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Goldstone Didn't Hold Hamas Accountable for Terror

[Ynet News] Jonathan D. Halevi - Hamas leaders and spokesmen have embraced the Goldstone report. Ismail Haniyeh said on October 14: "We bless the committee, we gave it everything it needed to investigate, as well as documents which helped publish it in its present form." Reading the Goldstone report shows that Hamas is never accused of responsibility for terrorism and firing rockets. Rather, nebulous "Palestinian armed groups" are responsible. The Goldstone Committee viewed the Hamas de-facto administration, which took over Gaza in a military bloodbath, as legitimate in every respect and made an artificial distinction between it and "Palestinian armed groups operating in Gaza," as if such groups did not kowtow to Hamas and had spent eight years methodically launching rockets and mortar shells into Israel in opposition to Hamas policy. For that reason the Committee did not find Hamas responsible of the rocket and terrorist attacks against Israel, despite the fact that the Hamas leadership boasts of their responsibility for these attacks in videotapes on their websites. The issue of Hamas' invisible responsibility for war crimes shows that the report is a masterpiece of deception and manipulation whose only intention is to frame Israel for war crimes and exonerate Hamas. The writer is a senior researcher and fellow at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.
2009-10-21 06:00:00
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