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I thought that The New York Times was about to be told off properly, even if a bit late. Mirit Cohen, spokesperson for Israel’s Permanent Mission to the UN, wrote in to protest the way the Times covered the Goldstone report on Gaza. But she stops short of defending her country. You can read her letter, as published November 6 in the Philadelphia Bulletin or if that link is gone, try my page where I’ve reposted it.
The start is promising. Cohen points out that the Times keeps referring to “evidence” of Israeli war crimes as if the existence and reliability of the evidence were not in question. She quotes the Times three times, then by contrast she quotes Reuters which refers more accurately to “allegations of possible war crimes,” and she concludes that the Times readers “will falsely assume that the Goldstone Report found conclusive evidence of Israeli war crimes.” So far so good.
“I wish to reiterate Israel’s position,” she continues, “that the Goldstone Report is deeply flawed and one-sided as —”
As what? The argument seems to be building toward an obvious counterclaim: as the evidence is weak or nonexistent! As the words of coerced and mendacious bystanders are treated like indisputable truth! As there were no war crimes!
But instead, Cohen retreats into an irrelevant tangent, complaining that the report “is deeply flawed and one-sided as it offers legitimacy to Hamas terrorism and its deliberate strategy to launch attacks, store weapons and use as shields the civilian population and infrastructure of Gaza. At the same time, the report’s mandate predetermined its findings that wrongly condemned Israel’s legitimate exercise of its right to self-defense.”
In other words, Cohen asserts that the report ignores the crimes of Hamas. So what? If Hamas doesn’t get the criticism it deserves, does that mean Israel is innocent? As a matter of fact, what’s so bad about launching attacks and storing weapons if you believe your cause is just and your other options are exhausted? By the time Cohen reaches the issue of using civilians as shields, she seems to be fleeing wildly from the expectation that she will confront the report’s charges against Israel. She could explain what using the civilian population as shields means, and how it calls into question the purported Israeli war crimes, but she doesn’t bother to. Instead she points out that the findings were “predetermined” — not that they were wrong, but that they jumped the gun — and, as an afterthought, she contends that Israel’s legitimate self-defense was condemned but she cites no specifics on either side.
Why didn’t Cohen write a forthright denial? Maybe she is afraid that here and there a soldier will be found to have indeed deliberately targeted a civilian. But the report can still be refuted without claiming that Israel fields an impeccable army. It is enough that the Israeli army, as an army, demonstrably attempts to minimize civilian casualties and that whereas a Hamasnik who kills Israeli civilians receives praise from his superiors, those few Israeli soldiers who intentionally harm civilians are court-martialed.
Maybe Cohen simply does not know her audience. In Israel, any attack by a terrorist organization is understood to be unjustified; but there may be no such understanding in the world at large. And in Israel, any claim that the Israeli state is a bloodthirsty invader is understood to be absurd; but there may be no such understanding in the world at large. To the world at large, the point must be made and supported.
But the worst case scenario is that Mirit Cohen, and her higher-ups in Israel’s UN delegation, cannot do their jobs well because they would rather be working for a different Israeli government.
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