Yaacov Lozowick watched Christiane Amanpour’s interview of Judge Goldstone. (video available) He observed:
The second is his comparison of the Israeli judicial system and that of the Hamas: Israel’s is secretive and not reliable. Hamas, on the other hand, has a fine legal system. Of course, he adds, if they wish to be reinforced by international outfits, that can also happen.
Surely you are thinking that the internationally respected Judge Goldstone didn’t say that Hamas had a fine legal system. Well actually he did. Here’s Richard Landes’s transcript, (read it along with the pertinent fisking):
CA: We talked about each side conducting their own investigations; Israel has its justice, the wheels of justice that turn. [What] would you expect really that you could get out of Hamas in Gaza.
RG: Well Hamas has courts open. There are courts in Gaza. People are convicted. Some people are, regrettably in my view, are sentenced to be executed. But if Hamas hasn’t got the sufficient resources, hasn’t got sufficient lawyers and judges, which I doubt, I’ve no doubt that the international community will fill any gap that there may be in such an absence of resources.
If you read any significant portion of Judge Goldstone’s report you will understand that he wasn’t looking for the truth, he was looking to confirm his (uninformed) conclusions. it wouldn’t have taken Judge Goldstone and his commission much effort to discover how Hamas’s fine judiciary works. All they had to do was to find a New York Times article from December 29, 2008 described Hamas’s fine “open” courts:
On Monday, Dr. Ashour was not the only official in charge. Armed Hamas militants in civilian clothes roamed the halls. Asked their function, they said it was to provide security. But there was internal bloodletting under way.
In the fourth-floor orthopedic section, a woman in her late 20s asked a militant to let her see Saleh Hajoj, her 32-year-old husband. She was turned away and left the hospital. Fifteen minutes later, Mr. Hajoj was carried out by young men pretending to transfer him to another ward. As he lay on the stretcher, he was shot in the left side of the head.
Mr. Hajoj, like five others killed at the hospital this way in 24 hours, was accused of collaboration with Israel. He had been in the central prison awaiting trial by Hamas judges; when Israel destroyed the prison on Sunday he and the others were transferred to the hospital. But their trials were short-circuited.
What is “open” to Judge Goldstone, is called “summary execution” in the rest of the world.
There is quite a bit that Judge Goldstone ignored. And of course this article, in addition to demonstrating the falsity of his own impression of Hamas’s legal system, supported two more contentions of Israel’s that Goldstone refused to acknowledge.
1) Hamas terrorists don’t wear uniforms.
2) Hamas terrorists operate from hospitals.
Judge Goldstone worked from a premise that all destruction caused by Israel was arbitrary and/or unnecessary. Anything that contradicted that premise was disregarded.
The good judge was so intent on “Goldstoning” Israel he ignored the truth.
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
