Judge Richard Goldstone issued an unexpected apology, years after his biased and one-sided report indicted Israel for human rights violations after the attack on Gaza Strip two years ago. While expressing remorse for his condemnation of Israel after admittedly only knowing some of the facts, Goldstone’s apology is largely irrelevant, as the anti-Israel bias inherent at the United Nations and through large parts of Europe will inherently still plague Israel for its attack, initiated only after thousands of mortars and rockets from the Gaza Strip landed in southern Israel.
Goldstone contends that his findings for the United Nations-commissioned report only reflect the most logical conclusions with the evidence at hand. He said in his apology:
The allegations of intentionality by Israel were based on the deaths of and injuries to civilians in situations where our fact-finding mission had no evidence on which to draw any other reasonable conclusion.
Goldstone’s implication here suggests that civilians died, therefore the only logical conclusion is that Israel acted inappropriately. This claim completely negates the history of how Hamas has used civilians. Hamas — and other radical Islamists — has historically demonstrated a complete disregard for human life. For example, Hamas suicide bombers, some of whom themselves only reluctantly agreed to participate to rid their families of some shame, target civilians, with the terrorist’s death considered a joyous occasion. Goldstone, acting on his investigation, clearly dismissed this historical trend within terror groups to sacrifice their own people in advance of their cause.
This mentality, as has been documented by Israel, was clearly apparent during Operation Cast Lead, where terrorists used human shields to increase death toll figures and inflate casualty counts. Goldstone might apologize now for disregarding history, but the anti-Israel bias inherent to this omission is clear.
That bias is merely a symptom of the the overall anti-Israel rhetoric that dominates discourse at the United Nations and throughout Europe.
Goldstone and his committee, working for the United Nations, jumped to erroneous conclusions after investigating the Gaza attack, resulting in broad condemnation of Israel and diplomatic spats, such as the increased tension between Israel and Turkey. Those conclusions, issued with only a fraction of the evidence, galvanized public opinion in Europe and at the United Nations against Israel, with the U.N. Security Council demonstrating last month that singling out Israel remains one of its top priorities after all but one security council member voted to censure the Jewish state for settlement construction.
The Goldstone report was only written on tenuous evidence because they knew they could get away with it. Such a report on Europe, China, Russia or the United States would have never been issued, with the authors and the United Nations mandating strong and clear evidence before judgments are made, and not rely merely on a leap of logic.
Goldstone’s apology is welcomed, but it does nothing to address the inherent bias of the international community against Israel, with half-truths and logical fallacies welcomed in any form to condemn Israel.
