Unfortunately, the report falls glaringly short in meeting these ideals. For example, the contents of a professionally prepared document, submitted by a group of 15 eminent Australian lawyers, and deserving of serious consideration, was completely ignored. Certainly the public and the HRC members should not be denied an opportunity to read it. See http://www.2nd-thoughts.org/id222.html.

The Mission has made far-reaching recommendations, with full knowledge that it has not pursued all the evidence available; despite the danger that conclusions based on incomplete information have, in many cases, led to disastrous consequences, such as prisoners subsequently pardoned on production of evidence that was previously unavailable. These unfortunate episodes are perhaps excusable where there are no indications of withheld evidence at the time the sentence is passed. But, in this case, the Mission is fully aware of available evidence that it has not examined. In view of the lacuna created by the Mission ignoring critical relevant evidence, the report in its present form can, at best, be regarded as provisional.

It is plainly illogical that, despite Judge Goldstone's acknowledgment at the abovementioned press conference that the Mission would be heavily dependent on military advice, it ignored recommendations by at least two parties that Colonel Richard Kemp – former commander of British forces in Afghanistan and adviser to the UK cabinet, who has expert knowledge of warfare in conditions similar to those in Gaza – should be invited to give evidence.

Even if the Mission disagrees with Colonel Kemp's authoritative and publicly expressed views, its responsibility to provide an educated report imposes a duty upon it to at least advise members of the public and the HRC of the existence of these views, so that they can judge for themselves.

Intellectual honesty requires that, in evaluating evidence about situations that they have not personally experienced, non-military investigators dare not ignore key practical military aspects like those enumerated by experts such as Colonel Kemp. The credibility of the report would certainly have been enhanced had it referred to his remarks that the battlefield – in any kind of war – is a place of confusion, chaos, and fast-moving action. Sadly, the report ignored the context explained by Colonel Kemp: that in the type of conflict that the IDF fought in Gaza and in Lebanon, and that Britain and America are still fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, these age-old confusions and complexities are made one hundred times worse by the fighting policies and techniques of the enemy.

Islamist fighting groups carefully study the international laws of armed conflict and understand it well. They know that a British or an Israeli commander and his men are bound by international law and the rules of engagement that flow from it, and they do their utmost to exploit what they view as one of their enemy's main weaknesses.

The very modus operandi of these insurgents is built on the correct assumption that Western armies will normally abide by the rules, whilst they employ a deliberate policy of consistently operating outside of international law.

Civilians and civilian property are routinely exploited by these groups, in deliberate and flagrant violation of international laws or reasonable norms of civilized behavior.

Protected buildings, mosques, schools, and hospitals are used as strongholds. Legal and proportional responses by a Western army are deliberately exploited and manipulated in order to produce international outcry and condemnation.

Colonel Kemp refers to Hamas combatants deliberately positioned behind the human shields of the civilian population. Hamas also ordered men, women, and children from their own population to stay put in places they knew were about to be attacked by the IDF. Israel was fighting an enemy that is deliberately sacrificing its own people, deliberately trying to lure us into killing its own innocent civilians.

And Hamas, like Hezbollah, is also highly skilled at driving the media agenda. Both groups will always have people ready to give interviews condemning Israeli forces for war crimes. They are adept at staging and distorting incidents.

Whenever possible, the IDF gave at least four hours' notice to civilians to leave areas targeted for attack. The IDF dropped over 900,000 leaflets warning the population of impending attacks to allow them to leave designated areas. The IDF phoned over 30,000 Palestinian households in Gaza, urging them – in Arabic – to leave homes where Hamas might have stashed weapons or be preparing to fight.

Many attack helicopter missions that could have taken out Hamas military capability were cancelled if there was too great a risk of civilian casualties in the area. During the conflict, the IDF allowed huge amounts of humanitarian aid into Gaza, even though delivering aid virtually into enemy hands is, to the military tactician, normally quite unthinkable.

Whether or not the Mission agrees with Colonel Kemp's views, the report is most certainly incomplete in omitting to apprise the HRC of his summation that, by taking these actions, the IDF did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army has done in the history of warfare. See http://www.2nd-thoughts.org/id199.html.

The Mission was also aware that some witnesses withdrew because of fear of retribution. The very reason for their withdrawal raises a red flag, indicating that their evidence could be critical. It is therefore incongruous that the report refers not to the known, barbarous Palestinian punishment of dissidents, but to unjustified fears that Israel may penalize witnesses; despite the well-known freedom of activists and the media to severely and even viciously criticize the Israel government, in marked contrast to the situation in Gaza. The Mission also ignored video presentations it received in which Palestinians who had fled from Hamas described the abuse of hospitals and ambulances.

In these circumstances, the Mission was remiss in failing to exert every effort to obtain, by all possible means, evidence from reluctant witnesses, including offers of anonymity and protection. Such witnesses can still be readily traced from the abundance of textual and visual evidence available on the Internet.

Human shields

While the report goes into great detail about allegations that Israeli forces coerced Palestinian civilians to take part in house searches and concluded that this practice amounts to the use of human shields, the fact-finding mission was evidently very selective in the facts it chose to emphasize and those it chose to ignore. For example, it played down evidence of the use by Palestinians of their own civilians as human shields.

The Mission was either ignorant of, or chose to ignore widely disseminated information about the common practice of using human shields by Palestinians that have been reported in mainstream media since about 2000. One example of many is a BBC report of November 19, 2006 describing how the Israeli army often orders people out of homes ahead of attacks to avoid casualties and told about the call by the Popular Resistance Committee urging people to rush into the threatened houses and make human shields. It further reported the case of one threatened house that had been shielded in this way and that an Israeli military spokesman confirmed to Reuters news agency that the raid had been called off because of the Palestinian action. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6162494.htm

Many similar reports that have been published over the years documenting the common practice of using human shields by the Palestinians were negligently or deliberately ignored. Yet, in paragraph 475, the report only briefly concedes that the Mission is aware of a public statement by Mr. Fathi Hammad, a Hamas member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, that had been brought to its notice and "which is adduced as evidence of Hamas' use of human shields." Although Mr. Hammad's precise words can be heard and read in translation in the video, the Mission's document states, "Mr. Hammad reportedly [the emphasis is mine] stated that the Palestinian people has developed its [methods] of death seeking. For the Palestinian people, death became an industry, at which women excel and so do all people on this land: the elderly excel, the mujahideen excel and the children excel. Accordingly [Hamas] created a human shield of women, children, the elderly and the mujahideen against the Zionist bombing machine.

The Mission did not consider it important enough to call on Mr. Hammad for clarification. Instead, in the face of this blatant admission that Hamas uses human shields, the Mission acts as defending counsel for Hamas. In the next paragraph the Report states, "Although the Mission finds this statement morally repugnant, it does not consider it to constitute evidence that Hamas forced Palestinian civilians to shield military objectives against attack." No reason is given for this remarkable conclusion other than, "The Government of Israel has not identified any such cases."

Paragraph 481 goes further to conceal Palestinian use of human shields. It states: ". . . While reports reviewed by the Mission credibly indicate that members of Palestinian armed groups were not always dressed in a way that distinguished them from civilians, the Mission found no evidence that Palestinian combatants mingled with the civilian population with the intention of shielding themselves from attack."

See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rx-CW3UKoIg&feature=related and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLFAJK5LtwY.

Dehumanization

During an interview on Al Jazeera TV, Judge Goldstone emphasized that dehumanization of the other is the primary factor in the commission of horrific acts like genocide. However, the report refers to dehumanization of Palestinians only. It states, for example, ". . . graffiti left on the walls in Gaza, the obscenities and often racist slogans all constituted an overall image of humiliation and dehumanization of the Palestinian population."

Not a single word is mentioned about the daily incitement against infidels, Jews, and Israel that continues unabated in PA mosques and schools, contrary to the Oslo agreements and the 2003 Roadmap. In the At Al Omari mosque, the imam refers to Jews as "the brothers of apes and pigs."

In a video presentation received, but ignored by the Mission, a three-year-old is taught that Jews are the sons of pigs and apes and a school class is taught to strive for martyrdom by killing as many Jews as possible.

The Mission also totally ignored a PA TV broadcast of a recent event during which the October 2000 murder and savage mutilation of two Israeli reservists by a frenzied mob of Palestinians was celebrated and lauded as an example of national pride and duty. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEqeKdjJto0.

The cycle of violence, of which pundits speak glibly, is inaccurate. The cycle is not Palestinian attacks and Israeli responses. The missing element is the INCITEMENT, which unavoidably leads to the initial violence and which must be eliminated if any peaceful solution is to be contemplated.

The above are but a few examples of serious defects that need to be corrected in the report before it can be treated seriously by the public or the HRC.