Al-Reuters reports US wants Goldstone Report to 'disappear,' then repeats 'hundreds of civilians' killed lie
Al-Reuters reports that US ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice says that her country wants the discredited Goldstone Report to disappear. "I'm not sure it can be amended," Rice told a congressional hearing. "What we want to see is for it to disappear and no longer be a subject of discussion and debate in the Human Rights Council or the General Assembly or beyond."But in the next paragraph, al-Reuters repeats Goldstone's second biggest lie (Goldstone's biggest lie was that the IDF intentionally targeted civilians).
...
Rice told lawmakers the United States repudiated the Goldstone report as "deeply flawed" when it first emerged.
"We see no need ... for the Goldstone report to be considered and now that its principal author has said what he said, frankly, our view is reinforced that this should go away and that's what we'll work to do," she said.
About 1,400 Palestinians, including hundreds of civilians, and 13 Israelis were killed in the brief but devastating war from December 2008 to January 2009 that was launched with Israel's declared aim of ending cross-border rocket fire from Palestinian militants.There were not 'hundreds of civilians' killed, according to Hamas' 'interior minister' Fathi Hamad.
NGOs such as B’Tselem, Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), and Defence for Children International – Palestine Section (DCI-PS) each issued differing reports, alleging that between 70 – 85% of those killed were civilians.Has Reuters not seen the Hamad interview in the last four months? Or perhaps there's another agenda at work here.
In contrast to these NGO reports, the Israeli military stated that of 1166 Palestinian deaths, 709 “militants” were killed in combat; the Israeli evidence was largely ignored or derisively dismissed. Recently, though, the IDF figures were confirmed and the NGO accounts debunked by the most unlikely of sources – Hamas.
In a November 2010 interview given by Hamas Interior Minister Fathi Hamad to the Al-Hayat newspaper, Hamas acknowledged that 600-700 Hamas members were killed in the Gaza fighting – more than double the number of combatants published by the NGOs’ and Richard Goldstone’s unreliable version of events.
Labels: Fathi Hamad, Goldstone Report, Richard Goldstone, Susan Rice
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 9:52 AM
3 Comments:
The world believes Israel is guilty of genocide.
Making the Goldstone Report disappear would be a nice idea but the damage to Israel's good name is already done.
That bell cannot now be unrung.
Carl, NormanF: the Israeli military (and concurring Hamas reports) estimate 457 civilian casualties. The figure is not 75-80 percent but about 35 percent. This is not nothing. Reuter's agenda is what it is, but the Cast Lead Palestinian civilian fatalities turn out to be hundreds. Goldstone's charges are a red herring fabrication. The operation tracked customary collateral civilian deaths (on the low side) when military campaigns--including air campaigns using ordinance of varying accuracy--are directed to military targets embedded within civilian shields. But the civilian casualties you end up with are not trivial and absent a ground game to seize territory and shape the environment on the ground in a war o attrition you'll end up cycling through these engagements. The post-Sharon withdrawal of infantry from Lebanon is one example.
Sparky the Wonder Dog,
Compare those numbers and percentages to the former Yugoslavia or Iraq - and those are two theaters where the good guys were not indifferent to civilian casualties.
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