Den sydafrikanske domaren Richard Goldstone skrev i fredagens i Washington Post om att den så kallade Goldstone-rapporten, om Gazakriget 2008-2009, hade sett radikalt annorlunda ut om man då hade vetat det man vet idag. Goldstone diskuterar öppenhjärtigt i sin artikel det hat mot Israel som kännetecknat FN:s Råd för mänskliga rätttigheter. Och pekar på betydelsefulla asymmetrier i relationen mellan Hamas och Israel före, under och efter kriget. Hamas medvetna beskjutningar av civila mål, Hamas intention att döda civila och ovilja att utreda sina egna krigsförbrytelser har helt enkelt inte några motsvarigheter i Israels agerande, vilket naturligtvis även gäller Hamas strävan efter att utplåna landet Israel.
När man nu kan se tillbaka på efterspelet av kriget har det nämligen visat sig att
“Israel has dedicated significant resources to investigate over 400 allegations of operational misconduct in Gaza while the de facto authorities (i.e., Hamas) have not conducted any investigations into the launching of rocket and mortar attacks against Israel. (---)
That the crimes allegedly committed by Hamas were intentional goes without saying — its rockets were purposefully and indiscriminately aimed at civilian targets.
The allegations of intentionality by Israel were based on the deaths of and injuries to civilians in situations where our fact-finding mission had no evidence on which to draw any other reasonable conclusion. While the investigations published by the Israeli military and recognized in the U.N. committee’s report have established the validity of some incidents that we investigated in cases involving individual soldiers, they also indicate that civilians were not intentionally targeted as a matter of policy.
I have always been clear that Israel, like any other sovereign nation, has the right and obligation to defend itself and its citizens against attacks from abroad and within. (---)
Some have suggested that it was absurd to expect Hamas, an organization that has a policy to destroy the state of Israel, to investigate what we said were serious war crimes. It was my hope, even if unrealistic, that Hamas would do so, especially if Israel conducted its own investigations. At minimum I hoped that in the face of a clear finding that its members were committing serious war crimes, Hamas would curtail its attacks. Sadly, that has not been the case. Hundreds more rockets and mortar rounds have been directed at civilian targets in southern Israel. That comparatively few Israelis have been killed by the unlawful rocket and mortar attacks from Gaza in no way minimizes the criminality. The U.N. Human Rights Council should condemn these heinous acts in the strongest terms."