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Furious Palestinians (when aren't they?)

The Goldstone report continues to make trouble.

• Palestinians, especially those aligned with Hamas, are furious at Mahmoud Abbas for not pressing that it be presented to the International Criminal Court. Abbas, embarrassed, has gone so far as to order an investigation of the actions of the government that he himself controls!
• The Obama Administration is asking Israel to do an “independent investigation” of the report. There may or may not be an element of threat that the report will be allowed to go forward, ultimately to the International Criminal Court, if Israel does not follow instructions.

The main problem with the report is not simply that it describes events that did not occur or exaggerates what actually happened. The greatest evil done to Israel and the Jewish people by the ‘Zionist’ Judge Richard Goldstone is something else:  In Ami Isseroff’s words,

Beyond all its irregularities, the Goldstone report made one claim that cannot be refuted: That Israeli policy and war tactics were deliberately designed to kill civilians. It can’t be refuted because it is not logical or based on any facts. Like medieval accusations of well poisoning or the blood libel, it is obvious that the persons making the accusation already have all the information needed to refute it, and simply ignore it because of malevolent mendaciousness…

Goldstone’s report claimed:

1211. Statements by political and military leaders prior to and during the military operations in Gaza leave little doubt that disproportionate destruction and violence against civilians were part of a deliberate policy.593

In a real report, one might expect that reference 593 would include the statements by political and military leaders that left no doubt etc. Instead, the footnote (like much of the Goldstone report) simply references a report by an anti-Israel NGO.

Indeed, NGO Monitor called it a “cut-and-paste job“. But here’s the kicker: not only is there no evidence for this really horrendous libel, but it is possible to present a very strong argument that such could not have been the policy.

As I’ve argued in “How Israel must fight“, perceptions of unnecessary damage or civilian suffering lead to international intervention which has often prevented Israel from achieving military objectives.   Therefore, Israel had every reason to reduce collateral damage, not to increase it. The alleged policy of ‘punishing’ civilians would be counterproductive and irrational.

That this was the policy is shown by the fact that Israel made thousands of phone calls and text messages, dropped warning leaflets, etc. to try to get non-combatants out of harm’s way. This shows that a high priority was assigned to reducing collateral damage, because these measures decreased the strictly military effectiveness of the operation.

As a matter of fact, it’s likely that the US did intervene anyway and stop the operation early, in part because of the worldwide propaganda attack on Israel for atrocities that it didn’t commit.

The Goldstone report, the UN and Goldstone himself should be treated with the contempt that they deserve. Israel should not appoint a special commission and undertake a national soul-searching to determine why its leaders are war criminals, because they are not. Why further legitimize the slanders? The IDF is carrying on investigations of incidents where soldiers may have acted inappropriately, which is the correct and normal response after such an operation.

Technorati Tags: Goldstone report, Israel, Gaza, Abbas

There are a huge number of news stories coming from and around Israel. Some of them are important and some of them are noise. Here are two that are important. They represent issues that will not go away:

1. The Arab riots around the Temple Mount, inflamed by the Islamic Movement in Israel, have blended religious and nationalistic motives:

[Islamic Movement head Sheik Raed] Salah told Haaretz on Monday that the clashes would last as long as Israel’s “occupation” of the city and Al-Aqsa Mosque continued. He said the Israeli government must understand that using force does not grant it rights to Al-Aqsa Mosque or anywhere else in East Jerusalem, and that the key to achieving calm in the area is an Israeli “withdrawal.”

“No one has rights to the Al-Aqsa Mosque other than the Muslims. The mosque compound is Muslim, Palestinian and Arab, and Israel has no rights to the mosque or East Jerusalem,” he said. — Ha’aretz

Islamization and political radicalization of ‘Israeli Arabs’, not just in East Jerusalem, represent a growing threat to Israel’s ability to get along with its Arab minority.  The problems posed by this group of 1.5 million are often ignored, but in the long term represent a threat as great as the external ones Israel faces. It’s especially problematic that the radicalization is growing not just among the lower classes, but also among the intellectual elite who — funded by foreign sources — are in the process of developing a political and legal rationale for anti-Zionist demands.

2. Mahmoud Abbas has been under attack for giving in to pressure to drop demands to present the Goldstone Commission report to the International Criminal Court:

…in Geneva Friday, Abbas, under pressure from the United States and Israel, agreed to defer a U.N. Human Rights Council vote on the report until next March, effectively burying it.

The story has outraged Palestinians across the political spectrum. Abbas is being accused of treachery. Even his moderate Fatah colleagues have publicly expressed their dismay.

There were demonstrations Monday in Ramallah, where protestors [sic] called for his resignation: “Listen Abbas, our people’s blood is not spilled in vain.”

Abbas’ Fatah, which controls the Palestinian Authority, is currently in Egyptian-brokered unity negotiations with Hamas. This issue further weakens his position. The US is struggling to support Abbas, by pumping money into the West Bank economy. The unity plan calls for elections sometime next year, and if it is signed it is certain — regardless of who wins the elections — that the result will be further legitimization for Hamas.

Ultimately there is no non-military solution for Hamas. This is why the failure to finish Operation Cast Lead and destroy Hamas was so unfortunate.

Rocks found by Israeli police at Temple Mount thought to be pre-positioned for use by rioters

Technorati Tags: Israel, Palestinians

I recently wrote two posts — part I and part II of “How Israel must fight” — discussing the special situation of Israel fighting asymmetric wars, in a hostile political and media environment, and with the ever-present threat of intervention by outside powers.

My conclusion was this:

The primary goal, therefore, in future wars must be as complete a victory as possible: the enemy’s army must be shattered, its leadership killed or captured, its arms and installations destroyed. Victory must obtained as quickly as possible, before outside powers intervene; and it must be achieved with overwhelming force, to multiply the psychological effect. Humanitarian concerns will necessarily take a back seat.

But this same philosophy should be applied to the less-violent arena of  diplomacy. Sometimes it seems as though Israeli policy is driven by so many forces other than the national interest: the desire to prove to the world how civilized Israel is, the need to mollify the US administration, and of course domestic political considerations.

For example, take the outrageous prisoner exchange demanded by Hamas for Gilad Schalit — 1000 or more terrorists including multiple murderers. Israel seems to have chosen to negotiate about which and how many prisoners will be freed in exchange; but the negotiations should be based on which and how many Hamas leaders will be executed if Schalit is not released!

The futility of the current approach was demonstrated today by Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal:

Those who were able to capture Schalit and hold him safely for more than three years are capable of capturing “Schalit and Schalit and Schalit until there was not even one prisoner in the enemy’s jails,” Mashaal said.

Another example of self-defeating policy is the suggestion by some that Israel should launch an official investigation of the charges in the Goldstone report. Is it not a forgone conclusion that any exculpatory conclusions that such an investigation might produce will be either ignored by the anti-Israel media or be slammed as biased? So what advantage is to be gained by keeping the false accusations made in the report in the public eye?

Yet another is any tendency to take seriously the absurd demands of the PA. Israel should make crystal clear that negotiations will not progress until the PA unambiguously states — in Arabic and English — that it recognizes Israel as the state of the Jewish People, and that all demands for ‘right of return’ are forever off the table.

I think that the Netanyahu government has acted more or less correctly so far, although it may not be able to resist the demands to bring Schalit home at almost any cost.

I’m hopeful that it will be able to turn around the apologetic and defeatist attitude that has characterized Israel’s diplomacy in recent years, and present to the world a picture of a nation confident of its power and legitimacy.

Technorati Tags: Israel, diplomacy