[Considering all the rave reviews (highlighted in red below), this has got to be a great report! If the shitty little state in the Middle East finds it “nauseating” and “biased,” then it must be a great thing for the suffering people of Palestine and the human race, in general.

Israel Calls UN Gaza Report ‘Disgraceful’, Girds for Diplomatic War

Batoul Wehbe

Readers Number : 32

16/09/2009 Israel called the Goldstone Commission Report “nauseating” and “biased” on Tuesday, saying it created an unjust equivalence of a “democratic state”-the Zionist entity- with a “terror organization”-the Palestinian resistance- and lacked the context of a decade of “terrorist attacks” by Hamas movement.

But the report, compiled by a commission headed by former war crimes prosecutor Richard Goldstone, put the victim and the executioner at one side. It accuses both Israel and the Palestinians of actions amounting to war crimes during the December 27 to January 18 war in the Gaza Strip. The commission, established by the UN Human Rights Council, concluded that “Israel committed actions amounting to war crimes, possibly crimes against humanity,” during Israel war on Gaza from late December to mid-January. The report “concludes there is also evidence that Palestinian armed groups committed war crimes, as well as possibly crimes against humanity,” by resisting the most aggressive Israeli war that killed many Palestinian civilians and children.

Tuesday night a team lead by Israel Foreign Ministry legal advisor Ehud Keinan, and which included representatives from the Justice Ministry and the military prosecutor’s office, delivered a preliminary analysis of the Goldstone Commission report to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avidgor Lieberman. Netanyahu also held consultations Tuesday night on the commission’s findings. “The goal is to avoid a slippery slope which would lead Israel to the International Criminal Court in The Hague,” a senior Israeli staffer said.

The report, which is 574 pages long, and which was released Tuesday at a news conference at the United Nations headquarters in New York at which Goldstone participated, contains harsh criticism of Israel of a nature and scope that surprised senior diplomats, including Israelis, who had anticipated condemnation of Israel but were astounded by the sweeping and unrestrained character of the criticism.

“Exactly what we feared occurred,” Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Gabriela Shalev told Haaretz. “The mandate of the Goldstone Commission,” she said, “was one-sided from the beginning and the initiative to establish the commission came from the UN Human Rights Council, which is known for regularly and routinely condemning Israel.” “We anticipated that the contents of the report would be slanted and one-sided, but we didn’t imagine that it would be so harsh and blunt,” she added.

“The comparison between those who pursue terror and terror victims is inconceivable,” a source close to Barak said. The report, added the source, “Not only rewards terror it also encourages it… The defense establishment is gearing to give legal counsel to IDF officers and the proper legal and diplomatic steps are already underway in order to render this report invalid.”

“We have nothing to be ashamed of, and don’t need lessons in morality from a committee established by Syria, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Malaysia and Somalia,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Yossi Levy said. Israel is “nauseated and furious about a report that did not surprise us in its imbalance, but did surprise us in the lack of any real pretense to balance,” he said, calling it “one of the most disgraceful documents in the long collection of shameful documents put out by the United Nations.”

PRIVATE LAW SUITS!
The Security Council could decide to transfer the matter to the International Criminal Court. Under such circumstances, the ICC could issue international arrest warrants for senior Israeli officials who were involved in Gaza aggression.

Legal experts told Ynet that the UN’s findings on the Israeli offensive have “no immediate legal meaning” as the ICC in The Hague is concerned, but may be used to justify private lawsuits. “Neither Israel nor the Palestinians are a part of the ICC Convention and that is the only way Israeli military personnel can be held criminally liable,” international law expert Dr. Robbie Sabel said.

Still, Sabel believes the Goldstone report could prompt private lawsuits in countries which allow an individual citizen to sue another nation. In places like the UK, he said, “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.”European governments have refrained from filing official charges so far and it is likely that they will continue to do so in the future, since they know the facts.”

Meanwhile, Avi Bell, an expert in international law and laws of war at Bar-Ilan University, told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday that UN Report on Gaza conflict will cause Israel serious political damage, but is unlikely to lead to any tangible consequences. Bell charged that the original intention of the UN Human Rights Council had been to hurt Israel politically and that Judge Goldstone, who headed the four-person committee, had played along with it.

DIPLOMATIC WAR
On the diplomatic front, Israel began fighting the diplomatic battle Tuesday to prevent the Goldstone Commission report on Israel’s aggression in the Gaza Strip from being brought before the United Nations Security Council and from there to the ICC, where charges could be brought against Israeli officials involved in the military campaign.

Following the report’s release, Netanyahu, Lieberman, President Shimon Peres and Defense Minister Ehud Barak will telephone many of their counterparts around the world. They will stress that the Goldstone report is one-sided, that it rewards “terrorism” and that it sets a precedent which will make it difficult for any country in the world to defend itself against “terror”. Israel’s diplomatic efforts will focus on the five permanent members of the UN Security Council – the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France – but will also give priority to members of the European Union, because of their influence in the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, the Israeli daily Haaretz has indicated.

The senior Israeli leaders will ask their counterparts to express disagreement with the report and to oppose any use of it as the basis for anti-Israel resolutions at other international institutions. “It will be a long diplomatic and legal campaign,” said a senior Israeli staffer handling the Goldstone report. “We will involve our friends around the world, especially the United States, to prevent Israel’s isolation,” he said.