IDF Did Not Commit War Crimes

Jeff Riggenbach - 10/23/2009

And just who is it, again, who is claiming to be able to read minds?

JR

Keith Halderman - 10/22/2009

You and everyone reading this string knows that your first post was a shot at me. You answered a question directed at me and what you wrote was part and parcel of a response to something I wrote. Now I could play your stupid little game and make a baseless snide insinuation about someone’s fondest desire being that Hamas kills every Jew living in Israel but I won’t. Oh wait a minute I just did. (By the way you couldn’t come up with anything better than me thinks he doth protest too much.)

Jeff Riggenbach - 10/21/2009

Sounds as though Keith read my tentative hypothesis and leaped to the conclusion that I meant it as a personal description of him. Hmmm . . . I wonder why?

JR

Keith Halderman - 10/21/2009

There is nothing more gutless than someone who personally attacks someone else and then refuses to own it. Also, since grammar and spelling are your areas of expertise you should stick to them and stay off the subject of the Middle East about which you seem to know very little.

Jeff Riggenbach - 10/21/2009

"You are a very poor mind reader."

I agree. That's why, when I responded to RL's post above, I refrained from reading anyone's mind and instead limited myself to offering a tentative hypothesis based partly on some years of experience with people who become hysterical and lose all their grammar, spelling, and ability to think whenever Israel is criticized in any way.

"When you attack me personaly [sic] it only shows lowers [sic] the discourse and shows that you can not deal with my arguments [sic]"

What arguments?

JR

Keith Halderman - 10/21/2009

There are plenty of things that the Israeli government does that I do not like but compared to Hamas they are saints. You are a very poor mind reader. When you attack me personaly it only shows lowers the discourse and shows that you can not deal with my arguments

Keith Halderman - 10/21/2009

Eight years of firing rockets in the hopes of killing little school children satisfies just war principles. The leaflets and phone calls demonstrate that the IDF wished to keep the number of innocent civilian deaths to as low a number as possible, a task made all the more difficult by the tactics of Hamas. When Hamas sends a suicide bomber into a Tel Aviv café do they call the owner ahead of time?

You got me I have not read the entire Goldstone report, only excerpts, but I do know enough about the UN’s anti-Israeli history to understand that a report commissioned by the UNHRC was predestined to charge Israel with war crimes no matter what the evidence. I will quote Richard Goldstone again: “if this was a court of law, there would have been nothing proven. I wouldn't consider it in any way embarrassing if many of the allegations turn out to be disproved.” As for those groups you mention there all kinds of people in this world who have taken up the now fashionable cause of condemning Israel for not living up to standards imposed on no one else, including organizers of academic boycotts, college students who shout down speakers, Swedish newspapers, Norwegian government officials, and Norwegian comedians.

I will now ask you a question even though you did not answer my last one: who is more likely to be concerned about killing innocent civilians the group that loves life or the group that loves death? The Goldstone Report that you put such stock in also contains evidence of war crimes committed by the Palestinians yet the UNHRC resolution only condemns and seeks to punish Israel, why is that?

Jeff Riggenbach - 10/21/2009

"I don't understand why any scholar would ignore or dismiss a major report on the basis of a one page testimonial by someone they'd never heard of put forth by a group that seems to have biases of its own..."

Perhaps because the scholar in question takes for granted that Israel has never done any wrong and is incapable of doing any wrong and that anyone who criticizes Israel on any grounds whatever is an evil, Holocaust-denying anti-Semite?

JR

RL - 10/21/2009

I'm glad to see we are in agreement as to the worthlessness of the UN. However, we seem to have continued methodological disagreements.

For example, I'm unclear as to why dropping leaflets and making phone calls satisfy Just War principles when it comes to leveling parts of cities. I'm sure you would disagree if Osama bin Ladin tried to justify his terror acts in NYC by saying his group made many phone calls and dropped leaflets in the 24 hours before 9/11. Was the real problem with Hiroshima that we did not drop leaflets first? What did the leaflets say? "Abandon your homes and leave your city, become refugees because otherwise we will kill you?" You consider this justification?

You ask what motivation a military official whom I assume you never heard of before UNWatch posted his testimony has for lying? Am I allowed to ask you what the motivations are for Physicians for Human Rights lying...what the motivations for the Australia Lawyer Group, or the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions in Geneva, or the Defence for Children International (DCI) in Palestine and Jerusalem for lying. All these groups filed replies to the Goldstone mission's calls for submissions to their report. Why is their input less trustworthy than Colonel Kemp's?

The Goldstone report, which you linked to, Keith, is 575 pages long. Have you read it? In your scholarly researches, would you ignore the very detailed information in, say, the 1894 India Hemp Commission report because someone you'd never heard of offered a one page statement saying he had evidence the report was wrong? Would you do that simply because you couldn't imagine why he would lie? Perhaps he was a friend of Henry Anslinger's? :-)

I don't know much about UNWatch; your brief description above implies it focuses on showing all the errors made by the UN. However, a quick review of its webpage http://www.unwatch.org/site/c.bdKKISNqEmG/b.1277549/k.BF70/Home.htm suggests that its primary focus (fixation?) is to support Israel against any and all negative UN claims. So a group designed to defend Israel finds someone to defend Israel. I can't imagine you think that is methodologically sufficient to dismiss widespread and credible reports of improper Israeli military actions.

Mark Brady, also posting on the Goldstone Report, is more the historian than I. But your basic approach seems off to me. I don't understand why any scholar would ignore or dismiss a major report on the basis of a one page testimonial by someone they'd never heard of put forth by a group that seems to have biases of its own...

Keith Halderman - 10/21/2009

1) I do not think the motivation of Richard Goldstone is particularly important when he himself admits that there is no real proof of Israeli war crimes. Lincoln has been compared to a hedgehog because of his single mindedness when it came to preserving the Union. Hamas is the hedgehog of the 21st century who is single mindedly pursuing its goal of destroying Israel through violent means. Uri Avnery is living in a fantasy world if believes you can make peace with a leadership like that.

2) My area of expertise is drug prohibition and the UN is the most vicious of drug warriors. It is not surprising that they are extremely anti- Israel since there are numerous Muslim countries and only one Jewish one. UN Watch performs a valuable service by keeping track of the many moral crimes committed by that useless organization and I have always found their information reliable. As for the fact finding in the Goldstone Report it does not come from unbiased sources and just because you can get a number of people to tell a lie does not make the lie true.

3) The phone calls made and leaflets drops warning the civilians in Gaza are fact not opinion. The weapons caches in mosques and rockets fired from school yards are also fact. If you do not believe Colonel Kemp, then what his motivation for lying?

From a number of sources we find Muslims boasting that in the long run they will defeat the Israelis because they are a people who love death while the Jews are a people that love life. So I ask you who are more likely to be concerned about saving the lives of innocent civilians the group that loves death or the group that loves life?

RL - 10/20/2009

Keith,

I read Colonel Kemp's statement, which has no references and seems mostly an expression of personal opinion. I compared it to the material Mark Brady puts forward above I found Uri Avnery's much more detailed discussion more believable. Avnery is, of course, an Israeli citizen who was there at the time, while the same cannot be said of Colonel Kemp. So I have three questions:

1. What errors do you find in Avnery's discussion?
2. What do you know of UN Watch? Why do you give that agency credence over the scores of groups attending the many meetings listed during the fact finding aspects of the Goldstone report (Annex I) and the 31 submissions made to supplement the Goldstone analysis (Annex III)?
3. Why do you think a personal statement of one page by a single military officer who did not participate in the invasion of Lebanon refutes a 575 page report containing over 1200 references?

Keith Halderman - 10/19/2009

If the UN Security Council acts on the UNHRC resolution then Israeli political and military leaders will be subject to arrest if they go abroad. Terrorist can never have the moral high ground and it is the Palestinian leadership that does not want a state. The only goal stated in the Hamas charter is the destruction of Israel.

Jonathan Michael Finegold Catalán - 10/18/2009

In the long-run, war crimes are irrelevant. What happens if Israel is accused of war crimes? They get publicly scorned, and then privately their usual allies give them their words of support? In the long-run, the only thing that is relevant is how the Palestinians view the Israelis.

I try to make this case in an "article" I wrote on Zionism ( http://www.economicthought.net/2009/07/zionism%E2%80%99s-losing-battle/ ). Israel, without a doubt, has the right to defend itself from Palestinian rocket attacks, but this begs the question of whether or not it is (in the long-run) beneficial for Israel to pursue this course of action. They inadvertently drive Palestinians into the hands of Hamas by giving Hamas the moral high ground.

In the long-run, the only way to bring peace to that region is to begin liberalizing anti-Palestinian legislation in Israel. This includes opening the borders (at the expense of greater "national security"), and doing what they can to liberalize Palestinian property right laws (I would also suggest finally giving the Palestinians their State).

Waging a perpetual war against an enemy that keeps growing in size is insane and bound to fail.

C.J. Maloney - 10/18/2009

For the love of God, could we please just stop meddling with ANYONE in the Middle East - Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Golfers, Surfers, whomever. The US would be best off staying completely out of that lunatic asylum. Leave all those people be.