UN Fact-Finding Mission on Israel’s Operation Cast Lead, its twenty-two day onslaught on Gaza last winter.
The Goldstone report took issue with the conduct of both Hamas and Israel during the conflict, and urged both to investigate, in a serious and thorough manner, what it identified as potential violations of international law, some of which may be deemed war crimes and crimes against humanity.
If they fail to expeditiously take up the issue, then the president of the commission Richard Goldstone will refer the matter to the International Criminal Court.
No!
So replied the attorney general of Israel to a demand this time formulated by nine Israeli human rights organizations that he establish an independent commission to investigate potential violations of international law by the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces).
The IDF answer to no one but themselves, it seems…
They are conducting their own enquiries, a thousand times more serious than the UN investigation, claimed Marc Regev, a spokesman for the prime minister.
Clearly, the IDF require neither assistance, nor advice.
Should the Israelis really entrust an investigation into an institution’s ethical conduct to that very institution? How reliable and objective can we expect such a process to be?
But that is an irrelevant question, no doubt…
The UN report is useless because it is fatally biased, and one-sided, according to Israel.
The Israeli president, Shimon Peres, called it a mockery of history. Apparently, it was nothing but a petty political exercise designed to embarrass Israel.
According to Asa Kasher, a professor of ethics at Tel Aviv University, who devised the IDF’s code of ethics, politics also play a significant role here, since this report was commissioned by the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva that unfairly deals mostly with Israel. These are anti-Israel politics that contain a level of anti-Semitism in them, he said.
Anti-Semitism?
The ultimate accusation, designed to discredit and disqualify anyone criticizing Israel (no matter how warranted the criticism may be) reappeared in the debate, presumably to clinch the argument, and end the discussion there and then…
Yet, judge Goldstone stood by his report.
If he accepted the mission, he wrote in an article in the New York Times , it was, above all, for the following reason: I believe deeply in the rule of law and the laws of war, and the principle that in armed conflict civilians should to the greatest extent possible be protected from harm.
Contrary to what the Israeli foreign ministry claims, the commission’s objective was not to ignore Israel’s right of self-defense.
Israel’s right to defend itself is not the issue here.
Israel, as does every other nation, possesses this right.
But, simply put, it is Israel’s responsibility, both moral and legal, to defend its people in a civilized, appropriate, and proportionate manner…
That is all anyone is asking…
Who, in fact, challenges Israel’s democratic values and rule of law, to quote once again the foreign ministry, if not Israel’s own conduct?
Laws apply even in time of war, and no one has the right to ignore them, not even Israel. Absolute faith in the legitimacy of your cause does not justify the use of overwhelming force against a population without the means to defend itself.
What did the Goldstone commission find?
Israel should have refrained from attacking clearly civilian buildings, and from actions that might have resulted in a military advantage but at the cost of too many civilian lives. In these cases, Israel must investigate, and Hamas is obliged to do the same. They must examine what happened and appropriately punish any soldier or commander found to have violated the law, Goldstone wrote in his article.
This is not how civilized societies conduct themselves! They do not dispose of human lives so recklessly, particularly those of civilians, of women and children…
It must be said, unequivocally, that nothing, absolutely nothing will ever justify the use of missiles by Hamas to terrorize entire Israeli neighborhoods.
We do not expect much from Hamas, for it has never displayed a clear commitment to advance the cause of freedom, democracy and the rule of law. It is a resistance movement that has never hesitated to resort to terrorism when it considered it necessary.
But, unlike the Gaza of Hamas, Israel is a democratic state.
As such, it is morally bound to investigate these violations of the laws of war, of morality itself.
If it has only contempt for its own laws, for international law, and for simple justice, what kind of democratic state is it?
Yet, as far as Israel is concerned, only Hamas is to blame. If civilians were killed, Hamas is solely responsible: what is a civilian? wonders Gerald Steinberg, of Bar-Ilan University. They used to be people who don’t wear uniforms and are outside the military. But if you have Gaza or Southern Lebanese guerrilla forces who don’t wear uniforms, who are illegal combatants, when is it a legitimate target?
Since the militants wear civilian garb, and live and operate in dense urban areas, it is difficult to identify them, argue the IDF. Considering that Gaza is one of the most densely populated areas in the world, (4,118/sq km; for LA, it is 3,168) one can only wonder where the militants are expected to go, all the more so as Israel has sealed the borders, so that no one can enter the strip or leave it. That is another reason why there were so many casualties: the Gazans had nowhere to flee…
A simple solution was found to the quandary: all civilians became legitimate targets (how else are we to explain the fact that, according to B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights organization, 1387 Palestinians were killed, 773 of which were civilians, and 330 combatants. Among the dead were 320 minors), because they are either militants or, in all likelihood, sympathizers, for why else would they have been in the IDF’s sights?
Must we remind them that it is not because it is difficult to identify the militants in any given theatre of operation that they should be dispensed from even trying to do so!
It is the ethical responsibility of the IDF, all the more so as it prides itself upon being the most moral army in the world, to attack only combatants.
The directive given to the IDF should have been the following: when in doubt, do not fire…Alas, those instructions were clearly never given or never followed…The casualty figures speak for themselves.
Yet, the IDF sees nothing untoward, here: I do not see in any of the reports a reason to change the values or ethics of the IDF or the military's doctrine, which places an emphasis on the value of life, professor Kasher said. I also have no doubt that the claims of deliberate and disproportional killing are baseless. If they weren't, and IDF troops shot deliberately at innocent Palestinians, then there should have been thousands of dead Palestinians. If the IDF killed freely then the dead should be half women and half men like the population in Gaza. The fact is that the IDF did not do this.
Where was this emphasis on the value of life during the onslaught last winter? 320 children were killed!! What became of these vaunted values and ethics? How do they account for this figure?
Collateral damage, evidently….They have no doubts, no regrets, they see nothing amiss in their conduct! They are quite satisfied with themselves and their war…..
The IDF’s enquiries will lead nowhere, except to their complete exoneration…
The matter will perhaps be referred to the International Criminal Court, but since Israel does not recognize the court, it has no jurisdiction. What is left of Israel’s reputation would suffer, but no one would risk prosecution.
Those seeking justice will have to look elsewhere.
In certain European countries such as the UK, private individuals can sue a foreign nation. An expert in international law, Dr. Robbie Sabel told Ynet: the report can be used as ammunition against Israel, since the legal establishment does not interfere in the process of filing complaints, leaving their validity for the case judge to decide.
As such, Israel may have to answer one day for the crimes committed in Gaza: the Goldstone report is highly unusual, since it states Israel's inquests into the operation were unworthy. The bottom line is that this report brings us one step closer to seeing foreign courts hear war crimes cases involving Israeli officials, indicated Michael Sefard, an Israeli human rights lawyer.
It should not have come to this.
Had Israeli acted responsibly, were it now willing to act in accordance with its own professed values, the issue would be under review in Israeli courts….
It may rue the day that it made the decision to precipitously close the case…
the report may prompt Western countries to detain and try Israeli officers and officials. The UN Security Council can delegate the ICC to launch an official probe, but the US' veto power renders that unlikely as well, Sefarad added. A true, comprehensive investigation of the operation and the allegations of war crimes by Israel and the IDF, could have prevented any international proceedings.
Let us hope that someone in Europe will have the courage to seek justice on behalf of a people who have long been denied it, and that Israel, at last will have to justify its conduct in a court of law.
It is vital that it be held accountable, for the protection of civilians in future conflicts depends on it…..
If civilians can be slaughtered in all impunity, than no one is safe anywhere.
What then, would remain of the concepts of justice, and international law?
Failing to pursue justice for serious violations during the fighting will have a deeply corrosive effect on international justice, and reveal an unacceptable hypocrisy. As a service to the hundreds of civilians who needlessly died and for the equal application of international justice, the perpetrators of serious violations must be held to account, wrote Richard Goldstone in the New York Times….
May the judge successfully carry out his noble mission…

(the photograph is by AP)