Last Wednesday, according to Ha’aretz, Israel asked the United States for help in “curbing the international fallout from the Goldstone Commission report released this week, which accuses Israel of committing war crimes in Gaza during Operation Cast Lead.” Apparently taking a page from her predecessor, John Bolton, Susan Rice’s first big job at the UN will be to thumb her nose at the institution. Or perhaps it’s not her thumb she’s showing the UN.
Ron Kampeas at JTA quotes unnamed sources that the U.S. will torpedo any attempt to refer the Goldstone report’s recommendations to the International Criminal Court:
A top White House official told Jewish organizational leaders in an off-the-record phone call Wednesday that the U.S. strategy was to “quickly” bring the report – commissioned by the U.N. Human Rights Council and carried out by former South African Judge Richard Goldstone – to its “natural conclusion” within the Human Rights Council and not to allow it to go further, Jewish participants in the call told JTA.
The report said the U.N. fact-finding mission investigating Israel’s conduct during the January 2009 war found evidence of Israeli war crimes. Israel has denied the allegations and said the report’s mandate was biased – an opinion echoed by U.S. officials.
The Obama administration is ready to use the U.S. veto at the U.N. Security Council to deal with any other “difficulties” arising out of the report, the White House official said Wednesday. The administration also has made clear to the Palestinian Authority that Washington is not pleased with a P.A. petition to bring the report’s allegations against Israel to the International Criminal Court.
The official said the Obama administration’s view was that the report was flawed from its conception because the mandate presumed a priori that Israel had violated war crimes and that the mandate ignored Hamas’ role in prompting the war through its rocket fire into Israel.
No mandate. Biased. Difficulties. Flawed. But no dispute with the Goldstone report’s basic findings.
This circling of the wagons will have several effects. One is that it seals the verdict of Obama’s Cairo speech as meaningless verbiage or, worse, the proof that a promise by the United States to start being an honest broker in the Middle East was a lie. The use of an American veto in the Security Council will also be rightfully seen as a confederacy of criminals refusing to be held accountable for their crimes.
But even a U.S. veto cannot completely inoculate Israel against legal actions.
Before the announcement, Ian Williams at Foreign Policy in Focus suggested that Israeli human rights abusers can still be prosecuted outside the ICC:
A U.S. veto might indeed protect Israel from the ICC, but a report with the credibility of a revered and honored jurist like Goldstone will certainly help mount prosecutions across the globe in other countries, particularly Europe. Indeed, his report already contains that fallback position (once again for Hamas too), invoking the universal jurisdiction of the Geneva Conventions as well as referrals to the UN General Assembly and other avenues. Many Israeli military and civilian officials already have to check with government lawyers before setting off on international trips. There will be many more, whatever happens in the Security Council.
Attorney Michael Sefarad, a specialist in international human rights law quoted in Israel News, believes civil cases are also likely to follow an American veto.
The Goldstone report is highly unusual, since it states Israel’s inquests into the operation were unworthy. The bottom line is that this report brings us one step closer to seeing foreign courts hear war crimes cases involving Israeli officials.
Such actions will then raise the precedent for Americans to be prosecuted for illegal renditions, torture, and reckless murder of civilians by drones and air strikes.
See you in court.
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