Israel Matzav

Goldstone: Lazy, lying

CAMERA catches the Goldstone Commission in a bald-faced lie.

In discussing that prior Israeli report on the Gaza conflict, The Operation in Gaza: Factual and Legal Aspects, Goldstone and his colleagues reproduce a passage that the Israeli report had quoted from the magazine Newsweek, which included this sentence:

In the Tal-al Hawa neighborhood nearby, however, Talal Safadi, an official in the leftist Palestinian People's Party, said that resistance fighters were firing from positions all around the hospital.

The Goldstone report then comments on this, questioning the evidence presented by Israel:

While the Israeli Government does not comment further on the specific attack, it would appear to invoke these comments to justify the strikes on the hospital and surrounding area.

612. The Mission understands that the Israeli Government may consider relying on journalists’ reporting as likely to be treated as more impartial than reliance on its own intelligence information. The Mission is nonetheless struck by the lack of any suggestion in Israel’s report of July 2009 that there were members of armed groups present in the hospital at the time.

One should note first that, of course, Israel did have intelligence information that armed groups were present in the hospital. That’s why they fired back at them.

But more importantly, the UN’s claim here is a breathtaking distortion of what the Israeli report said, for immediately after the quote from Newsweek, the Israeli report presented exactly what the Goldstone report charged was lacking:

174. A report from Corriere della Sera confirms that the grounds, ambulances and uniforms of the al-Quds hospital had been hijacked by terrorist operatives:

Magah al Rachmah, aged 25, residing a few dozen meters from the four large buildings of the now seriously damaged health complex, says about this fact: “The men of Hamas took refuge mainly in the building that houses the administrative offices of al Quds. They used the ambulances and forced ambulance drivers and nurses to take off their uniforms with the paramedic symbols, so they could blend in better and elude Israeli snipers.”

The Goldstone Commission had reached its conclusions before it started 'investigating' the facts. It then tried to distort the facts to fit its conclusions.

The question is whether that is obvious enough yet to convince the West to consign this report to the dustbin of history where it belongs.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:02 AM