Felice Gaer, director of the Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights, calls the Goldstone Report on Gaza “like Alice in Wonderland — verdict first, trial later.”
Photo by Robert Wiener
Advertisement
September 23, 2009
The American Jewish Committee’s top human rights expert said a United Nations report critical of Israel’s behavior in the Gaza war was based on a “biased mandate by a biased group of people.”
Felice Gaer said authors of the Goldstone Report, a 575-page document prepared for the UN Human Rights Council, were given a “predetermined” mandate to find Israel at fault for aggression and human rights violations in waging last year’s war on Hamas.
The report read like “Alice in Wonderland — verdict first, trial later,” said Gaer, speaking Sept. 21 at the Aidekman Family Jewish Community Campus in Whippany.
“This report is not a valid basis for action,” she said. “It was a biased mandate by a biased group of people and really part of a comprehensive campaign.”
Nevertheless, Gaer encouraged her audience to stay involved in UN affairs to help offset actions that some member states take against Israel.
The purpose of many Islamic nations is to “rally and organize activity against Israel in the United Nations, and they’ve been very active and very effective,” especially in the human rights arena, said Gaer, director of the Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights at the AJC. She has served as human rights negotiator at the UN and an independent expert for the UN’s Committee against Torture.
Gaer noted the ways the United States is remaining engaged with an admittedly flawed UN human rights establishment, including calling for a Human Rights Council investigation of elections around the world.
“Wouldn’t that have been nice in Iran?” she asked.
“The U.S. is doing something about laws that discriminate against women in 53 countries around the world still today. The U.S. is pursuing rights and fairness of the judiciary worldwide,” she said.
Gaer said the UN is scheduled to review the Human Rights Council in 2011, and “what changes can be made are enormously important.”
The council “has 60 experts that work on issues ranging from torture to free expression to religious freedom to the right to health care,” she said. “These experts don’t work on Israel but they get distracted by those who do.”
‘Predetermined mandate’
The Goldstone Report, released last week, accuses Israel of “serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law” and “possibly crimes against humanity” for its actions in Gaza last January and December.
The report, said Gaer, also cited “Palestinian armed groups,” saying they “committed war crimes, as well as possibly crimes against humanity, in their repeated launching of rockets and mortars into Southern Israel.”
Gaer said that 85 percent of the report dealt with Israel, the other 15 percent blamed Hamas for the rocket attacks on Israel.
To her, the Gaza investigation’s mandate was predetermined, down to the resolution calling for its investigations.
“Every other country that has been reviewed by the Human Rights Council has a resolution that reads ‘situation in Burma,’ ‘situation in Democratic Republic of Congo.’ But the resolution on Gaza reads ‘Violation of International Human Rights and International Law by the Israelis in the Current Aggression in the Occupied Territories,’” she said.
Gaer praised the Obama administration for rejecting the report’s recommendation that its findings be brought before the Security Council.
“The United States has already said this doesn’t belong in the Security Council. If it comes to the Security Council, the United States is not prepared to consider it,” she said.
Asked to speculate on the motivations of Richard Goldstone, the Jewish South African jurist who served as lead investigator, Gaer said she has worked with him over the years on Bosnian war crimes and other issues.
“I think he’s a wonderful man, but I think something happened this year,” she said. “I don’t know if it’s because Israel wouldn’t cooperate with him, but the Goldstone Report is like everything that is wrong with the UN rolled into one….
“Justice Goldstone is — I’m going to sound Shakespearean — an honorable man. But the report and the process that brought him to this set of conclusions have their flaws.”
Gaer’s talk was sponsored by the Community Relations Committee of MetroWest.
Reader Discussion
Comment on this article
--TOP--
Follow NJJN