Sunday, September 20, 2009

Justice This Time Around: Will Goldstone's Report Deliver?


By Ramzy Baroud
Palestine Chronicle

COMMENT

by Tony Sayegh

My feeling is that after all the excitement and after the dust settles, nothing, absolutely nothing will change. Israel will get away with it, again. Why? Because, as Ariel Sharon once said, "don't worry about America, we control America."

Hell, all the Arab puppets, including the so-called "Palestinian Authority," are basically ignoring the report or just giving it lip service. No real mechanisms were set up to follow up nor was a policy coordinated or set in motion. These Arab puppets have taken Ariel Sharon's comment to its logical conclusion. Since Israel controls America, and since AIPAC sets American Middle East policy, Arab governments and the clowns of the PA now make pilgrimage to AIPAC to get US government favors! If the Pharaoh wants his son to inherit his throne, he pleads with AIPAC that he (and his son) is Israel's best ally in the M.E. in order that Washington would bless such inheritance by the mini Pharaoh.

My message to the Palestinian people is this: For more than 60 years we waited for one UN resolution after another; one UN investigation after another. Whole dossiers of resolutions demanding justice for the Palestinians, including the right of return, are sitting and collecting dust. This report will be added to those dossiers, I have no doubt.

Israel, from day one, has known that Arabs eat, breathe and live on words, words, words. So, give them more words and they will be rejoicing in the streets! Goldstone obliged, with his 500-page report.

In the meantime, Israel from day one proceeded with full speed to establish what really matters: facts on the ground. Erase Palestinian villages and ethnically cleanse Palestine. In the near future there will be no Palestine to speak of. I am afraid the U.S. Congress at that time, with the inspiration of AIPAC, will enact a new "anti-terror" law which will consider the mere mention of the word Palestine as a hate crime punishable by a trip to Guantanamo. This will be a logical follow up to the Israeli law outlawing the term "Nakba."

If there is anything that might give the Palestinians any hope of salvaging anything left, it will not be coming from the UN. It will have to come from facts the Palestinians themselves establish on the ground.

After 60 years, haven't the Palestinians learned that yet? -- Tony Sayegh

".....Goldstone’s report, released on September 15, made some important recommendations, following a most thorough investigation that was carefully compiled by the mission – which was organized by the UN Human Rights Council last April.

One is that the UN Security Council should set up a team of experts to monitor Israel’s investigations of the war crimes committed in Gaza. If Israel fails to do so, then the situation should be referred to the Prosecutor in the International Criminal Court (ICC).

This raises many questions, lead amongst them is: did Israel commit war crimes in Gaza, and, second, is Israel capable of conducting an honest investigation into those crimes, considering the state’s bloody legacy and lack of any serious legal accountability.

Goldstone answers both questions......

Despite his recommendations that UN experts follow the progress of the internal investigation by Israel, and the Palestinians (since they too were accused of violating international law by lobbing home-made rockets into Israel, without taking into account the possible harm to civilians) it’s puzzling why Goldstone would think that any genuine investigation is possible in the first place......

Following the good old democracy reference, racism kicks in. “We have nothing to be ashamed of, and don’t need lessons in morality from a committee established by Syria, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Malaysia and Somalia,” Levy said. Apparently dark-skinned people of the South are both incapable of being democratic or moral. Only Israel and her allies are capable of those qualities.......

But why should they care?

Could it be because Goldstone called on the 192-member General Assembly to establish an escrow fund so that Israel can compensate Palestinians in Gaza? Israel would never spend its hard-earned US tax payers money on such frivolous matters.

Could it be because the Human Rights Council is convening on September 29 in Geneva to discuss the report, and could call for its transfer to the Security Council, and even the ICC?

Could it be because the report’s findings might empower an already growing boycott movement world-wide?

Could it be because it’s much harder to doubt the credibility of Goldstone, to smear him as anti-Semite or a self-hating Jew?

Could it be because all these factors are escalating Israeli fears that the “era of impunity” is indeed over?......."

No comments: