Tuesday 27 July 2010

GOLDSTONE IS COMING TO HAUNT BRITAIN.

Britain was one of the first countries to throw the book at Israel post Goldstone report.

Despite the flimsy hearsay evidence from dubious witnesses, given under the threatening gaze of Hamas minders, the Goldstone findings were adopted as gospel truth.
The results has been a complete wall-to-wall condemnation of Israel that reflects on any action that Israel takes to safeguard the country from terror attacks.

According to the interpretations given to the Goldstone report Israel, or any nation acting to protect its citizens, is not allowed to harm innocent civilians. Of course, the jury is still out on what constitutes an innocent civilian. Some would suggest that a terrorist who has fired Kassam rockets and is on his way home becomes an innocent civilian.

With the disclosure of 91,000 pages of secret US military secrets on the WikiLeak website, British and US officials are scrambling for crisis control. In other words, they are panicking.
Now they face exposure for targeted killings, the type of weapons used, and the number of civilians killed in the fighting in Afghanistan.  All identical factors that got Israel pilloried by Goldstone.

Whichever way the British army likes to squirm, Goldstone is coming to haunt them.

When Palestinian civilians were killed in the Gaza Strip they were put down as being 'deliberately targeted' by Israel as a sort of 'collective punishment'.
When Afghan civilians are killed it is put down as regretful but 'they were in the wrong place at the wrong time'.
Sorry, this won't wash.

The leaked official documents clearly show that British and coalition forces have been involved in exactly the same kind of operations against terrorists in confined civilian areas as were the IDF. Furthermore, they employed the same type of tactics, used the same type of weapons, achieved the same results as did the Israeli soldiers in Gaza.

Israel has suffered diplomatic and media verbal assaults. Can we expect the same against British officers and politicians?

Israel is being threatened by international tribunals and trials. Can we expect to see British soldiers and politicians being threatened with arrest for war crimes, or brought to justice in the International Criminal Court?

Will there be a United Nations Commission, headed by Goldstone, to investigate war crimes perpetrated by British and US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Allowing a rabid anti-Israel hate campaign to spread without restraint may overtake British national interests. It may be too late the put the genie back on the bottle. The same 'human rights activists', lawyers, NGOs keen to take on the cause of the little man will, for sure, pursue the war crimes committed in Afghanistan. They will hold up the Goldstone report as if it were the Holy Bible, or Koran.

Only one British officer, Colonel Richard Kemp who had served both in Iraq and Afghanistan with the British forces, had the courage to tell a world in denial that 'Israels IDF did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare'.
This glowing praise was dismissed or ignored as it did not meet the anti-Israel agenda. A high moral tone was being adopted that denigrated Israel and denied all evidence to the contrary.

Now questions are being asked. Fingers are being pointed. The ghost of Goldstone is in the air. The questions, the finger pointing, the spirit of Goldstone is hovering over Whitehall and Westminster.

There is little pleasure in this turn of events except for the slim hope that parallels will be drawn between British and coalition actions in Afghani war zones and the IDF in Gaza.

What is good for Goldstone in Gaza will be good for Goldstone in Kabul.

No comments: