Goldstone - a Man Detached from Reality

I have tried to fathom out what drove a man like Richard Goldstone to take up the poisoned chalice of the UN Human Rights Council mission to Gaza.
I pondered how such an eminent person could lead such a blatantly biased committee. I was angered by the false conclusions of his 'fact-finding' mission, by his refusal to listen to expert and non-partisan military and legal witnesses, by his dismissal of brutal and continuous Hamas war crimes against Israeli civilian targets, his total ignorance of the Hamas slaughter of fellow-Palestinians during the Gaza conflict.
Yet, despite this and more, Goldstone insists that he performed in an even-handed manner.

I read his report. I heard his recent protestations against the growing criticism of him and his work.
My examination shows that he is a man detached from reality, both political and military, that surrounded the Gaza conflict and its subsequent consequences.

A man detached from reality is a man detached from the truth.

To highlight Goldstone's detachment from reality let's go back to the beginning.
Richard Goldstone prides himself as being the leading jurist in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in his native South Africa. While turning up evidence against the De Klerk regime he did not consider investigating the crimes committed by the ANC.
He used the same biased tactics in investigating the Gaza conflict. he refused to address the nature, actions, charter, and violent history of Hamas. He respectfully addresses them as 'the Gazan Authority' thereby refuting the internationally accepted claim that Hamas is recognised as a terrorist organisation.
Equating Hamas with Israel in his even-handedness portrays, yet again, that he is out of touch with reality.

He fails to list the evident crimes perpetrated by Hamas against Israeli civilians over an eight year period. In deference to his Hamas hosts in Gaza he failed to produce the evidence of how Hamas used Palestinian civilians as human shields and civilian infrastructure, including the Shifa Hospital, as their command and control centers and as part of their weapons and explosive storage. He even omits the Hamas slaughter of fellow-Palestinians during the Gaza fighting.

Ignoring these crimes, Mr. Goldstone, does not mean they did not occur.
Ignoring these crimes, Mr. Goldstone, shows your lack of even-handedness.
Ignoring these crimes, Mr. Goldstone, is a deliberate dereliction of your duties.
Ignoring these crimes, Mr. Goldstone, displays your detachment from reality and the truth.
Based on this alone, your findings are flawed and biased.

But let us go deeper. Let us go back to the origins of your iniquitous mission.

Richard Goldstone likes to tell the world that his instructions were to carry our a fact-finding mission to investigate potential misdemeanours on both sides or the conflict.
This is clearly incorrect.

His mandate clearly states that it was 'an urgent fact-finding mission to investigate all violations of international human rights law by the occupying power, Israel, against the Palestinian people throughout the Occupied Palestinian territory, particularly in the occupied Gaza Strip, due to the current aggression.'

Note the language. This mandate prejudges everything in a blatantly biased fashion. It prejudges only one side as the aggressor. It failed to instruct the panel to investigate any Hamas or Palestinian crimes.

Either Goldstone is lying, or he is out of touch with reality, when he claims to have received an even-handed brief.

Professor Chinkin rejected Israel's claim that it acted in self defence. She then disqualified herself from the panel when she publicly accused Israel of war crimes while the conflict was raging and before the outset of the mission.
Goldstone should have demanded her dismissal. He did not., thereby approving and heading a biased committee that was ready to prejudge Israel according to their official brief.

Leading figures such as Mary Robinson and fellow South African, Desmond Tutu, both refused to head this committee in the certain knowledge that it was a biased and political mission.
Goldstone proved he was our of touch with reality by not appreciating this vital point and by accepting the chairmanship.

Goldstone showed no understanding or appreciation of the events that forced Israel to take the actions it did in self defence.
His mandate was deliberately timed to avoid confronting uncomfortable issues like eight years of Hamas rocket and mortar fire against Israeli civilian targets.

Goldstone blames Israel for not opening up to his prejudged mission. He now accuses Israel of being guilty for the biased text of his report by not cooperating with him and his fellow members.
Yet he had applications from numerous organisations, individuals, witnesses, and experts, all anxious to plead on behalf of Israel. They were either turned down or ignored by Goldstone.

Goldstone saw many destroyed or damaged buildings in Gaza. That, for Goldstone, was sufficient to accuse Israel of 'deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure and causing collective punishment'.

Goldstone did not investigate if these buildings were in the heartland of Islamic terror. He did not question if prolonged and intensive fighting had taken place there. He did not reason that many buildings had contained Hamas or Islamic Jihad armed fighters, weapons, explosives, or had been booby trapped. His lack of military expertise did not prevent him from accusing Israel of war crimes simply based on his vision of structural damage.
For Goldstone, damaged buildings equals war crimes.

His 'fact-finding' mission heard heresay that was written as evidential proof of war crimes. One family were reported to be farmers when members of this family were poster boys for Izz a-Din al-Qaddam Martyrs Brigade and armed terrorists.

His witnesses gave their evidence with the Hamas minders breathing down their necks. Yet Goldstone found no defect in this method of collecting evidence.

The Goldstone Report demands that both sides must submit to an independent enquiry and report back to the United Nations within six months or face potential prosecution at the International Criminal Court at The Hague.
Goldstone knows that non-state actors, such as Hamas, can be guilty of serious crimes against human rights and clearly defined war crimes yet receive a free pass. They cannot be brought to justice according to United Nations definition. Only Israel can be dragged to the dock.
In a previous article I have written about the Nazi-style legal system employed by the United Nations.
Here we have it in all its disgusting glory.

How much further proof do we need to show that Richard Goldstone acted outside the norms of reality? We are now in an unreal Kafka-type existence where the victims will be put on trial by the murderous dictators and terrorists.

Richard Goldstone cannot see how adversely he has affected the Middle East peace process. The 'moderate' Mahmoud Abbas and his Fattah party is under pressure from a rampant Hamas who see the Goldstone Report, backed by all their majority supporters in the United Nations General Assembly, as part of their ongoing war against the Jewish state who they see as an abomination.

As mentioned earlier, Goldstone's lack of reality failed to see that his report would turn into a political and legal weapon against Israel by the Human Rights Council of which he was a head.
He recently said that he was 'saddened' by the fact that Hamas crimes were not addressed in the continuing attack against Israel.

He really did not want it to end this way, but it is, Mr. Goldstone, and it is all because you are out of touch with the reality of our vicious world.

It is us, in Israel, that must pay the price for your detachment from reality and your blindness to the truth.