On wednesday I took part in a meeting with Israeli and Palestinian human rights organisations who came to the European Parliament to discuss the follow up to the Goldstone report on human rights violations during the Israeli military assault on Gaza.
It has been more than a year now since the attack on Gaza by Israel, and the Israeli government have so far failed to establish an independent investigation on human rights violations as recommended by the Goldstone report. The military themselves have undertaken limited internal operational debriefings aimed at assessing the achievement of military objectives. If during such debriefings they find that there are grounds for criminal investigation, the matter is referred to the military police and eventually to the military attorney general.
As the Israeli NGOs point out, major problems arise from this practice. The first is that the military institutions are investigating and adjudicating their own actions. Consequently, any decisions emanating from the top brass that may have resulted in human rights violations will remain free from scrutiny, as they fall beyond the scope of the inquiries being carried out. The cases under investigation relate to instances of disobedience to orders, the orders themselves are not being put in question or scrutinised by this process, nor is the policy handed down by the Minister for Defence on which the orders are based.
So far, around 150 ‘debriefings’ were initiated, of which 36 were referred to the military police for criminal investigation. Only one such case has resulted from the war on Gaza. A soldier has been charged and convicted by the military authorities for the stealing of a credit card. Two senior officers have also been reprimanded. These procedures are, not of course, carried out in public.
One of the most revealing points made by one of the lawyers with the NGOs referred to the declaration in 2007 that Gaza is an ‘Enemy Entity’. This, she pointed out, is claimed by the Israeli legal authorities as enabling them to treat all the people living in Gaza as combatants, and therefore legitimate targets. The lawyer pointed out, however, that International law does not support this Israeli contention. But it does help explain the total war launched against the people of Gaza last year.
Equally, the abuses committed by Hamas have to be accounted for. Both Hamas authorities in Gaza and the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah have announced that they will initiate investigations. These too must be independent and transparent if they are to be credible.
When the UN endorsed the Goldstone report in November last year, it called on the parties involved to undertake "independent, credible investigations" within three months. Today the UN considered the submissions by both parties so far incomplete. Europe, including the European Parliament must respond vigorously on behalf of the people of Gaza to ensure the truth comes out and those responsible for the death of innocent civilians and deliberate destruction of civil infrastructure are tried in open court.