U.S. House Passes Anti-Goldstone Resolution on Gaza Report

The Goldstone report on Israel’s war last winter in the Gaza Strip is in the news tonight, as the U.S. House of Representatives just approved a nonbinding resolution condemning the report, by a vote of 344 to 36, with 22 members voting “present.” The resolution was co-sponsored by Reps. Howard Berman (D-CA) and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) and heavily lobbied for and supported by AIPAC, other organizations representing the politically conservative wing of the American Jewish community, and lobbyists for the right-wing government of Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu.

Judge Goldstone wrote a letter giving a point-by-point rebuttal trying to persuade the legislators to change their resolution; only small changes were made in a war of words that flew around Washington (and, behind the scenes, Tel Aviv) this week. Rep. Berman and Rep. Gary Ackerman, who heads the influential Foreign Affairs subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia, fired back at Goldstone, and the Anti-Defamation League got involved.

What’s interesting about today’s fracas was not the House vote – which was expected – but the fact that two liberal, pro-peace-process groups, Americans for Peace Now and J Street, broke away from the conservative Jewish organizations and put their two cents into the debate. Both organizations called for both the Israelis and Palestinians to launch their own investigations into the Gaza conflict. Neither of the liberal organizations opposed the Berman resolution, but Americans for Peace Now said it had “serious reservations” about it.

All this saber-rattling today was partly intended to send a message to the United Nations General Assembly, which is taking up the Goldstone report tomorrow and is expected to approve it, with U.S. opposition. The report was endorsed by the U.N. Human Rights Council, historically an anti-Israel group.

Seventeen human rights organizations, led by Human Rights Watch, have urged the U.N. General Assembly to adopt the Goldstone report, saying it’s an opportunity to “send a clear message to Israeli and Palestinian leaders – indeed to leaders and supporters of states and movements the world over – that civilians, regardless of nationality, religious, or ethnic background, are not legitimate targets of attack.”

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