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UN Rights Inquiry on Gaza to Hold Public Hearings
GENEVA - A UN human rights inquiry on Israel's offensive in the Gaza Strip five months ago will hold public hearings, the inquiry's head Richard Goldstone said Wednesday, marking a first for the United Nations.
A Palestinian woman sits on the rubble of a house that was bombed in December 2008 in the town of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. A UN human rights inquiry on Israel's offensive in the Gaza Strip five months ago will hold public hearings, the inquiry's head Richard Goldstone said Wednesday, marking a first for the United Nations.
(AFP/File/Said Khatib) "A number of days would be dedicated to public hearings," of witnesses, said the former international war crimes prosecutor.
Goldstone said the four-member mission was ready to hold hearings outside the region in Geneva if necessary, especially to hear Israeli witnesses who might not be able to enter Palestinian territory.
"That way we would cover all fields," he told journalists after a meeting with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
UN officials said it would be the first time that a UN inquiry held such public hearings, as Goldstone applied his experience as a former judge and investigator in post-apartheid South Africa.
An Israeli official said last month that Israel would refuse to cooperate with the probe, after Israel's foreign ministry claimed that the probe was based on a biased mandate and sought to tarnish the country's reputation.
Goldstone said the UN mission of inquiry had not received an official response yet to its requests to enter the Gaza Strip "through the front door", via Israel.
But the mission would enter Gaza through Egypt "if it's the only way to get in," he added.
The 47-member UN Human Rights Council voted by a large majority in January to set up the probe into accusations of "grave" human rights violations by Israeli forces against the Palestinians during the military offensive in late December and January.
But when Goldstone was appointed last month, council president Martin Uhomoibhi gave it a broader mandate to deal with "all violations", not only those Israel has been accused of during the incursion.
The panel also includes British law professor Christine Chinkin, retired Irish army colonel Desmond Travers and Pakistan supreme court advocate Hina Jilani.
Goldstone also headed the public inquiry into violence and intimidation in the run up to South Africa's first post-apartheid elections in 1994 that was widely credited with preventing the country's slide into widespread violence.
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27 Comments so far
Show AllAn Israeli official said last month that "Israel would refuse to cooperate with the probe, after Israel's foreign ministry claimed that the probe was based on a biased mandate and sought to tarnish the country's reputation"
That's rich, the zionists are no better than the Nazi's and they have a reputation for being underhanded murderers, just ask the families of the sailors on the USS Liberty or the parents of Rachel Corrie. And what is so insane is we give these scum bags billions of dollars a year so they can murder our citizens, spy on us, and pimp our Congress. Israel and their whores in our government are the cancer on America.
Well said.
Surely the big boot of the US will find a way to stomp this out, or pay them off to diminsh it to a meaningless, toothless, waste of effort.
Why on earth should American taxpayers keep paying the salaries of any of these jokers?
They sure as shit don't work for us.
Past time for Congress to quit freeloading off us and get on the payroll of AIPAC, Goldman, AIG, Pharma, Exxon, KBR, Raytheon, AT&T, or any of their favored special interest masters.
I'm sick of them stealing from us as they continually work against us to steal more.
All of the above have a vested interest in making sure nobody who follows anything but money gets elected, and have a hand in destroying democracy worldwide.
Gatos1014 “the zionists are no better than the Nazi's”
Nazis were racists who seek to exterminate Jews, Gypsies, Gays, and other ethnic groups considered inferior. They build extermination camps, gas chambers and crematoriums. (hence the Holocaust)
Zionism is a nationalistic movement who seek self determination to the Jewish people like any other nation. Zionists didn’t try to exterminate anyone, they didn’t build extermination camps, gas chambers and crematoriums. (Though they were in a long bitter conflict with Arabs)
So what’s your point Gatos1014?
Are you saying that the Zionists build extermination camps, with gas chambers etc? (which means you’re misinformed)
Or are you saying that the Nazi Holocaust was no more than the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? (Which will make you a Holocaust denier?)
Letto:
There is the sad thing. The Zionists don't even bother to build the gas chambers, they simply corral the Palestinians in their own land and shoot them like fish in a barrel. In case you haven't noticed, they are committing HOLOCUST on the Palestinian people. And, no, Zionists are racists scumb bags who think themselves superior and who want the extermination of all Muslims and Arabs...for now; once they're done with those, they'll start with another race till they rule supreme over the land. The Nazis at least had class, the Zionists? Well, not so much!
Trailing Begonia: " The Zionists ... corral the Palestinians ... and shoot them like fish in a barrel... they are committing HOLOCUST on the Palestinian peop... ionists are racists scumb bags who think themselves superior and who want the extermination of all Muslims and Arabs. Nazis at least had class - the Zionists? Well, not so much."
I'm a Zionist. I'm not racist. I don't think myself superior and I don't want to exterminate anyone and I never killed anyone.
Gatos1014 “"Israel and their whores in our government are the cancer on America."
What you do here, Gatos1014, is called demonization. You take an ethnic group and try to dehumanize them. Describe them as Whores and Cancer and not as humans (Or the lowest form of humans in the case of Whores). Giving the impression that exterminating this ethnic group is a good thing. Like taking out a cancerous tumor.
Similar dehumanization was done by the Nazis against the Jews before the Holocaust.
This is how the Hutu spoke about the Tutsi before the genocide in Rwanda.
Similar demonization was done by the Serbians in Bosnia.
Gatos1014, you are actively preparing public opinion to accept a genocide against Israeli civilians and Americans who are what you call “Israel’s Whores”.
Sad.
"What you do here, Gatos1014, is called demonization. You take an ethnic group and try to dehumanize them. Describe them as Whores and Cancer and not as humans (Or the lowest form of humans in the case of Whores). Giving the impression that exterminating this ethnic group is a good thing. Like taking out a cancerous tumor."
Please do explain how this is different from what Isarel is doing to the Palestinians again?
Mainstream Israeli politicians are not saying that the Palestinians are cancer and whores of a cancer. Which makes them better human being than Gatos1014.
(There were some who used to be similar to Gatos1014 in the last century, but no more)
The UN human right council is biased.
Before 2008, they have condemned Israel 15 times, all other 191 UN members (some of which violate human right far more than Israel) were condemned 0 times.
On 29 November 2006, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan criticised the Human Rights Council for "disproportionate focus on violations by Israel" while neglecting other parts of the world such as Darfur, which had what he termed "graver" crises.
On 20 June 2007, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon issued a statement that read: "The Secretary-General is disappointed at the council's decision to single out only one specific regional item given the range and scope of allegations of human rights violations throughout the world.
You can’t be more biased than that.
"Before 2008, they have condemned Israel 15 times, all other 191 UN members (some of which violate human right far more than Israel) were condemned 0 times."
Wow! Only 15 times? And y'all are still whinning about that? It should be at least 15 PER DAY since 1948! What are y'all complaining about? Besides, it's not as if Israel gives a rat's ass about anything the UN or anybody else has to say.
And, you know, y'all should be kissing the UN's feet for not focusing on you, nstead, you're trying to cleanse your atrocities with distractions like murking the issues and pointing the finger at others that have absolutely nothing to do with Israel's wrongdoing. Now, that is the height of hypocrisy and arrogance!
Israel: 15 condemnations,
The rest of the planet (191 UN members): 0
These seems like a non bias number to you?
Letto:
Zionism is a racist nationalistic movement. Jews have learned well from the Nazis and have carried out a 60+ year campaign of ethnic cleansing. No they did not build gas chambers to exterminate Palestinians. They instead built the world's largest prison, Gaza and slowly starve the people and occassionaly speed the process up by bombing them. The fact that Netanyahu demands that Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish country is a big indication of its racism. How about if the U.S. declared it was a Christian country and Jews are nothing but foreign interlopers?
As far as the UN War Crimes Committee holding hearing in Veinna, that should please Israel. Anybody there who doesn't toe the zionist line regarding the "hollowcost" will not pass Go and immediately find themselves in prison. Talk about fascism at its best. Guess zionists don't believe in free speech.
By the way if 6 million Jews died during the events of WWII, how many Romas, feminists, artists, gays and other goys died in the camps? And was it really a nice even number like 6 million? Possibly it was 6 million one hundred and two. Istn't that disingenuous to those 102 people who weren't counted? If that is true then the inverse is equally likely and less than 6 million Jews died in the camps. Hitler has only been in power 3 months and the New York Daily ran the headline that 600,000 Jews had perished. Wow, just add another zero and you've got the magic number that the zionists demand the entire world recognize without presenting any substantial evidence that this is indeed correct.
There has been an Armenian Holocaust at the beginning of the 20th century. A Chinese Holocaust during WWII. 10-12 million Chinese civilians perished at the hands of the Japanese. This is obvious a larger number than the Jews who died during the same conflict. An Irish Holocaust occured during the 19th century. A Cambodian Holocaust in the '70's and a Native American Holocaust began as soon a Columbus set foot on the Bahamas. As far as what happened to the Jews during WWII, it's just another footnote in the history of man's inhumanity. Jews certainly don't deserve to have the whole world stop in its tracks and acknowledge this event above all others in the entire history of mankind. But I guess that's why they call themselves "the chosen people." Now if that isn't racist I don't know what is.
And by the way god isn't a realtor. So using a book of myths written by Jews to justify the taking of Palestinian land is nothing more than the common crime of land theft.
johnz52: "Zionism is a racist nationalistic movement."
Zionism is a nationalistic movement that claim that Jews have a right for self determination like any other nation.
Please explain why it is more racist than any other nationalistic movement who wants exactly the same. (For example Irish, Bask, Tamil, Tibetan or Palestinian)
===
johnz52: "Jews have learned well from the Nazis and have carried out a 60+ year campaign of ethnic cleansing. No they did not build gas chambers to exterminate Palestinians. They instead built the world's largest prison"
Ethnic cleansing happened on both sides. About 700,000 Palestinians expelled from Israel and 850,00 Jews expelled from Arab countries. (In a war which was initiated by the Arab side after rejecting UN resolution 181)
As for the Nazis - Extermination camp is not equal to a Singapore size "prison".
==
During Warld War II 60 million people died, 6 million of them Jews. There were other Genocideds in History. So what's your point?
To johnz52,
Right On!!!
Letto:
Did you ever consider that the reason the U.N. has censored Israel so many times is because Israelis have set themselves above international law and committed numerous war crimes? Guess that one just didn't dawn on you. Considering Israel's most recent actions refusing to cooperate with the U.N. War Crimes Committee it only serves to make the arguement that Israel considers itself above international law.
I guess the U.N. was fine when they came up with resolution 181 taking Palestinian land and giving it to European Jews, but anything that isn't 100% in favor of Israel can be disregarded. Ironically it was Jews who demanded the first ever international war crimes trials after WWII. Now that they are the perpetrators of numerous war crimes they don't considered the U.N. a viable court. Another good example of their arrogance.
If this same type of arrogant behavior was exhibited over the last 2,000 years it's no wonder the Jews got their collective asses kicked. That type of thing doesn't happen in a vacuum, even though zionist want to perpetuate the myth that is does. Gosh run for your life, those anti-semites are everywhere.
Pro-Semite - Palestine for Palestinians!
Israel refused to cooperate with UN human right council because it used to have an anti-Israeli biased. (See my comment from May 20th, 2009 5:58 pm)
UN human right council has no binding power (Unlike the Security Council) and according to UN charter, any UN member has a right to refuse cooperating with this unbinding (and currently biased) council.
Oh, brother! The screams of anti-Semitism and Holocust are going to be heard on the moon on account of this!
So, the investigating committee can't even Gaza because of the Israeli blockade but still, there's nothing wrong...
The utter hypocrisy and arrogance of Israel is, in and by itself, an offense that should be punishable.
This is great and very encouraging news although there's very little hope of anything much less change for the poor Palestinians but, at least, it's a start.
Right On Obama,
He's gonna call for a contiguous Palestine, non-militarized, but still, A Palestine. This with King Abdullah of jordan.
I expect the cries of Joy emanating from israel to be heard all the way here in California and around the world.
Because Peace is the fruit this tree would bear, should bear, Except for this-it will be a frozen day in Hell when Tel-Aviv frees the POW's from the Gaza Internment & Extirpation Center for Arabs. Or vacates the West Bank or Ever Allows Peace, Ever. Peace stands in the way of Greater Israel, of Endless Expansion, and as such is anathemic to Zionist Values, sic.
Israel is hurting Jew's souls, and taking Arab lives, maybe a miracle in the desert could transpire. The fulcrum will be Iran. Israel will attack Iran for it's stated goals AND this-So that Iran's response, the blowback, will redefine strategic truths on the ground in the ME. Or, enough bloodshed, peace will be forgotten.
For those new to Israel's history, that means they start a war and when the dust settles and the Arab bloood dries, Israel has grown once again, eaten up more of it's neighbors. Maybe this time they will bomb the Aswan Dam as AL has proposed.
Do we need swords to cut flowers?
Israel needs to Fall on it's Sword. Or make Peace, and resurrect the Palestine they have slowly garrotted.
azjoe: "For those new to Israel's history, that means they start a war and when the dust settles and the Arab bloood dries, Israel has grown once again, eaten up more of it's neighbors."
What you say is not true.
In 1978 Israel signed peace agreement with Egypt and withdraw from the Sinai peninsula.
In 1993 (Oslo accord) Israel withdraw from 90% of Gaza and from Jericho.
In 1993, as part of the Peace agreement with Jordan, Israel gave some land to Jordan.
In 1995, as part of Oslo 2. Israel gave 41% of the West Bank to the Palestinian Authority.
In 2000, Israel withdraw from South Lebanon.
In 2005, Israel withdraw from Gaza. (Relocating 7000 Jews)
Letto, for loyalty and stone cold tenacity I laud you. For getting the facts wrong, I forgive you.
Letto. The heck with obfuscating rhetoric.
Get a map from 1950, '55, '60 etc, every 5 years to the present, and watch Occupied Palestine, I mean ethnically purer every day israel, grow.
Grow More Racially Pure.
And Grow In Size.
Best wishes, and that I mean, joe.
Azjoe: “Letto, for loyalty and stone cold tenacity I laud you. For getting the facts wrong, I forgive you.”
Azjoe, I don’t need you forgiveness for “crimes” I never committed. Just because you, azjoe, cry out loud that I get the facts wrong, doesn’t mean that they are. Perhaps you get the facts wrong when you claim that I get the facts wrong.
Check my points, checked historical maps. Do a minimal research. Since 1967, Israel shrank in landmass by giving land back to Egypt (1974, 1978-82), Jordan (1993), Syria (1974), and the Palestinian Authority (1993, 1995, 2005)
Azjoe: “ Grow More Racially Pure.”
According to IMF data, Israel’s population becomes more diverse. (For Example, in 1995, Israel had 1 million Arab citizens. By 2007 the number grew by 45%)
Unlike the rest of the Middle-East which had become less diverse. (In 1948, close to a million Jews lived in Arab countries, today the number is less than 5,000)
Letto confuses things nicely. Government's representatives from major players in the UN Assembly and even the Security Council itself have passed resolutions Israel ignores with seeming impunity. And lets be honest about this as the Occupation has expanded enormously since the expulsion and murder of Palestinians reached horrific proportions in 1967.
Unfortunately for Israel, itself set up by the UN, though not as the colonial project Israel became, Israel is answerable for its ethnic cleansing from 1948 onwards. The pace of such activities ebbs and flows according to this racist colonial bent. But nowhere is it more appalling for western civilization than in The Middle East where it too is responsible. That Governments have been denied access to the means of sanctioning this criminal venture is entirely due to the criminal corruption of the USA government.
That state of affairs notwithstanding, the Security Council has passed resolutions which Israel has refused to comply with. The US governments veto sanctioning powers sought by the 'international community' to curtail such activities. The fact that Britain and France protect Israel and in deference to the USA with German support are in close alliance with her the same does not apply to the populations of these countries. As to the populations abroad they are becoming less and less inclined to swallow the narrative Zionism perpetuates to the detriment of all human beings. It has persisted and persisted in expansionist criminal torture of an entire native population that are not Jewish.
Again unfortunately for Israel, set up originally through the UN, it is unlawful for any member to engage in torture and war crimes. It is certainly illegal to attack neighbouring countries. But this belligerence will come to haunt Israel and all the more so because it is essentially a grave danger to War.
So many Israeli citizens have foreign passports too. But far more Jewish do than Palestinians do within that State's borders. Far more do than the Palestinians living abroad from the State. Israel gets unbelievable support from the EU and has an enormous disproportionate Jewish presence within political spheres in various European states. It has embedded a culture or arrogant racism within and a propaganda campaign to make Stalin proud. Its so good it works in a free democratic society where freedom of speech is most sacred. It's astonishing! But the narrative perpetuated, especially since 1967, will not hold water long.
Israel is picked on Letto mainly because of Government's support against the wishes of the general populations. And this despite the MSM and other media in our high technical age. Personally, I seek nothing but the truth. Germany is the biggest supporter of the State of Israel. Holland is also among many others including Britain. But populations don't easily forget Gaza. Especially after Lebanon.
The biggest single coup for Israel was its aggression attacking its neighbourhood and expanding as intended. it was the media blitz, lasting for years that imprinted an entirely false narrative of those events that established control of media of paramount importance in political establishments. Israel pre-planned carefully and attacked Arabs with 'purity of arms'. They were certain of success and never came under any threat but simply initiated expansion. What they perpetrated on the native Palestinians over the couple of years following their glorious victory in the '67 war should be imprinted on the minds of anyone who wants to understand what this culture is all about.
Lbanus: "Letto confuses things nicely. Government's representatives from major players in the UN Assembly and even the Security Council itself have passed resolutions Israel ignores with seeming impunity"
Please provide one example of a UN Security Council resolution that Israel ignored.
Letto - just go to the United Nations' website and look up resolutions against Israel for their treatment of Palestinians and other barbarities. There are more than 80 ... certainly more than the number against Sadaam Hussein/Iraq.
The United States vetoes any resolution against Israel because of its veto power on the Security Council. The Security Council procedures should be revised, but the major powers who have the one-country veto power would likely veto that idea.
Zionist Israel's leaders' decisions and behaviors are about as psychopathic as it gets.
And the indoctrination that children get in Israeli schools to HATE the ARABS and the PALESTINIANS, is akin to training the Hitler Youth organization.
Get out of your denial, Letto, and you read facts that are not coming from Israel directly.
For a population that comprises only 0.2 per cent of the population of the whole world, with that population percentage predominantly split between the United States and Israel itself, the Zionist leadership with their militancy, over-all aggressiveness, greed, and woeful lack of conscience and humaneness, this bunch is doing no favors to peace-loving, compassionate, intelligent, justice-oriented Jews all over the world.
Strangely, the population of Jews in Iran were given the opportunity to leave Iran and go to Israel if that's what they wanted. They chose not too. They prefer Iran as there homeland because they are free to practice their religion and maintain their own cultural preferences without harassment and they like living in Iran. Doesn't that say something about Iran as well as the feelings of these particular Jews about the continuation of past policies into the present day of Israel's demonic and always whining Zionist government?
Oh. Everybody is anti-semitic. We do everything right. There is so much prejudice against us. Everybody else is bad and always trying to get us. We are good and righteous and never, never to blame for anything. We need to defend ourselves; that's why we bomb everybody and treat them so cruelly so they will learn to think well of us and not be anti-semitic. [Of course, Israel is bombing or threatening to bomb semite peoples just about every week.] That's called insanity.
"By their fruits, ye shall know them." A hellava' lot of rotten fruit in Israel's government from this vantage point.
/cm
As for broadening the inquiry to include "all violations" committed by both sides, I take this to mean they'll be focusing on Hamas for the Palestinian side, and this is okay, but only if ethically done, which means being very thorough. That perhaps could, maybe even should, include looking at the history of Israel against Palestinians once the state of Israel was illegitimately established, but without including that initial error in the inquiry for it'd definitely make the whole inquiry awfully complicated and one that Israel would more strongly oppose; maybe even to the point of Israel committing yet another false flag act of "terrorism", like it did in London and apparently also in Buenos Aires.
For a short, but good description of those two false flags by Israel see the following interview.
"Annie Machon, Ex-MI5, Interview", Apr 24 2009
(url broken over two lines)
http://montreal911truth.org/home/
annie-machon-interview/comment-page-1
I recommend checking out Annie Machon's website (linked in the above interview page) and reading more of what she says. Very interesting it is. At first I thought she might be a little ... quacky, say, for there are quacks in the "9-11 Truth Movement", but having read more of what she says and viewed a video from when she travelled with "9-11 Hero" William Rodriguez in Europe, she certainly seems like someone who is definitely no quack, at all!
Anyway, the UN probe panel should or needs to be very, very careful to not be bigotted against Hamas, which has a right to demand that Israel [recognise] the legitimate existence of Palestine, including Gaza, as well as the right to fight for question of defence; etcetera. And the firing of rockets into Israel shouldn't be pinned on the heads of Hamas unless they can definitely be proven to have ordered that these acts be carried out, but even if that's proven, then judgement needs to be done very carefully, for it's not like these acts are wholly unjustified. After all, those rockets are never fired into Israel except for when Israel is committing [supreme] criminality against Palestinians in Palestine.