The Goldstone Standard Part II

The Goldstone Commission report discusses the case of the al-Samouni family (.pdf page 202).

712. In the morning of 5 January 2009, around 6.30 – 7 a.m., Wa’el al-Samouni, Saleh al-Samouni, Hamdi Maher al-Samouni, Muhammad Ibrahim al-Samouni and Iyad al-Samouni, stepped outside the house to collect firewood. Rashad Helmi al-Samouni remained standing next to the door of the house. Saleh al-Samouni has pointed out to the Mission that from where the Israeli soldiers were positioned on the roofs of the houses they could see the men clearly. Suddenly, a projectile struck next to the five men, close to the door of Wa’el’s house and killed Muhammad Ibrahim al-Samouni and, probably, Hamdi Maher al-Samouni.403 The other men managed to retreat to the house. Within about five minutes, two or three more projectiles had struck the house directly. Saleh and Wa’el al-Samouni stated at the public hearing that these were missiles launched from Apache helicopters. The Mission has not been able to determine the type of munition used.

In additions to those killed part of the testimony accepted by the Goldstone commission is that after the fight Israel did not allow rescue workers to the area for two days. Later, in giving its “factual findings”, the Goldstone commission writes:

724. The Mission also reviewed the submission it received from an Israeli researcher, arguing generally that statements from Palestinian residents claiming that no fighting took place in their neighbourhood are disproved by the accounts Palestinian armed groups give of the armed operations. The Mission notes that, as far as the al-Samouni neighbourhood is concerned, this report would appear to support the statements of the witnesses that there was no combat.411

725. Regarding the attack on Ateya al-Samouni’s house, the Mission finds that the account given to it by Faraj al-Samouni is corroborated by the soldiers’ testimonies published by the Israeli NGO Breaking the Silence. The assault on Ateya al-Samouni’s house appears to be the procedure of the Israeli armed forces referred to as a “wet entry”. A “wet entry” is, according to the soldier’s explanation, “missiles, tank fire, machine-gun fire into the house, grenades. Shoot
as we enter a room. The idea was that when we enter a house, no one there could fire at us.” his
procedure was, according to the soldier, thoroughly practised during recent Israeli armed forces manoeuvres.412

Paragraph 724 shows that evidence to the contrary was arbitrarily disregarded and 725 shows that “corroboration” came from a highly suspect source. Israel Matzav laid out the case against Breaking the Silence here and Honest Reporting had more here.

According to Goldstone then Israelis soldiers arbitrarily attacked civilians and then unconscionably refused to allow help to reach them for two days. Of course, if the accounts of the armed groups, so casually dismissed by Goldstone are true, than the attack on the civilians was, in fact, a battle and the reason no help was allowed for two days was because there were still enemy combatants in the area.

Col. Jonathan D. Halevi summarizes the reports that the Goldstone commission rejected.

The al-Samouni family members firmly adhere to the version that there was no Palestinian military activity near the house and that the nearest military activity was at least a mile away, and that, they claimed, was limited to firing rockets into Israeli territory, not close fighting.

However, the official Palestinian Islamic Jihad version is completely different. In a statement issued on January 5, Palestinian Islamic Jihad said that on the evening of January 4 its fighters had fired an R[PG] from the Zeitun neighborhood at an Israeli tank and had opened fire at IDF soldiers. At 1:20 a.m. on January 5, a Palestinian Islamic Jihad engineering unit detonated a 50-kg. bomb near an Israeli tank not far from the Al-Tawhid mosque near the house of Wail al-Samouni. At 6:30 a.m., the engineering unit detonated a bomb near an IDF infantry unit operating near the Al-Tawhid mosque in the Zeitun neighborhood.23 According to another official Palestinian Islamic Jihad statement, one of its operatives was killed in fighting nearby. His name was Muhammad Ibrahim al-Samouni.

The significance of the foregoing is that the four men who left the al-Samouni house in the early hours of the morning, among them Muhammad Ibrahim al-Samouni, did not necessarily do so for the innocent reasons given by their family. They might have gone out for a reason connected to the military activities taking place in the same area between Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist operatives and IDF forces. Palestinian Islamic Jihad reported that operatives of its military-terrorist wing, the Al-Quds Battalions, “surprised the occupation forces and attacked them from behind their lines, and there was a fierce battle in the southern part of the Zeitun neighborhood.” Another report, given “exclusively to the Muslim Brotherhood website,” detailed Palestinian Islamic Jihad activities in the Zeitun neighborhood on January 5: “According to eye-witnesses, the fighters of the resistance waited and barricaded themselves in secure locations, remaining in places inhabited by civilians, from which they left to carry out planned attacks against the forces of the Zionist occupier.”

These accounts have the advantage that the are detailed and contemporaneous. However they show that fighting was going on in the area of the al-Samouni house contrary to the testimony that Goldstone accepted uncritically.

The way this finding was reported was also problematic. Colum Lynch of the Washington Post – without mentioning the claims to the contrary – reported it like this:

The panel’s findings corroborate reports, including a detailed account in The Washington Post, that Israeli forces shelled the crowded home of the Palestinian Wael al-Samuni family in the neighborhood of Zaytoun on Jan. 5, killing 21 civilians, and prevented international relief agencies from tending to the wounded.

Actually the Goldstone commission didn’t corroborate the newspaper reports. It reached the same conclusion as the newspapers after considering the same limited testimony.

Elder of Ziyon concludes

…this doesn’t mean that Goldstone is incorrect concerning the immediate area of the Samouni house, but it does indicate that the commission ignored easily-available data that could indicate that their implication that no fighting was taking place in Al-Zaytoun is wrong.

It’s not just the Goldstone commission. As I observed above the Washington Post didn’t consider contrary evidence either.

After Philip Karsenty prevailed in court over Charles Enderlin, I was disappointed that no major newspaper covered it. (The New York Times covered it in its blog, but not on paper.) But the Karsenty verdict clearly should have raised questions about the way the media reports on the Middle East. Clearly they didn’t care about getting the story right.

Clearly that’s still a problem.

Previously: Goldstone Standard.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

NOTE: I’ve edited the original slightly for clarity.