Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: sostiene l'Economist

L'Economist e' una testata che ha da queste parti molti attenti
lettori. Ma la critica al rapporto Goldstone ("deeply flawed") sembra
essere loro sfuggita.
Chiamiamola attenzione selettiva, vah.
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14455609
Opportunity missed
Sep 17th 2009
From The Economist print edition
A UN report on the fighting in Gaza is deeply flawed. But that should
not stop Israel holding itself and its soldiers to the highest
standards
TWO questions face countries that have gone to war. Was the cause
just? And, where possible, did the troops do their utmost to spare
civilians? It was over the second of those questions that Israel found
itself under a cloud on September 15th, when a United Nations mission
accused it of having deliberately committed war crimes during its
three-week attack on Gaza that ended in January. Yet this week’s
report was deeply flawed. In a conflict where missed opportunities are
as common as Qassam rockets, the risk is that both sides will now
conclude the wrong thing: Arabs that Israel has just been found
guilty; and Israel that it will never get a fair hearing in a hostile
world.
From the very start, this report had to overcome the taint of
prejudice. It was mandated by the UN Human Rights Council, an anti-
Israeli outfit notorious for having congratulated Sri Lanka’s
government on brutal conduct that led to appalling loss of life among
Tamil civilians. Israel refused co-operation. But the mission was
headed by a respected international jurist, Richard Goldstone. A Jew
himself, Mr Goldstone insisted on scrutinising the conduct of Hamas as
well as Israel. There was hope that he might wrestle the inquiry into
balance.
Yet the report takes the very thing it is investigating as its central
organising premise. Israeli policy in Gaza, it argues, was
deliberately and systematically to inflict suffering on civilians,
rather than Hamas fighters (see article). Israel’s assertions that, in
the difficult circumstances of densely populated Gaza, it planned its
military operations carefully and with constant legal advice are taken
by the report as evidence not of a concern to uphold international law
but of a culpable determination to flout it. Israel’s attempts to drop
warning leaflets, direct civilians out of danger zones and call daily
humanitarian pauses may well have been inadequate, but the report
counts them for nought. As many as 1,400 people died in the fighting.
It is a grisly thought, but if Israel really had wanted to make
Palestinian civilians suffer, the toll could have been vastly higher.
Israel has argued that Hamas fighters endangered civilians by basing
themselves around schools, mosques and hospitals. The mission had
Hamas’s co-operation, but its fact-finders could detect little or no
evidence for this—despite plenty of reports in the public domain to
support it. The report does criticise Hamas for firing rockets
indiscriminately into Israel and for using the conflict as cover to
settle scores with its Palestinian rivals. But its seemingly wilful
blindness to other evidence makes that look like a dash for political
cover.
To some, Israel’s Gaza war will always be in principle unjust: a
disproportionate response to Hamas’s rockets. Indeed, the suffering in
Gaza, from war and the economic blockade, has been grievous. They may
be tempted to applaud Mr Goldstone’s report for that reason alone. Yet
if the mere fact of Israel’s attack were enough to condemn it then Mr
Goldstone’s report was pointless all along. And there is a danger of
double standards. American and European forces in Iraq, Afghanistan
and Kosovo also caused thousands of civilian deaths, without
attracting a Goldstone.
Eyeless in Gaza
The pity is that the report frustrates the objective that Israel
should be striving for: to hold its politicians and soldiers to the
highest standards of Israeli and international law. After its costly
war in Lebanon in 2006, Israel plainly chose to minimise its own
casualties by using massive firepower in Gaza. It went too far. There
have been credible allegations that individual soldiers broke rules
banning the use of Palestinian civilians as human shields sent first
into properties where fighters may be holed up; that civilians known
not to pose any military threat were killed in cold blood and that
Israeli forces used white phosphorous over built-up areas. Israel is
pursuing 23 criminal investigations so far into the Gaza operations.
It must finish the job. Unlike Syria, say, Israel is a democracy that
claims to live by the rule of law. It needs to make its case by moral
force as well as by force of arms.
The UN report has not come at a good moment. Barack Obama is trying to
restart direct talks between the Palestinian Authority and Israel. The
peace process was never going to be easy. With its thimbleful of
poison, the Goldstone report has made the job all the harder.

 lettori.
Ma non era una rivista di pericolosi comunisti?
PP

 From The Economist print edition
Raccomando la lettura. Per una volta il giudizio dell'Economist coincide 
perfettamente col mio, a cominciare dalla assoluta mancanza di 
credibilità del risibile organo definito "commissione diritti umani 
dell'ONU" nel parlare di qualunque cosa abbia relazione con i diritti 
umani (in generale) e Israele (in particolare).
Per la cronava, un'altra cosa che sembra essere sfuggita ai lettori 
ipiani dell'Economist in questi giorni sono le pesantissime bordate che 
stanno tirando contro Obama, fino a chiedersi dove sia stato l'errore 
nel sostenerlo.
Tb (bieco illuminista)
-- 
"A vote is like a rifle, it's usefulness depends upon the character of
the user."
~ Theodore Roosevelt

 A me questo basta,
gli altri leggono di piu'. Diciamo che hanno tempi di resistenza piu'
lunghi.

 Auguri all'IDF, forza etica.
quoto convintamente
-- 
Tb (bieco illuminista)

 Non ne potevamo dubitare. Solo per loro lo fai gratis.
Quoto gratis quasi tutto quello che mi sembra ragionevole.
Ad esempio, se leggessi che i bombardamenti afghani e pakistani erano (e
talvolta sono) una cosa etica o anche solo utile, non lo quoterei, pur
con tutta l'approvazione del mondo per le ragioni della missione.
-- 
Tb (bieco illuminista)

 Evidentemente certe regole nel MO non contano, 
Non c'è alcun dubbio che l'Idf abbia regole di impiego della forza molto
più strette di quelle delle forze Nato. Come non esiste alcun dubbio che
l'IDF sia impiegata in modo chiaramente difensivo del proprio
territorio.
Cosa più difficile da sostenere quando un europeo calpesta il suolo
afghano o pakistano, nella pause di bombardamenti aerei che sarebbe
abbastanza difficile definire selettivi.
E che, ahimè, ammazzano bambini.
-- 
Tb (bieco illuminista)

 bambini.
Cosa vuoi dire?
PP

 Senza vergogna siamo in Afghanistan
Figurati allora se qualcuno dovrebbe vergognarsi dell'IDF un esercito
che, invece, combatte per difendere il suo territorio e che alla forza
di spedizione afghana avrebbe da insegnare tutto, nell'etica del
combattimento, nella selettività dell'uso della forza. E nella capacita
di scegliere obiettivi limitati e raggiungibili, che poi vengono
raggiunti, evitando campagne militari infinite e inutili, che ingoiano
sangue militare e civile, senza arrivare a niente.
-- 
Tb (bieco illuminista)

 dell'IDF che se ne difende, ma lo fa.
Allora avevo capito bene. Sei una merdina.
PP


Preoccupante involuzione.
-- 
Tb (bieco illuminista)

 un liberale connivente con fascisti e torturatori, noh?
Noh. A meno che tu lo provi, prego.
PP

 Si vede che tu le consideri superflue.
Questa e' una dimostrazione che io sarei connivente con fascisti e
torturatori? LOL
PP

 torturatori? LOL
E' completamente partito.

 ROTFL, 
CVD, una merdina.
-- 
Tb (bieco illuminista)

 Vergognati. 
Prova col canarone, talvolta aiuta.
-- 
Tb (bieco illuminista)

 Am.
#_Quoto!