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| April 6, 2011 |
| The Wire |
HRW Director defends Goldstone Report, speaks to Just Journalism Tues. 5 Apr. 2011 @ 15.25 - Human Rights Watch Director insists the Goldstone Report is still valid, even in light of partial retraction of key accusation. In an op-ed published in today's Guardian, Kenneth Roth defends the Goldstone Report, claiming that despite a retraction of the accusation that Israel deliberately killed civilians, Israel nonetheless committed war crimes in other respects. In 'Gaza: the stain remains on Israel's war record' Roth asserts:
Interestingly, he flatly contradicts Richard Goldstone's interpretation of the UN's latest finding that:
He instead refers to Israel's, 'refusal to date to conduct credible investigations into the serious violations of the laws of war that it committed in Gaza.' |
| Op-eds and Features |
VIEWPOINT: Guardian verdict on Goldstone retraction Just Journalism's Editorial Manager Carmel Gould discusses The Guardian's editorial response to Goldstone's retraction on Israel's use of force in Gaza 2008-9. Five days after Richard Goldstone's extraordinary about-face on the report he authored, which condemned Israel of the most serious crimes against the Palestinians in Gaza 2008-9, The Guardian has found its feet and decided its editorial line. The general conclusion, expressed in 'Goldstone report: the unanswered questions', is unsurprisingly that the retraction matters not much for there is plenty else in the report to incriminate Israel. The theme is now '[i]ndiscriminate warfare, as opposed to deliberate killing', so it might be best to focus our attention in that direction. It is interesting to note that he is no longer 'Justice' Richard Goldstone as he was when he delivered the guilty verdict back in 2009. He's just 'Richard Goldstone' now or 'Mr Goldstone' if he's lucky. His word was sacred when it was expressed in ways such as:
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| Media Analysis |
Silence from Independent regarding Goldstone retreat Three days after the publication of the Washington Post op-ed by Richard Goldstone, retracting the accusation that Israel killed civilians deliberately, still nothing from The Independent. So far The Independent is the only broadsheet not to have published anything by its journalists or outside commentators about Richard Goldstone's claim at the weekend that Israeli and UN evidence 'indicate[s] that civilians were not intentionally targeted as a matter of policy.' So far only a small 130 word piece by the Associated Press appears on its website. The publication has been one of the UK media's harshest critics of Israel's conduct in Gaza in the 2008-9 conflict. However, it remains tight-lipped about the author of the Goldstone Report's retraction, which has received at least some coverage in the British media and caused something of a storm in Israel. Interestingly, one example given by Goldstone in the Washington Post of his 2009 report getting it wrong is an incident in which more than 20 Palestinian civilians were killed by IDF fire and which The Independent devoted a huge amount of space to last year. |
| The Wire |
Freedland contradicts Guardian editorial; emphasises over-concentration on Israel Wed. 6 Apr. 2011 @ 14.00 - Guardian senior columnist Jonathan Freedland writes on impact of Richard Goldstone's recent comments, contradicting line taken in today's editorial. He also discusses media and cultural bias against Israel, especially in context of Arab Spring. Writing today in The Guardian, senior columnist Jonathan Freedland seeks to emphasise the importance of Richard Goldstone's recent retraction of a key finding of his 2009 report. In, 'Where's the Goldstone report into Sri Lanka, Congo, Darfur - or Britain?', Freedland outlines Goldstone's recently published assertion that Israel did not intentionally target civilians as a matter of policy during the 2008-9 Gaza war. The columnist goes on to assert that the importance of this retraction 'can hardly be exaggerated' since the accusation 'had been received as the most damning indictment possible, an international mark of Cain on Israel's forehead.' In contrast to this, The Guardian features an editorial, also appearing in today's paper, in which the importance of Goldstone's retraction is downplayed. This editorial, which has been commented upon by Just Journalism, argues that, 'The report did not in fact claim that Israel set out deliberately to murder civilians' and prefers to shift the focus to other perceived crimes committed by the Israelis during the conflict. |
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