We knew this day was coming. And, true to his reputation, the Goldstone report provides a dispassionate account of war crimes and possible crimes against humanity committed both by Hamas and during Operation Cast lead. There is a lot of horrifying stuff contained there in. I suggest you have a look.
The question is, now what?
The report suggests that the Security Council refer the situation to the International Criminal Court should local processes fail to provide appropriate accountability for the alledged crimes. That is the sort of route taken by the Council when it came to crimes in Darfur. Sudan, like Israel, is not a member of the ICC, so any court action would have to be mandated by the Security Council. Presumably, this sort of action would be blocked by Israel’s historical ally on the Council, but so far, the American government has been silent on the Goldstone report. We’ll have to wait and see how firmly the Obama administration stands behind the recommendations contained therein.
Meanwhile, Abraham Foxman debases himself with this kind of sentiment:
Israel refused to deal with Goldstone or the council, despite Goldstone’s Jewish credentials and longstanding ties to Israel — he’s a trustee of Jerusalem’s Hebrew University, among other things. Foxman suggested that the United Nations was using Goldstone’s credibility to disguise an inherently biased report.
The idea that one of South Africa’s leading anti-apartheid activists and a former head of the Rwanda and Yugolosav war crimes tribunal is just a patsy would be laughable if it did not come from the president of a formerly respectible group like the ADL.