The Goldstone Report: The UN Blood Libel

Gaza and the UN Anti-Israel Machinery in High Gear

SC Security Council Resolution 1860

Adopted on January 8, 2009

VOTE: 14 in favor, 1 abstention (United States)

  1. The resolution makes no mention whatsoever of Israel's right of self-defense.

  2. The resolution calls for a ceasefire while Israel is still under fire, thus gutting the right of self-defense.

  3. The resolution puts a right of "all" states "to live in peace"--though Israel is the only state under fire--in its preamble instead of in the operative section of the resolution, where it would have carried substantive weight.

  4. The resolution expresses grave concern only about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. No concern is expressed over the humanitarian crisis in Israel that has forced half a million people into underground holes for eight years and left Jewish children growing up with the trauma of fleeing and hiding throughout their young lives.

  5. The resolution makes no mention of any need to return Hamas kidnap-victim and Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. It does not even demand that Hamas or the Palestinian Authority abide by the humanitarian requirement under international law to permit a single visit to Shalit from the International Red Cross or any other international agency.

  6. The resolution calls for "unimpeded" provision and distribution throughout Gaza of myriad forms of humanitarian assistance--which obviously makes the conduct of war against Hamas terrorists impossible.

  7. The resolution condemns "all acts of terrorism"--without mentioning the identity of the terrorist--leaving Islamic countries to claim that Israel is the state terrorist and that the condemnation has nothing to do with Hamas.

  8. The resolution places no mandatory responsibility on Egypt to stop the trafficking of weapons into the terrorist-controlled Gaza strip. It merely "calls for member states to intensify efforts" to stop the trafficking.

  9. The resolution promotes further international intervention in the Arab-Israeli conflict, rather than a negotiated settlement between the two parties, by "welcoming...an international meeting in Moscow in 2009." Code language for shoving U.N. terms and conditions down Israel's throat.

  10. The Security Council "decides to remain seized of the matter." This means Israel's failure to abide by any of the points in the resolution is grounds for more and more Security Council meetings designed to thwart Israel's right to defend itself against the terrorism that threatens all civilized societies.


Human Rights Council Resolution S-9/1

"The grave violations of human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, particularly due to the recent Israeli military attacks against the occupied Gaza Strip"

Adopted on January 12, 2009

VOTE: 33 for, 1 against (Canada), 13 abstentions (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cameroon, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Republic of Korea, Slovakia, Slovenia, Switzerland, Ukraine, and United Kingdom)

The Resolution, which set the mandate of the Goldstone Mission, decided "to dispatch an urgent, independent international fact-finding mission, to be appointed by the President of the Council, to investigate all violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law by the occupying Power, Israel, against the Palestinian people throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory, particularly in the occupied Gaza Strip, due to the current aggression, and calls upon Israel not to obstruct the process of investigation and to fully cooperate with the mission".

General Assembly Resolution ES-10/18

Adopted on January 16, 2009

VOTE: 144 in favor, 3 against (Israel, Nauru, United States), 9 abstentions (Australia, Canada, Côte d'Ivoire, Ecuador, Indonesia, Iran, Nigeria, Syria, Venezuela) ; Absent: Antigua and Barbuda, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Fiji, Gabon, Georgia, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Kiribati, Kyrgyzstan, Liberia, Malawi, Marshall Islands, Micronesia (Federated States of), Nicaragua, Palau, Paraguay, Philippines, Rwanda, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Samoa, Sao Tome and Principe, Seychelles, Somalia, Sudan, Suriname, Timor-Leste, Tonga, Turkmenistan, Tuvalu, Vanuatu.

The Resolution calls for the support of the flawed Security Council resolution 1860 (2009) and in addition "expresses its support for the extraordinary efforts...particularly [by] the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA)", which has well documented ties to Hamas and other terrorist organizations.

Human Rights Council Resolution 10/21

"Follow-up to Council resolution S-9/1 on the grave violations of human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, particularly due to the recent Israeli military attacks against the occupied Gaza Strip"

Adopted on March 26, 2009

VOTE: 33 for, 1 against (Canada), 13 abstentions (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cameroon, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Republic of Korea, Slovakia, Slovenia, Switzerland, Ukraine, and United Kingdom)

The Resolution recalls the Mission's biased mandate "to dispatch an urgent, independent international fact-finding mission, to be appointed by the President of the Council, to investigate all violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law by the occupying Power, Israel, against the Palestinian people throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory, particularly in the occupied Gaza Strip, due to the current aggression" and calls ONLY on Israel and not Hamas "to abide by its obligations under international law, international humanitarian law and international human rights law".

Report of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, 13 August 2009

"The grave violations of human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, particularly due to the recent Israeli military attacks against the occupied Gaza Strip"

The report of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay is a document which makes no pretense of being objective. Its job is to demonize Israel by applying double-standards not applied to any other state. The report was mandated by a UN Human Rights Council resolution which states: "Requests the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to report on the violations of human rights of the Palestinian people by the occupying Power, Israel..." The resolution, which emanated from a special session of the UN Human Rights Council in the midst of the Gaza conflict, concluded in advance of any investigation that Israel had committed "massive violations of the human rights of the Palestinian people." (op. para.1). The resolution does not call for an investigation of violations of the human rights of Israelis by Palestinians.

Pillay, who is a lawyer, however, raised no objections to her mandate and proceeded to issue a grossly one-sided, distorted account of events in Gaza. Among the 80 paragraphs in the report, only 8 refer to allegations against Hamas, while 66 discuss allegations against Israel. Rather than recognizing and condemning Hamas as a terrorist organization, the report lauds Hamas for having "made public statements that it is committed to respect international human rights and humanitarian law." (p.5, para. 7)

The racist character of Hamas and the genocidal nature of its violent campaign against Israeli civilians are entirely ignored by the UN's lead actor in the fight against racism and xenophobia.

Pillay is not concerned about the context of the Gaza conflict. She suggests the conflict began on the day that Israel launched Operation Cast Lead: "On 27 December 2008, Israel launched a large-scale aerial and naval offensive on the Gaza Strip...". (p. 6, para. 10) In passing, she mentions in a footnote that a few hundred rockets fell in Israel in the six months preceding the war, but fails to describe the more than seven years of rocket and mortar attacks by Hamas on Israeli civilian targets that preceded the Gaza conflict.

The High Commissioner's report dismisses the fact that Hamas used - and continues to use - civilians and civilian structures as human shields. According to the report: "international human rights organizations investigations have concluded that either there was no large-scale abuse of civilians and civilian object by combatants, or that civilians deaths could not be explained as resulting from the presence of fighters in civilian areas." (p. 12, para 24) In other words, the conclusions rely heavily on hearsay and organizations whose investigative capacity and objectivity have been seriously questioned. (NGO Monitor: Amnesty Plays Hamas Apologist in Gaza Report, July 01, 2009; HRW's "Rain of Fire": Neither Thorough Nor Impartial; NGO Monitor April 02, 2009) Contrary to the High Commissioner's report, however, the evidence of Hamas' use of civilians as human shields is overwhelming. Hamas operatives have admitted (The Operation in Gaza - Legal and Factual Aspects, July 30, 2009, para. 119) that they frequently carried out rocket fire from schools and one Hamas legislator bragged on television of encouraging women, children and the elderly to form human shields to protect military sites against Israeli attack. Even the Secretary-General of the United Nations confirmed receiving reports (26 March 2009) of Hamas using children and others as shields to prevent attacks against launch sites and other military targets. At the Jabalya school, for example, witnesses "said that they had seen a small group of terrorists firing mortar rounds from a street close to the school." The report entirely ignores, for example, that Hamas uses schools and surrounding areas to store their weapons and train terrorists (para. 154 ff).

Refusing to provide the actual context of the war, denying the threat posed to Palestinian civilians from the terrorists operating among them, and failing to object to her one-sided mandate and its predetermined conclusions, Pillay's recommendations are unsurprising. She directs them specifically only to Israel. Not a single recommendation names Hamas.

UN Efforts to Stymie Israel's Right to Self-defense in High Gear

December 27, 2008 - January 18, 2009

  • 1 Press Statement of the Security Council
  • 1 Emergency Session of the General Assembly
  • 1 Quartet Teleconference
  • 9 Statements issued by the Secretary-General:

    1. Statement attributable to the Spokesperson for the Secretary-General on the Situation in Gaza and southern Israel, December 24, 2008
    2. Statement attributable to the Spokesperson for the Secretary-General on the situation in Gaza and southern Israel, December 27, 2008
    3. Secretary-General's statement on continued escalation in and around Gaza, December 29, 2008
    4. Statement of the Secretary-General to the Security Council on the situation in the Middle East, December 31, 2008
    5. Statement issued by the Spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, January 3, 2009
    6. Statement of the Secretary-General on the Gaza crisis, January 4, 2009
    7. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's statement on strikes on United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) school in Gaza, January 6, 2009
    8. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's statement to the Security Council on the situation in the Middle East, January 6, 2009
    9. Statement attributable to the Spokesperson for the Secretary-General on Gaza, January 8, 2009

  • 10 UN Daily Press Briefings:

    2008:

    1. December 29, 2008, Daily Noon Press Briefing: Briefing by the Secretary-General of the United Nations, H.E. Mr. Ban Ki-moon, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Mr. John Holmes, as well as Ms. Karen AbuZayd, Commissioner for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), and Mr. Maxwell Gaylard, Deputy Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process (UNSCO) on the situation in Gaza. Webcast here.

    2009:

    2. January 5, 2009, Daily Noon Press Briefing:By the Office of the Spokesperson for the Secretary-General and the Spokesperson for the President of the General Assembly. Guest at noon: John Ging, Director of Operations in Gaza for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East via videoconference link from Gaza; and John Holmes, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and U.N. Emergency Relief Coordinator, to brief on the humanitarian situation in Gaza. Webcasthere.
    3. January 7, 2009, Daily Noon Press Briefing: By the Office of the Spokesperson for the Secretary-General. Guest at noon: Robert Serry, U.N. Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, and John Holmes, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and U.N. Emergency Relief Coordinator, to brief on the situation in Gaza. Webcast here.
    4. January 8, 2009, Daily Noon Press Briefing: By the Office of the Spokesperson for the Secretary-General. Guest at noon: John Ging, Director of Operations in Gaza for U.N. Refugee and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) via video conference link from Gaza, and John Holmes, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and U.N. Emergency Relief Coordinator, to provide an update on the humanitarian situation in Gaza. Webcast here.
    5. January 9, 2009, Daily Noon Press Briefing: By the Office of the Spokesperson for the Secretary-General and the Spokesperson for the President of the General Assembly. Guests at noon: John Ging, Director of Operations in Gaza for U.N. Refugee and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) via video conference link from Gaza, and John Holmes, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and U.N. Emergency Relief Coordinator, to provide an update on the humanitarian situation in Gaza. Webcast here.
    6. January 12, 2009, Daily Noon Press Briefing: By the Office of the Spokesperson for the Secretary-General. Guests at noon: John Ging, Director of Operations in Gaza for U.N. Refugee and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) via video conference link from Gaza, and John Holmes, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and U.N. Emergency Relief Coordinator, to provide an update on the humanitarian situation in Gaza. Webcast here.
    7. January 13, 2009, Daily Noon Press Briefing: By the Office of the Spokesperson for the Secretary-General. Guests at noon: John Ging, Director of Operations in Gaza for U.N. Refugee and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) via video conference link from Gaza. Webcast here.
    8. January 14, 2009, Daily Noon Press Briefing: By the Office of the Spokesperson for the Secretary-General and the Spokesperson for the President of the General Assembly. Guest at noon: John Ging, Director of Operations in Gaza for U.N. Refugee and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) via video conference link from Gaza. Webcast here.
    9. January 15, 2009, Daily Noon Press Briefing: By the Office of the Spokesperson for the Secretary-General and the Spokesperson for the President of the General Assembly. Guests at noon: John Ging, Director of Operations in Gaza for U.N. Refugee and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) via video conference link from Gaza, and John Holmes, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and U.N. Emergency Relief Coordinator, to provide an update on the humanitarian situation in Gaza. Webcast here.
    10. January 16, 2009, Daily Noon Press Briefing: By the Office of the Spokesperson for the Secretary-General and the Spokesperson for the President of the General Assembly. Guests at noon: John Ging, Director of Operations in Gaza for U.N. Refugee and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) via video conference link from Gaza, to provide an update on the humanitarian situation in Gaza. Webcast here.

  • 1 United Nations Development Program Press Release
  • 10 Field updates on Gaza from the Humanitarian Coordinator:

    1. January 8, 2009, Field Update on Gaza from the Humanitarian Coordinator
    2. January 9, 2009, Field Update on Gaza from the Humanitarian Coordinator
    3. January 10-11, 2009, Field Update on Gaza from the Humanitarian Coordinator
    4. January 12, 2009, Field Update on Gaza from the Humanitarian Coordinator
    5. January 13, 2009, Field Update on Gaza from the Humanitarian Coordinator
    6. January 14, 2009, Field Update on Gaza from the Humanitarian Coordinator
    7. January 15, 2009, Field Update on Gaza from the Humanitarian Coordinator
    8. January 16, 2009, Field Update on Gaza from the Humanitarian Coordinator
    9. January 17-18, 2009, Field Update on Gaza from the Humanitarian Coordinator
    10. January 19, 2009, Field Update on Gaza from the Humanitarian Coordinator

  • 4 OCHA Protection of Civilians Weekly Reports:

    1. December 31, 2008, Protection of Civilians Weekly Report
    2. January 1-8, 2009, Protection of Civilians Weekly Report
    3. January 9-15, 2009, Protection of Civilians Weekly Report
    4. January 16-20, 2009, Protection of Civilians Weekly Report

  • 1 GenCap Advisor Press Release of the UN Inter Agency Gender Task Force for the OPT
  • 2 World Food Program Press Releases:

    1. January 9, 2009, World Food Programme News Release
    2. January 10, 2009, World Food Programme News Release

  • 2 United Nations Population Fund Press Releases:

    1. January 2, 2009, United Nations Population Fund Press Release
    2. January 14, 2009, United Nations Population Fund Press Release

  • 1 UNICEF Statement
  • 1 Statement of UNICEF's Executive Director
  • 3 UNICEF Press Releases:

    1. January 6, 2009, UNICEF Press Release
    2. January 7, 2009, UNICEF Press Release
    3. January 9, 2009, UNICEF Press Release

  • 1 Press Release of the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process
  • 1 Joint Letter from the Commissioner-General of UNRWA and the UN Special Adviser for the Middle East Peace Process to the Defense Minister of Israel
  • 1 Statement by the United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator for the occupied Palestinian Territory
  • 1 Statement of the Commissioner-General of UNRWA
  • 1 Statement by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child
  • 1 Statement by the UN Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict
  • 1 Joint Statement by the UNESCO Director- General and the UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict
  • 2 Statements of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights

    1. December 28, 2008, Statement on Gaza
    2. January 9, 2009 January 9, 2009, Statement delivered to the Special Session of the Human Rights Council convened on Gaza

  • 1 Flash Appeal by UNRWA
  • 1 Statement of the Chairperson of the coordinating body for independent United Nations human rights experts (known as "Special Procedures")
  • 2 Statements of the UN General Assembly President Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann:

    1. December 27, 2008 Statement of UN General Assembly President Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann on the Gaza Airstrikes
    2. January 15, 2009 Statement of UN General Assembly President Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann to the Emergency Special Session of the General Assembly on Gaza

  • 5 UN Press Conferences on Gaza:

    2008

    1. December 31, 2008, Press Conference: Karen AbuZayd, Commissioner-General of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) via video-link from Gaza, and John Holmes, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator on the humanitarian situation in Gaza. Webcast here.

    2009

    2. January 2, 2009, Press Conference: Robert Serry, United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process will provide an update on the situation in Gaza via videoconference link from Jerusalem. Webcast here.
    3. January 6, 2009, Press Conference: John Ging, UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency) Director of Operations, to provide an update on the humanitarian situation in Gaza via video-link. Webcast here.
    4. January 7, 2009, Press Conference: Yazdan Al Amawi, team leader, Care's West Bank and Gaza program, Allyn Dhynes, communications manager, World Vision International, Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director, Human Rights Watch, to brief on the humanitarian situation in Gaza. Webcast here.
    5. January 8, 2009, Press Conference: General Assembly President Miguel d'Escoto Brockman to brief on the situation in Gaza. Webcast here.

  • 2 Statements of the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967:

    1. December 27, 2009, Statement of the Special Rapporteur issued on Gaza
    2. January 9, 2009, Statement delivered to the Special Session of the Human Rights Council convened on Gaza

  • 1 Statement of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People
  • "United Nations Headquarters Board of Inquiry" Report, released by the Secretary-General on May 4, which found Israel guilty in 7 out of 9 incidents it was mandated to examine.