Philip Weiss
Mondoweiss
This is the tenth anniversary of "Cast Lead," Israel's three-week-long onslaught on Gaza that took nearly 1,400 lives, 318 of them children, and that as much as anything helped shift the American view of the conflict, causing young progressives to side with Palestinians.
During those three weeks of horrifying images, President-elect Obama had nothing critical to say and Israel did him a favor in return: it ended the bombing/invasion two days before he was inaugurated.
Then in September the UN Human Rights Council issued a bombshell of its own, the Goldstone Report, which documented what it called war crimes and possible crimes against humanity during the onslaught, chiefly the Israeli pattern of deliberately striking civilian targets, including schools, mosques, homes, and a flour mill and a chicken farm.
The Obama administration worked to stymie the report at international bodies, and in the end the report went nowhere (defused by its author, Judge Richard Goldstone, who under huge pressure from his own community retracted the allegation that civilians were intentionally targeted).
The greatest impact the Goldstone report had was on international opinion. Now a State Department cable has been leaked in which US diplomatic officials are shown to have met with seven Israeli generals over two days in January 2010 to discuss ways to counter the "poisonous" Goldstone Report's influence over Israel's reputation.
The cable is remarkable because it shows how closely Obama officials were working with alleged war criminals to counter Israel's bad press and help Israel "tell its story" and show the "lessons learned" from the massacre. Also because the cable reveals what a crisis the Goldstone Report was to Israel's reputation.
"It shows how vulnerable Israel can be to public opinion," Norman Finkelstein, the author of Gaza: An Inquest into its Martyrdom, writes to me. "It's not been noticed that Israel ceased using white phosphorus after Cast Lead because of the bad p.r... They do worry about public opinion. That's why I'm skeptical when people say, 'Israel can do whatever it wants.' Not true."
Finkelstein also notes the role of an Obama aide as a general-whisperer: Michael Posner, then assistant secretary for democracy, human rights, and labor. "[I]t's telling that instead of advocating the indictment of Israel for its war crimes, as one might expect of the founder and president of Lawyers Committee for Human Rights [later Human Rights First], Posner counsels Israel how to evade prosecution."
Indeed, throughout the cable, Israeli generals admit that mistakes were made and promise that there will be consequences. And the Israeli air force general even says bluntly that the artillery and tank units were careless when it came to hurting Palestinian civilians. The American officials urge the Israelis to do independent investigations so as to salvage the country's reputation. But there is nothing to show for that. Israel indicted three soldiers in connection with the massacre. And the longest sentence was for a soldier who stole a Palestinian's credit card.
The Goldstone Report was in the news for two full years. But apart from a storm of fury against the report, Israeli officials never had to account. The cable shows that this meeting was as much of a trial as the top Israeli brass ever got: discussions with a handful of American State Department officials who were concerned about the report's conclusions, including Posner who had met with Goldstone. That was all. And they got off the hook!
Read more
See also: Why Did Richard Goldstone Throw the Goldstone Report Under the Bus?
Mondoweiss
This is the tenth anniversary of "Cast Lead," Israel's three-week-long onslaught on Gaza that took nearly 1,400 lives, 318 of them children, and that as much as anything helped shift the American view of the conflict, causing young progressives to side with Palestinians.
During those three weeks of horrifying images, President-elect Obama had nothing critical to say and Israel did him a favor in return: it ended the bombing/invasion two days before he was inaugurated.
Then in September the UN Human Rights Council issued a bombshell of its own, the Goldstone Report, which documented what it called war crimes and possible crimes against humanity during the onslaught, chiefly the Israeli pattern of deliberately striking civilian targets, including schools, mosques, homes, and a flour mill and a chicken farm.
The Obama administration worked to stymie the report at international bodies, and in the end the report went nowhere (defused by its author, Judge Richard Goldstone, who under huge pressure from his own community retracted the allegation that civilians were intentionally targeted).
The greatest impact the Goldstone report had was on international opinion. Now a State Department cable has been leaked in which US diplomatic officials are shown to have met with seven Israeli generals over two days in January 2010 to discuss ways to counter the "poisonous" Goldstone Report's influence over Israel's reputation.
The cable is remarkable because it shows how closely Obama officials were working with alleged war criminals to counter Israel's bad press and help Israel "tell its story" and show the "lessons learned" from the massacre. Also because the cable reveals what a crisis the Goldstone Report was to Israel's reputation.
"It shows how vulnerable Israel can be to public opinion," Norman Finkelstein, the author of Gaza: An Inquest into its Martyrdom, writes to me. "It's not been noticed that Israel ceased using white phosphorus after Cast Lead because of the bad p.r... They do worry about public opinion. That's why I'm skeptical when people say, 'Israel can do whatever it wants.' Not true."
Finkelstein also notes the role of an Obama aide as a general-whisperer: Michael Posner, then assistant secretary for democracy, human rights, and labor. "[I]t's telling that instead of advocating the indictment of Israel for its war crimes, as one might expect of the founder and president of Lawyers Committee for Human Rights [later Human Rights First], Posner counsels Israel how to evade prosecution."
Indeed, throughout the cable, Israeli generals admit that mistakes were made and promise that there will be consequences. And the Israeli air force general even says bluntly that the artillery and tank units were careless when it came to hurting Palestinian civilians. The American officials urge the Israelis to do independent investigations so as to salvage the country's reputation. But there is nothing to show for that. Israel indicted three soldiers in connection with the massacre. And the longest sentence was for a soldier who stole a Palestinian's credit card.
The Goldstone Report was in the news for two full years. But apart from a storm of fury against the report, Israeli officials never had to account. The cable shows that this meeting was as much of a trial as the top Israeli brass ever got: discussions with a handful of American State Department officials who were concerned about the report's conclusions, including Posner who had met with Goldstone. That was all. And they got off the hook!
Read more
See also: Why Did Richard Goldstone Throw the Goldstone Report Under the Bus?
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