Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict

A friend sent me a copy of the 'Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict', while advising me to concentrate on the executive summary. The report itself covers 1,776 points, including its recommendations to all parties. Therefore, it makes good sense to follow my friend's advice not only for practical reasons; even a cursory reading of the executive summary is sufficient to refute the gobblydegook, zionist, drivel that we are confronted with. 

The drivel, of course, doesn't confine itself to the content of the report and we had a number of newspeak "gobblydegookers down in 'Zionistan' doing all that they could to discredit the head of the Mission, Justice Richard Goldstone, even to the extent where some of them were agreeing with Yuval Stenitz's, the  Israeli Finance Minister, when he called Goldstone a Jewish anti-semite. Here it is superflous to say that Goldstone is Jewish, that his daughter lived in Israel, that he was a trustee of the Hebrew University, no, it is enough to say that he is a former judge of the Constitutional Court of South Africa and former Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunals for Yugoslavia and Rwanda.  However, it is the report itself that really highlights just how offensive the Zionist gobbledegook really is.

Firstly, the myth that Israel fought a war is revealed for the nonsense that it really is. This was not a war, it was a slaughter, a slaughter in which some 1,400 Palestinian men, women and children lost their lives while,  "according to the Government of Israel, during the military operations there were 4 Israeli fatal casualties in southern Israel, of whom 3 were civilians and one soldier, killed by rockets and mortars attacks by Palestinian armed groups. In addition, 9 Israeli soldiers were killed during the fighting inside the Gaza strip, 4 of whom as a result of friendly fire." A total of thirteen Israelis were killed and four were killed by the IDF. Of course, with the evidence appearing to suggest that they were shooting indiscrimently here there there and everywhere, we can hardly be surprised that they were responsible for some 30% of their own casualties. Indeed, in Gaza if you were an Israeli soldier the chances of you being killed by friendly fire were about the same as you being killed by enemy fire.

Furthermore, the report shows that since the beginning of the occupation, some 700,000 Palestinian men, women and children have been detained by Israel and that "according to estimates, as at 1st June 2009, there were approximately 8,100 Palestinian ‘political prisoners’ in detention in Israel,including 60 women and 390 children." We hardly hear about them, yet we are told time and time again about Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier who was captured in an IDF uniform, a soldier we are told who held the rank of corporal at the time of his capture but has since been promoted to staff sergeant; A staff sergeant in the same IDF that imprisons thousands of Palestinians, that illegally occupies the West Bank, that murders Palestinian innocents in Gaza.

Finally, we are confronted with Israel’s plans for a further 73,000 settlement homes to be built in the West Bank, while pointing out that, if these plans are realized, the number of settlers in occupied Palestinian territory will be doubled and, of course, we might start to wonder, how any "two state solution" can be possible. Yes, while, Palestinians dream, Bibi shows all and sundry what a good Zionist and a good realist he is. Moreover, "Uncle Sam" might even object to Israeli plans to build another 900 homes in the Gilo neighbourhood, but he won't object too much and neither in Washington nor in Jerusalem are they paying too much attention to that bit in the report about the number of settlers "in occupied Palestinian territory". Yes, "occupied territory", illegally occupied, and we shouldn't be discussing a freeze on the settlements, we should be discussing a full withdrawal. 

Nevertheless, the report also points out that while there was a lot of support for the slaughter in Gaza from many Israeli Jews, there were hundreds of thousands Israeli citizens who protested. Moreover, while those who protested were mainly Palestinian citizens of Israel, they were not exclusively so and, although the degree of discrimination and differential treatment between Palestinian and Jewish citizens of Israel who were brought before the courts for protesting was at times all too obvious, it does not detract from the fact that there are many Israeli Jews who are no longer prepared to support the actions of their government. This might offer us some hope, as might those Jews from all over the world who are not prepared to let this Israel speak for them.