Opponents of the Goldstone report might well be hoping that after its lopsided condemnation in the US House of Representatives and successful relegation back to the UN's Human Rights Commission, the report will become little more than an historical footnote in a decades-long conflict. .... Why would the House go so far out of its way to stamp out even the consideration of war crimes accusations against Israel? And why would Barack Obama, the US president, have pressured Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, not to push the report in the UN when he had to know that such actions would cost Abbas most of his little remaining credibility among Palestinians? There are two reasons for this. Firstly, if Israel is guilty of committing systematic war crimes across Gaza and the West Bank, then the US, which supported, funded and armed Israel during the war, is an accessory to those crimes. Goldstone explains in no uncertain terms that Gaza was not an aberration in terms of Israel's treatment of Palestinians....Put simply, if there is blood on Israel's hands, than it is has dripped all over America's shirt. There is also the larger context of the peace negotiations. If Israel can be guilty of humanitarian crimes at this level, then it puts the entire Israeli narrative about the occupation - that it is ultimately about preserving the country's security - into question. In fact, the report declares precisely this, in paragraph 1674, when it argues that the Gaza invasion "cannot be understood and assessed in isolation from developments prior and subsequent to it. The operation fits into a continuum of policies aimed at pursuing Israel's political objectives with regard to Gaza and the Occupied Palestinian Territory as a whole". (Emphasis added.)
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Why would the House go so far out of its way to stamp out even the consideration of war crimes accusations against Israel? And why would Barack Obama, the US president, have pressured Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, not to push the report in the UN when he had to know that such actions would cost Abbas most of his little remaining credibility among Palestinians?
There are two reasons for this.
Firstly, if Israel is guilty of committing systematic war crimes across Gaza and the West Bank, then the US, which supported, funded and armed Israel during the war, is an accessory to those crimes. Goldstone explains in no uncertain terms that Gaza was not an aberration in terms of Israel's treatment of Palestinians....Put simply, if there is blood on Israel's hands, than it is has dripped all over America's shirt.
There is also the larger context of the peace negotiations. If Israel can be guilty of humanitarian crimes at this level, then it puts the entire Israeli narrative about the occupation - that it is ultimately about preserving the country's security - into question. In fact, the report declares precisely this, in paragraph 1674, when it argues that the Gaza invasion "cannot be understood and assessed in isolation from developments prior and subsequent to it. The operation fits into a continuum of policies aimed at pursuing Israel's political objectives with regard to Gaza and the Occupied Palestinian Territory as a whole". (Emphasis added.)
If the people that mattered cared about the Israeli/Palestinian situation, it would already be over. Calling the Israeli's all kinds of bad names (deserved or not) isn't going to change that fact.
