The approval of the Security Council on debating the report by South African judge Richard Goldstone, who conducted an investigation at the request of the Human Rights Council of the United Nations on crimes in the Gaza war, are unfortunately merely a debate at the Security Council table, with no punishment or condemnation of what was done by the Israeli army and Hamas. Who is this judge who dared to publish the facts about what he saw during the international investigation, which clearly revealed the responsibility of the Israeli army and Hamas for war crimes in Gaza? Goldstone is a Jewish magistrate whose daughter has lived for more than a decade in Israel. Upon taking up his duties, he said in an article that he hesitated before accepting the task of investigations of violations of the laws of war and human rights during Israel's war on Gaza, because the issue involved a heavy political dimension. “However,” he said, “I accepted because my colleagues and I are committed to undertaking an objective investigation, and because the law of war stipulates protecting civilians as much as possible from harm.” Goldstone, who loves Israel, settled matters in his report and ended up shedding light on the responsibility of the Israeli army and some elements of Hamas for the massacres committed in Gaza. However, the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, does not accept the report, and he is blackmailing the Palestinian leadership into withdrawing it from discussion, in coordination with his ally the US. The Goldstone report is very important, like its predecessors, and Israeli investigators from the Kahane Commission to the Qana Report took part in it. There are many indications of clear violations of international law and the laws of war, but Israel has always behaved as if it is unconcerned with these violations. How long will the Jewish state continue to reject peace and the acknowledgment of the rights of the Palestinian people, whose land has been violated, and for whom a wall has been built in the name of security, to isolate the Palestinians from their cities? Judge Goldstone has headed courts to investigate massacres in Rwanda; he has established courts based on the lessons that Europe learned from the Holocaust against the Jews. The history of this judge tells us that he is a lover of Israel who has agreed to this task for this reason, because he realizes that the Israeli state cannot continue its current policy if it wants to survive. Israel casts blame on the Palestinian leadership and its president, Mahmoud Abbas, to weaken him, then says it wants to negotiate with him. Israel rejects a halt to settlements. It is creating problems, terror, hatred and fanaticism in the Middle East, due to its blind policies with regard to its fate and future. How long can this state continue to be surrounded by a Middle East infused with hatred and anger against it, because of the way it treats the Palestinian people? The peace process is stumbling because of an Israeli government that continues to reject the establishment of a Palestinian state on its borders. However, its problem is that it cannot exterminate the Palestinian people from lands it has occupied. What will it do when this Palestinian people becomes a majority on the land Israel has taken by force and by violating laws? It is currently Judaizing Jerusalem and changing aspects of the city that is holy to three great religions, and preventing people from entering to pray at the Al-Aqsa mosque. It does not mind rejecting permission to the head of an important European state, former French President Jacques Chirac, to head to Old Jerusalem. It allows itself to give orders to its army to chase him, and the prime minister at the time was Benjamin Netanyahu. Nothing has changed; the current French president, Nicholas Sarkozy, is a personal friend of Netanyahu, but the Jewish state rejects all of his advice. The result of this Israeli policy is that the west will remain an ineffective observer of Israeli violations, as long as it rejects punishing the policy. However, Israel is not subject to sanctions, or even the condemnation of objective judges like Goldstone. How long will it remain above the law?
