Generally speaking I'm not one to plug this blog. If you come and read, good. If you comment, even better. Since the whole thing is a hobby for me I don't do marketing.
The previous post, however, is - to my unobjective mind - one of the most important I'm likely to post. It presents Israel's report on the operation in Gaza. This report, in my reading, is a game changer, or should be. Yet as far as I can see, almost no one has noticed it, much less read it. So if you read it, or read my summary of it, and agree with the importance, please spread the word as far and wide as you can. Send word to bloggers, your pet journalists, whomever.
The enemies of Israel are well on the way to convince the world we're a serial transgressor of international law. The report shows how unfounded this is; we need to reclaim the position of legality that is so rightfully ours.
The Report is here. In PDF, it's here.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
18 comments:
Ok, Yaacov. I am sending an email to the people I know, and especially the guy who forward emails to gazillion people. I am also going to write to Jeffrey Goldberg and ask when he will comment on the report.
I am printing your report to read on shabbat. I gave it a quick scan. I especially liked the 2.5 pages, single space, of the list of letters sent to the UN complaining about the rockets.
Have a good shabbat.
Nycerbarb
Someone posted a link to your report summary in Jewschool.
Unfortunately the links in google docs do not work in neither IE nor Firefox. Does google need me to get chrome?
Nycerbarb
I would always encourage you to submit important posts to Haveil Havalim, the weekly blog carnival of the Jewish/Israeli blogosphere.
You can do it via Blog Carnival
http://blogcarnival.com/bc/submit_43.html
Is there any real penalty for falsely accusing anyone of a war crime?
It's an obvious polemical temptation.
Yes, that's a very important document, and should be read as widely as possible.
-Zvi
I moved my document to a diferent place and format. I hope the links now work.
yaacov
Yaacov -
Yes, the links work now. Thanks for moving it.
I read it over shabbat. This is great service you did. People like me would never be able to get through the entire thing. But now we know where to look if we want to find specific information.
A common meme, here in the US, during the war was "why didn't Israel go to the UN?" Now we can ask, why didn't the UN respond to all the letters.
Nycerbarb
Well, it's an Israeli report. Do we need to believe it?
Paragraph 439 (here) gives a number of conditions (all of them related to military necessity) under which private property was destroyed by the IDF. However, the owner of El-Ashram Tile Factory begs to differ. He gives a detailed explanation of why none of the conditions in paragraph 439 were met by his industrial facility, yet the site was flattened all the same. He posits that it was vengeance, not any military reason, that moved the Israelis to destroy his factory.
So I would say that, at least in this particular case, there's room for doubt as to the report's credibility. And I wonder how many other similar cases there may be.
How do we know that the IDF abided by the standards described in the report? We know from past experience that the Israelis tend to do some very nasty things when they believe they're not being caught on tape.
In short, I would be rather skeptical about this internal investigation. That would also be Karl Popper's advice, I think.
Yaacov, this is a decent effort, unfortunately it won't change much. Take a look: "Whether they intended or not to hurt civilians is not something I can know,” Rovera said. “But at some point, absolutely recklessly dangerous behavior even when you know better becomes intentional.” http://www.forward.com/articles/111483/
I have tweeted your summary and the Israel Gov't report, with the hash tags Israel and Gaza. I hope it gets widely read. Kol hakavod on an incredibly important job well done.
Ibrahim
could you please explain to a German "aryan" why I never read or heard in any German media that Israel's investigation reports even slightly played loose with the facts?
And believe me even though explicit anti-semitism is publicly shouted down in my country there is a lot of it about that everybody, the minority of pro-Israel- minded just as well as the larger number of those against it and even the uninterested, understands perfectly well
- do not forget it was our forebears who developed their ability to live anti-semitism to new heights and "expertise"
- a reference to a nose shape still suffices to get people of my generation and probably the one after me sniggering and we have learned it only via chance remarks by our elders years and years after the war
- it takes three generations not only to make a lady but also to get the garbage out of a human brains.
- therefore I am absolutely convinced that our media would never ever miss an opportunity to discredit the report. Such an occasion to enhance sales they would never let slip.
On the other hand cases of Palestinian misrepresentation get picked up only very reluctantly after a court case has come up in France for example or some such event.
Never anywhere I have seen a serious piece in the MSM about Palestinians misappropriating a Red Cross car. You find the YouTubeVideo only via openly pro-Israel blogs. Of course that makes it hard to judge whether it is real or fake as compared to a detailed spelling out by a government body who has proved that it up to standards in the past
so until your factory owner gets investigated by an outfit that has proved itself to be as trustworthy as Israel's government reports I prefer to put my trust in Israel's describing it
rgds,
Silke
Mr. Lozowick,
of course I'll try everything I can think of to make your post known ...
Thanks for pointing out this important document, which we have referenced in http://www.ozi-zion.com/blog/?p=709.
I sent the following email to Israel's MFA:
Hello,
Your recent report on Cast Lead is excellent. It is very important that we don't give up the battle for perception of adherence to international law in the public sphere, and this report is a good step in that direction.
I have six suggestions:
1) Please get it translated into more languages - French, German, Russian, Chinese, Spanish, etc.
At the very least, the summary should be available in many languages.
2) Find another 10 experts in international law, and let them write another report on the very same issue, to be published 2-3 months from now. Let them do the entire investigation from the beginning and reach the same conclusions. Credibility is proportional to volume: increase the number of reports and our credibility will go up.
3) Encourage whatever contacts you have in the global media to cover this report! Don't just let the report sit. I am assuming that you already sent it out to every embassy and consulate. Now send it to every Jewish community and pro-Israel organization in the world as well. Encourage Jewish communities to contact their local media about covering this report. So far, there has been very little coverage outside of the pro-Israel blogs, and this needs to change. This is not simply about this one report; You need to develop better systems for distributing information quickly.
4) Encourage peer review of this report. Send it to major universities with departments who specialize in international conflict law. Try to get the report published in peer reviewed publications, law review journals, etc.
5) Send the authors of this report on a tour of universities, military academies and wherever there is community interest to host them.
6) Publish this report. 164 pages is a good sized book. Find a good publishing house who is interested, add some pictures, some editorial content to provide context, adjust the language where necessary to make for easier lay reading, and get this published.
Thank you
Dr. Lozowick,
One question I have is who wrote the report? It would seem to be a government report but I can find no credit for the department or actual authors.
Joe5348
I'm about to go on vacation and that'll be my beach reading.
Joe -
Sorry it took so long to respond.
So far as I know, the report is a collaborative effort of the MAG (military advocate general), the department of international law in the ministry of justice, and their counterparts in the ministry of foreign affairs. As you've seen, it's the latter who put in on their website, but you can see the input of the others in the reading.
I regret to tell you that no average American will read this report... We get our info in sound bites and one paragraph internet reads... Very sorry from here... Toes in Alaska
Post a Comment