2013 Briefing Book - Print Version - Aipac

ISRAEL AT RISK
(after the commission’s leader, South African
Richard Goldstone)—that placed blame for
the fighting almost exclusively on Israel.
Rather than illuminating the real causes
of the Gaza conflict—eight years of
Hamas’ unrelenting rocket attacks on
Israeli civilians—the report merely rubberstamped
the Council’s predetermined
conclusion that Israel had committed “war
crimes.” It also ignored overwhelming
evidence of Hamas’ deliberate use
of civilian infrastructure to hide the
group’s terrorist activity. The report
and subsequent action by the Council
disregarded Israel’s long-standing practice
of conducting independent investigations
of alleged abuses during wartime, befitting
a democratic nation operating under the
rule of law.
For its part, the Obama administration
forcefully rejected the report, calling
it “deeply flawed” and “irredeemably
biased.” The United States was one of 18 countries to vote against a U.N. General Assembly
resolution that endorsed the findings of the report. (114 countries voted in favor of the
resolution and 44 abstained.)
In April 2011, Richard Goldstone retracted the report’s finding that Israel purposefully
target civilians, and also affirmed Israel’s system for adequately pursuing individual cases of
possible wrongdoing.
The International Court of Justice Blames Israel
The Goldstone Report unjustly condemned Israel’s response
to thousands of rocket attacks.
In 2002, Israel began constructing a security barrier along the West Bank in an effort to keep
out Palestinian suicide bombers that were repeatedly attacking its cities. Indeed, in 2001 and
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