UN DAILY NEWS from the
UNITED NATIONS NEWS SERVICE
5 November, 2009 =========================================================================

GENERAL ASSEMBLY BACKS FINDINGS OF UN REPORT INTO GAZA CONFLICT

The General Assembly today endorsed the report of the United Nations investigation which found that both Israeli forces and Palestinian militants were guilty of serious human rights violations during the conflict in the Gaza Strip at the start of the year.

After two days of debate in the Assembly, at UN Headquarters in New York, 114 Member States voted in favour of a resolution endorsing the report’s findings and its recommendations for further action. Eighteen States voted against the resolution and another 44 countries abstained.

The probe, led by Justice Richard Goldstone, a former war crimes prosecutor at the UN war crimes tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, found that both sides committed serious war crimes and breaches of humanitarian law, possibly amounting to crimes against humanity, during the conflict in December 2008 and January 2009.

The four-member fact-finding team called for a number of measures, including the referral of the report to the Security Council, since neither the Israeli Government nor the responsible Palestinian authorities have so far carried out any credible investigations into alleged violations.

General Assembly President Ali Treki, speaking to journalists after the resolution was adopted, said that “this vote is an important declaration against impunity. It is a call for justice and accountability.”

Mr. Treki called on all concerned to devote themselves to implementing the contents of the resolution, which asks both the Israelis and Palestinians to carry out independent inquiries.

“Without justice, there can be no progress towards peace. A human being should be treated as a human being, regardless of his or her religion, race or nationality.”

The fact-finding mission was set up earlier this year at the request of the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council.

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HRW Press

***Media Advisory***

UN: General Assembly Endorses Goldstone Report

(New York, November 5, 2009) – The United Nations General Assembly’s endorsement today of the UN Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict (the Goldstone report) is an important step toward accountability for the serious violations committed by all parties to the conflict, Human Rights Watch said.

“This resolution is important recognition that Israeli and Palestinian forces violated the laws of war and that perpetrators must be held to account,” said Steve Crawshaw, UN advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. “Now the clock is ticking, and both sides have three months to show that they will conduct credible domestic investigations.”

The General Assembly resolution, which passed by a vote of 114 to 18 (with 44 abstentions), calls on Israel and the relevant Palestinian authorities to undertake independent investigations within three months. It asks Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to report back to the General Assembly after three months on the progress the parties make.

Some European countries, such as Portugal, Ireland, and Switzerland, voted in favor of the resolution and more than eight others abstained, including the UK, Sweden, Spain, Norway, Russia, Denmark, Finland, and France. India, Chile, Mexico, and Turkey also voted in favor. The United States, Australia, Czech Republic, Israel, Italy, Hungary, Germany, Netherlands, and Poland were among the states that voted no.

The Goldstone report documents war crimes and possible crimes against humanity by Israel and Hamas during 22 days of fighting in Gaza and southern Israel in December 2008 and January 2009.

To date, Israel has convicted only one soldier for abuses during the Gaza conflict, and that was for the theft of a credit card. Hamas is not known to have disciplined or convicted any of its fighters or commanders for the thousands of unlawful mortar or rocket attacks into civilian areas in Israel before, during, and after the Gaza fighting.

For more information, please contact:
In New York, Steve Crawshaw (English): +1-917-385-2642 (mobile)
In New York, Fred Abrahams (English, German): +1-917-385-7333 (mobile)
In Jerusalem, Bill Van Esveld (English): +972-52-604-1120 (mobile)
In Washington, DC, Abderrahim Sabir (Arabic, French, English): +1-202-612-4342; or +1-202-701-7654 (mobile)
In Brussels, Lotte Leicht (English, French, German, Danish): +32-47-568-1708 (mobile)
In London, Tom Porteous (English): +44-79-8398-4982 (mobile)

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At UN, Pro-Israel NGO Is Out of Place, “Did We Capture Them?”

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, November 5 — Moments after the UN General Assembly voted 114 to 18 with 44 abstaining to endorse the Goldstone report on war crimes in Gaza, three speakers took to the UN Television microphone and spoke to the Press. First was Assembly President Ali Treki of Libya, who took only one question.

Next was the Permanent Observer of Palestine Riyad Mansour, who took questions in both Arabic and English. Inner City Press asked what Mansour expects of the Security Council, whose Permanent Five members fought against the referral of the Goldstone report. Video here, from Minute 5:47.

Finally a short woman took to the microphone, criticizing the resolution for not mentioning Hamas. Journalists took notes, one later telling Inner City Press he thought she was from the U.S. Mission. In fact, she was Anne Bayefsky of the Touro College Institute for Human Rights — that is, a non governmental organization or NGO.

A representative of the UN’s Media Accreditation and Liaison Unit monitoring the stakeout grimaced, but did not move to stop Ms. Bayefsky’s speech. (As Inner City Press reported, once when a representative of Western Sahara’s Polisario Front was speaking at the Security Council stakeout, the plug was plugged on the camera and microphone, later claimed to be an electrical system snafu.)

Two and then four UN Security officers arrived. After Ms. Bayefsky finished, they surrounded her and a young man she had brought into the UN with her. She was asked, How did you get him in? What type of UN pass do you have? The two were marched down to the UN Security office on the first floor.

Just then, Palestine’s Observer Riyad Mansour walked back the General Assembly. Inner City Press mentioned that a seeming pro-Israel NGO had spoke at the stakeout after him. Mansour stopped and asked, “Did we capture them?”

Palestine’s Riyad Mansour at a stakeout, “did we capture them?”

Inner City Press went down to the Security office. Minutes later, Ms. Bayefsky and her colleague were marched out by two blue shirted guards. Ms. Bayefsky called Inner City Press over. “This is your story,” she said. As Inner City Press took notes, one of the guards asked that the interview wait until Ms. Bayefsky was escorted out onto First Avenue. Missing, one wag mused, was the K-9 unit.

Once there, in the dusk, Ms. Bayefsky argued that other NGOs are allowed to speak at that stakeout, for example Human Rights Watch after the election of members to the UN Human Rights Council. Later Inner City Press verified this: May 17, 2007, video here. (By contrast, on November 5, 2009, the Bayefsky stakeout footage was not put on the UN’s website, after Mansour’s, here.)

Ms. Bayefsky stated that a white shirted UN Security officer with a large belly said that this was only happened because the Permanent Observer of Palestine was mad. (This bought to mind the Heisenberg Principle, that even by observing or reporting on something, inevitably it is changed.)

At stakeout Nov. 5, through a glass darkly

Some on the other hand view it as a crackdown after the UN and UN Security were embarrassed by KFC’s Colonel Sanders impersonator being invited to take photos with GA President Ali Treki, apparently by Treki’s daughter who works in the Office of the President. But was Colonel Sanders escorted to the Security Office and then out to First Avenue?

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At UN, After NGO Ejection, Questions About Stakeout By Evictees From Jerusalem

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, November 6 — The day after the UN ejected the representative of a pro-Israel non governmental organization after she spoke at the General Assembly stakeout against and after the endorsement of the Goldstone report on Gaza, the Palestinian Observer brought to the Security Council stakeout four people evicted for settlers in Jerusalem. Video here. {our comment – what is not good for the goose is great for the UN genders – just think of the UN as partisan to the last DPI official – the following seems like fun}

Inner City Press, which witnessed and covered the November 5 ejection, was informed that Patrick Ventrell of the U.S. Mission to the UN asked the UN Media Accreditation and Liaison Unit on what basis the evictees were speaking. MALU sources took this, not surprisingly, as a complaint or challenge from the U.S. Mission.

For the record, when Inner City Press asked Ventrell if he had complained to MALU, he said no. He acknowledged that he was personally curious on what basis the people were speaking at the stakeout. When first asked about the November 6 ejection, he said he hasn’t heard of it. When Inner City Press named the NGO, he nodded and said yes, he’d heard of it.

He asked, who told you I’d complained? Another reporter, not able to write the story, offered that talk of a U.S. inquiry with MALU was “only gossip.” Ventrell nodded. “And that’s not good reporting.”

So for the record, beyond Ventrell’s “round” denial, what we can and will report in the interest of adding another snapshot of how the UN works (or doesn’t) is that MALU sources tell Inner City Press that his question about the basis on which the Palestinian evictees were speak was interpreted as a complaint.

Spoken-with a second time, Ventrell genially emphasized that he was only asking the MALU staffer. But when one represents the world’s most powerful country, even one’s questions can be interpreted as more than that. And so it goes at the UN.

The largest question raised — what are the UN’s rules for who can speak at the stakeout? — has still not been answered. A senior UN official scoffed that he’s never heard of the NGO ejected on November 5, but had heard of Human Rights Watch, which he said is holding an event in a museum in New York. Mia Farrow was allowed to speak at the Security Council stakeout — but she is a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, it was pointed out. So what are the standards? MALU says to “ask the Spokesperson’s Office.”

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From: UN Watch <briefing@unwatch.org>
Subject: Tonight’s Brandeis Debate: Did Goldstone admit UN colleague Chinkin was biased?

UN Watch Briefing
News and Analysis from UN Watch in Geneva     Vol. 210 |  November 5, 2009
Tonight’s debate: Did Goldstone admit UN colleague Chinkin was biased?

By Hillel Neuer

In tonight’s Brandeis University debate with former Israeli ambassador Dore Gold, Judge Richard Goldstone, author of the UN report on Gaza that bears his name, conceded that, had his UN inquiry been considered “judicial,” the prior statement of his colleague Christine Chinkin concerning Israel would have been sufficiently problematic as to disqualify her.

Recall that in a joint statement published on January 11, 2009 in the Letters section of London’s Sunday Times, entitled “Israel’s Bombardment of Gaza is Not Self-Defense — It’s a War Crime,” Chinkin declared that Israel was guilty of committing acts during Operation Cast Lead that were “contrary to international humanitarian and human rights law,” and of committing “prima facie war crimes.”

Goldstone’s concession on this point echoes what he told South Africa’s Business Day in an August 2nd interview: “If it had been a judicial inquiry, that letter she’d signed would have been a ground for disqualification.”

However, in the same breath as he effectively admitted the obvious—that her impartiality was irreparably compromised—Goldstone contradicted himself by defending Chinkin’s letter as being entirely irrelevant.

First, argued Goldstone, her letter was signed also by a number of eminent international law scholars.

Second, as he argued to Congress in his failed attempt to block this week’s House denunciation of the Goldstone Report, he said that Chinkin’s letter only dealt with the “technical” issue of whether Israel enjoyed the right to self-defense under international law, and not with the specific issues bearing on the inquiry.

Third, argued Goldstone tonight, Chinkin also condemned Hamas.

All of these arguments he has made before, several of which are documented in our legal brief. (See more at http://www.unwatch.org/goldstone.) Yet each is specious, misleading and without any basis in law. I believe that the jurist Goldstone knows this full well, but apparently believes that the ends (his desire to save Israel from itself) justify the means (accepting a biased colleague on his inquiry panel, just as he accepted to work under the UN Human Rights Council’s biased S/9-1 mandate that was never changed as a matter of law).

First, what probative value the existence of co-signatories has on Chinkin’s real or apparent bias is beyond me. But it is worthy of note that among the signatories so respected by Goldstone is one Richard Falk, the UN Human Rights Council’s permanent investigator of alleged Israeli violations, a man who has repeatedly accused the United States government of being behind the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Second, putting aside that the issue of whether Israel enjoys the legal right of self-defense is hardly “technical,” Chinkin’s remarks bear directly on the subject matter of the inquiry. Even had Chinkin only limited herself to accusing Israel of “aggression,” without opining at all as to the manner in which Israel conducted the war, this would have been clearly sufficient to create the appearance of bias on any matter related to Israel and the war.

But it’s worse: contrary to what she insisted during a May briefing with Geneva NGOs, and contrary to what Goldstone keeps saying, Chinkin’s letter also stated on the record—prior to her seeing any evidence—that Israel was guilty of committing acts during Operation Cast Lead that were “contrary to international humanitarian and human rights law,” and of committing “prima facie war crimes.”

That means she spoke on both jus ad bellum (whether the war was just) as well as jus in bello (how it was conducted). That Goldstone keeps getting away with saying she only addressed the former is testament to the culture of impunity that has surrounded this mission from its inception. (And, it is again important to note, even her comments on the former amounted to a sufficient disqualifier.)

Finally, about Chinkin’s supposed criticism of Hamas, which we are supposed to believe makes the letter either irrelevant, or somehow Kosher. Our legal brief from this summer, summarily dismissed by Goldstone, anticipated the specious argument that the letter’s single-line lip service on Hamas sanitizes her preemptive guilty verdict against Israel. We wrote:

The end of the statement includes one passing sentence on Hamas crimes, immediately followed by the qualifier that Israel’s “operations in Gaza amount to an aggression and is contrary to international law, notwithstanding the rocket attacks by Hamas.” No reasonable person could read the statement without concluding — as the Sunday Times headline writer did — that the crux of Prof. Chinkin’s joint statement was that “Israel’s bombardment of Gaza is not self-defense, it’s a war crime.”

In note 5 of the legal brief we added:

Some will no doubt seize upon this one sentence to exculpate Prof. Chinkin. This is to no avail. First, no reasonable person can read her statement in its entirety and deny that its central thesis is that Israel is an aggressor and war criminal. Second, even if the one sentence on Hamas were to be given weight, the gross abuse of due process arising from Prof. Chinkin’s commitment to a preconceived outcome regarding individuals on one side of the conflict — her absence of an open mind on the question put before the Mission — is hardly assuaged by an additional prior determination regarding individuals from the other side.

I salute the Brandeis student who raised the Chinkin matter tonight with Goldstone. While it was good of her to use our legal brief’s argument invoking the 2004 Sesay precedent, where an international war crimes judge had to step down due to remarks related to some of the parties, it also gave Goldstone a chance to access one of his previously-used escape routes. That precedent from the Sierra Leone tribunal, said Goldstone, dealt with a judicial panel, whereas his was something distinct.

But this is a distinction without a difference. Our arguments never relied on the Sesay precedent. Rather, we showed that international fact-finding missions (and not only judicial tribunals) are subject to the fundamental obligation of impartiality. In fairness, the Brandeis student did also remind Goldstone of his promise that the mission would be impartial, but he ignored this.

And so the question for Goldstone comes back to this: Was your fact-finding mission subject to the legal standards applicable to international human rights fact-finding missions? If so, given that impartiality is Rule #1 under those standards, and given that you concede that “[the] letter she’d signed would have been a ground for disqualification” in a judicial context, what is it about your own inquiry that renders Chinkin’s impartiality deficit suddenly acceptable?

Goldstone has consistently evaded any accountability under the law applicable to international fact-finding missions, by repeatedly declaring that his panel was “not judicial.”

But this is a red herring. The simple truth is that his fact-finding mission was legally subject to a well-established set of standards. Sadly, however, these were ignored.

(Source: UN Watch blog, http://blog.unwatch.org/?p=514.)

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 http://blog.maskil.info/2009/11/last-day…

What does this have to do with a blog on Israel and Jewish affairs? Having lived through the fall of Apartheid and the all-too brief honeymoon period that followed, I find a number of eerie parallels between attitudes and beliefs held by White South Africans at the time, and Israel’s growing isolation and withdrawal today. (What I am not doing, though, is to compare the Apartheid system of Separate Development with the situation in Israel. Such a comparison is inaccurate and unjust and gives ammunition to those who simply wish to demonize Israel.)

In January 1978 – along with tens of thousands of other school-leavers, graduates of our Christian National Education system – I began my National Service with the SA Defence Force. I was not politically mature (or even aware), and believed that we were doing our part to save Southern Africa from what had befallen the rest of Africa: domination by the militant Black nationalism and Communism that had led to the ruination of the continent; the Total Onslaught.

We believed that the struggle would continue for decades, perhaps even centuries to come. Our children and grandchildren would be called on do their duty to save “Volk en Vaderland” (we used those words) from the savagery of raw Africa. Little more than a decade later, Mandela had been released from prison, the CODESA talkshad begun and democratic elections were on the horizon.

That bears repeating: little more than a decade later.

How was this possible? We firmly believed that with South Africa’s mineral and other natural resources, her control over the Cape sea route (the Suez Canal had been closed since 1967), her military might, etc., The West could simply not allow this prize, this bastion of civilisation, to fall to Communism. Voortrekker terminology about drawing the wagons into a defensive circle or Lager (the “Lager mentality”) was common on both sides of the argument. Vesting Suid Afrika (Fortress South Africa) would hold out until such time as The World (not us) was brought to its senses.

Behind the scenes, however, senior SADF figures were warning their political masters that the most they could do was give the politicians breathing room to make a deal. Boycotts, disinvestment and sanctions had begun to cut deep into the SA economy, as had black labour unrest and events such as the Soweto Riots of 1976 (fomented mainly by school-goers). The National Party eventually cut a deal with its chosen successor – the African National Congress (ANC) – and then retired to seaside homes, cattle farms and inflation-linked pensions. The New South Africa experienced its brief Rainbow Nation phase before the slow slide into the current phase of reverse discrimination, corruption, rampant crime and ineffectiveness. The heroism, the mental and physical scarring, and the loss of many of our finest sons had become somehow irrelevant.

Today, Israel (like White South Africa in the 80s) appears to be living under the illusion that she has all the time in the world. The illusion that with her economy, the IDF, support from the US and Diaspora communities, she has no need to set her borders, find- rather than just seek – peace, and come to an accommodation with the other inhabitants of Palestine. There are far too many dangerous illusions at work here. The illusion of brave little Israel, alone against the world. The illusion that we don’t need peace; that we can survive in a state of low-intensity conflict forever. The illusion that we only need one ally, and that we are free to thumb our noses at her views when they don’t suit us. The illusion that the only outpost of democracy in the region would never be abandoned. The illusion that we can’t be replaced as America’s most dependable ally in the region. The illusion that we contribute too much to the world to be cast aside. The illusion that we are right and the rest of the world is wrong. The illusion that we are protected by the lessons and guilt of the Holocaust. And, perhaps most dangerous of all, the illusion that the God of Israel would not allow her be destroyed again.

Israel has perhaps another decade to restore its status as a Rechtsstaat  (domestically, internationally and in the territories) and integrate itself back into the family of nations. Another decade before the same forces that ended 40 years of National Party rule in South Africa also put an end to the 40-year illusion of Greater Israel, and the hopes and dreams of Little Israel along with it.

In the immortal words of Hollywood enforcers and crime-fighters, “we can do this the hard way or the easy way”. For now, the choice is still ours.