At some point our government will have to determine its positions towards various avenues of investigation into the events of the Gaza war. Fortunately I'm not in the government, and won't have to be part of that discussion. I have no doubt that the people who will be, will take into account all the relevant considerations.
I'm here today simply to re-iterate that on the level of simple evidence, Israel seems to have collected mounds of it. Assuming, as I do and explained here, that we prepared adequately, and then collected the evidence we've obviously collected, we have nothing to fear from a professional investigation of impartial investigators.
The IDF yesterday put online an example of this: it's a map of Gaza,created by the UN, depicting all the spots where damage was caused. To which the IDF responded with films of how the damage was caused. As I"ve explained in the past, this ability, while demonstrated in only 4-5 cases in this short film, is apparently pervasive. The IDF seems to have documentation of just about everything it did, from go-pro cameras on soldiers' helmets, through data from Iron Dome radar, to drone-based films of everything going on below.
To the extent any non-Israeli professionals investigate these events with open minds, the wealth of evidence the IDF has amassed seem to assure the investigators won't find any major problem with Israeli conduct. Since even Israel doesn't rule out that mistakes were made here or there, we seem to be fine.
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If the mandate includes an investigation of Hamas, and events are investigated from the start,why not. But the very wording of the mandate already suggests the commission is out to get Israel and Israel only.
The only good thing (so it would seem) to come out of this 50 day campaign, is that it has seen a revival of your blogging. Keep it up, even with the limitations that you feel bound to given your public service position.
People who are fair and impartial are not the ones who are pushing for an investigation. The people who want an investigation are doing so for political theater, for the desire to put Israel on trial, and/or dig up a storyline that can be added to the litany of reasons--true or untrue, makes no difference--around which the anti-Israel movement can rally. There is zero chance they will pick impartial investigating team, and zero chance that under the auspices of whatever anti-Israel umbrella they are operating, will they come to a conclusion that does anything other than put disproportionate blame for civilian deaths on Israel.
Let's be honest about the call for an investigation and who wants it: Arab and Muslim groups who have no regard for human rights or civilian lives in any other context except as a weapon to use against Israel; media members who are biased or ignorant of the basic facts and history of the conflict who seek a report that is consistent with the tone of their reporting, if not with the factual errors in their articles and television broadcasts; those trying to curry favor with powerful Muslim leaders and appease potentially violent Muslim masses for whom criticism of Israel is good business and a low-cost security measure; left-wing Jews for whom support of an investigation can be used to show their non-Jewish leftist friends they are not like those "brutal" Israelis and/or are concerned about Palestinian suffering and/or are capable in being impartial in a war between their own admirable, but imperfect tribe and a a bunch of religious fanatics bent of genocide; and of course anyone afflicted with the disease of anti-semitism. I'm sure their are plenty of others, but you get the idea.
These fake investigations are the modern version of the medieval "adversus judaeos", that is, a macabre theatre devised to hurt and defame Jews. No need to participate in that BS anymore.
You think there is any chance of a fair investigation?
Heh, it's the equivalent of saying, "Israel has nothing to fear from a fair (and honest) media."
File under: Well, it's sure hard to argue with that!!!
Ser Jew -
I like that comment, and will use it. Thanks!
Yaacov,
That's great!
It´s always a great pleasure to read you.
All the best.
I think that I made a mistake: my analogy should perhaps more appropriately refer to the medieval "disputation", a fake debate between Christian and Jewish scholars, usually led by a Jewish convert. "The disputation was not a free discussion between two parties but took the form of a propaganda attack by the Christian side against Jews, including the use of psychological pressure in the form of intimidation and threats" (Wiki) and led to an indictment to Judaism, accusations of heresy and burnings of the Talmud. "Adversus Judaeos" refers to an influential anti-Semitic diatribe by John Chrysostom in the IVth-century.
no matter what Israel does, "they"'ll find something to base a guilty verdict on (witches once upon a time stood no chance either).
According to what I read at the BBC I have finally understood that the difference between Ukraine and Israel is, that Israel just can not be innocent while Ukraine can only be innocent even if she shell civilians they do it as innocents and thus with no objection raised.
that said being only slightly facetious I think that appointing Goldstone might not be a bad idea - he has the experience aka expertise aka connections, he has confessed while keeping hostile position greatly unharmed so the inquisitionists are kind of obliged to accept him.
PS: Al-Monitor told me that Hezbollah calls for resistance against IS - I understand that they are not the ones attacking the Golan but still it reads like there might be at least a partial the enemy of my enemy ... thinkable which makes me want to know how the friendship between Hamas and Iran is doing these days.
All is getting weirder by the day ....
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