This past Tuesday I had the opportunity to attend a lecture by Richard Goldstone, head of the infamous UN Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict and principal author of the resulting report. The lecture was entitled "Accounting for War Crimes: Israel and Hamas," presented by New York Law School's Center for International Law. I believe my title for these observations is pretty apt. Below are a few observations and impressions:
• There was a strong turnout - maybe 130 people. I was pleased to see a strong showing by the pro-Israel community, beginning with a two-page handout from the Jewish Law Students Association at the door.
• The host professor had asked Goldstone not to go into the substance of the report, but to talk more about the context and other matters pertaining to his involvement. Aspects of the report itself came out more in the course of the approximately 40 minutes of Q&A.
• He started with some background about international war crimes prosecutions, beginning with Nuremburg as the first serious attempt to hold individuals accountable for war crimes. Here, as elsewhere, it seemed to me that this otherwise apparently intelligent man was incapable of noticing irony.
• In addition to Nuremburg, he referred to Stalin's show trials in the 1930's. I don't think Goldstone realizes that the masters he serves have a lot more in common with Stalin than with Truman.
• He took some pains to explain that the US had been a leader in the efforts to set up the International Criminal Court, and noted that President Truman had been strongly in favor of the Nuremburg trials. Goldstone is obviously troubled by the fact that the US and several other major countries have not submitted themselves to the court's jurisdiction.
• He mentioned a couple of things that seemed intended as analogies to his current predicament.
o When he first started to investigate war crimes in Bosnia, he met with the head of the Serbian government. The Serb leader was furious, said they'd been unfairly singled out. (I believe Goldstone thought this echoed protests that Israel was being unfairly singled out). Goldstone told him that if they were the first and last to be prosecuted, it would be unfair. But if they were the first of many, then it wouldn't.
o When he investigated human rights abuses in South Africa, whites down there accused him of being a traitor. (I'm guessing he thinks the Jewish community sees him the same way, and he thinks they're no more right about it).
• On the whole, his comments seemed to be fairly defensive, intended to refute some of the worst of what people now think of him and the report. Thus, for example, he explained that when first contacted by the head of the Human Rights Council to lead the investigation, he turned it down because the January 12, 2009 mandate by the Council was "to investigate all violations of international human rights law . . . by the occupying Power, Israel . . . due to the current aggression." He was subsequently summoned to Geneva and pressed to state his conditions for heading the group. After they agreed to starting without foreordained conclusions and to look at both sides, he agreed to take the job. He says he was unaware that others, including Mary Robinson, had previously turned down the job.
• In his own words, he naively thought that a thorough, objective investigation of the facts by his independent commission might be in Israel's interest. This comment exemplifies how obtuse an individual he seems to be, at least regarding Israel's position in world politics. He tried rather desperately to get Israel to cooperate with the investigation, but received virtually no support.
• In the Q&A there was discussion about the strength of the evidence on which the report was based. He acknowledged that their findings were necessarily based on limited information available - in his words, "a small sample"; they did the best they could with what they had available, and in a very limited time frame. He seems to be backing away from some of the stronger wording in the report, which is more akin to a legal indictment if not outright judgment.
• There seems to be no sense of proportion to Goldstone's view of war crimes. He took strong issue with the proposition at least implied in Robert Bernstein's October 20 Op-Ed piece in the NY Times that democracies shouldn't be prosecuted for war crimes violations and only despotic regimes should be. He seems to regard war crimes in a manner akin to traffic violations: it's not a question of whether a person is fundamentally a good or bad driver; if you run a stop sign and get caught, you have to pay the penalty.
• He believes strongly in the law enforcement approach rather than a military approach to fighting terrorism. In his words, "It's a matter of fighting crime." Goldstone's belief in the power and purity of the law rivals that of Inspector Javert.
• His view about identification of civilians and the necessity to avoid their casualties approaches something like strict liability, i.e., if you think you might harm someone beyond the person who's shooting at you, you must not attack. To do so is a war crime.
• When asked about one member of the mission, Christine Chinkin of the London School of Economics, he reacted very defensively. She co-signed a letter to The Times of London last January which, among other things, said that Israel's military action in Gaza was not self-defense. Characteristically, Goldstone focused solely on this issue and defended it on the basis that, under international law, a state is not technically acting in self-defense other than against invasion by another state. He noted that US actions against Al Qaeda are not, strictly speaking, self-defense. Be that as it may, he ignores the larger fact that the Times letter, rather than being a law review article, was a strongly worded opinion piece condemning the entirety of Operation Cast Lead.
• One questioner asked how he felt about the fact that his report was being used by the members of the UN Human Rights Council to cast Israel into a pariah state (in response to which I muttered, "It already was."). Goldstone got angry at this, stating that if Israel was becoming a pariah state it was due solely to its own actions.
• One wonders how he would approach the task if he were doing what he does in 1939, and Hitler asked him to investigate the conduct of the Polish army during the conflict with Germany (the one where Germany invaded Poland) to determine whether any Polish soldiers had committed war crimes against the Germans. It seems that Goldstone would be honored to have the opportunity to bring the few Polish scoundrels to justice, and be comfortable ignoring the motivations of his employer and the broader context of his investigation. That's unfair of me, though: Judge Goldstone would insist on investigating both sides in the conflict.
• Early on, Goldstone, in a rare moment of obvious self-pride, said he often tells his students, "If you don't understand the politics of international justice, then you don't understand international justice." Remarkably, the greatest surprise to me is how grossly he seems to fail to understand the politics of international justice where Israel is concerned, and of the political consequences of his own actions.
• One questioner mentioned that his doctor had contrasted his judgment-rich advice with what the patient apparently wanted by saying "I'm not a muffler shop, where you go in, put your money down and walk out with a muffler." His unfinished question to Goldstone was, "By taking on this job, haven't you in effect become a war crimes muffler shop, willing to hunt around for war crimes regardless of whether it makes sense to do so?" Did he really think he could be serving justice and truth, and even remotely think this might be good for Israel, considering the nature and motivation of those who hired him?
o More than the muffler shop, I'm thinking of the gun for hire. Jack Wilson, played by Jack Palance, in Shane, brought in by the rancher to run Van Heflin and the other homesteaders off the land. The rules of the game, though, as indicated when he shoots down the character played by Elisha Cook, Jr., involve encouraging (goading) the victim into what may appear on paper as a fair fight, but results in little more than an execution.
• Is he Inspector Javert or Jack Wilson? Clueless zealot or gun for hire? I gather more the former, but given his apparent willingness to attack whoever he's asked to, and by whomever asks, I'm not sure the victim can see the difference.
