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Neither Facts Nor Law Support Israel’S Self-Defense Claim Regarding Its 2014 Assault On Gaza, James M. Leas

James M Leas

When the prosecutor of the International Court of Justice announced in January 2015 that she would open “a preliminary examination of the situation in Palestine,” Israeli officials launched “a public diplomacy campaign” to discredit the court. Israeli officials rested their multi-pronged attack on the court on the claim that it acted in self-defense against Hamas rockets. However, neither facts nor law supports the Israeli claim that it was acting to protect its citizens. Contemporaneous reports from authoritative Israeli sources show that Israeli forces launched lethal attacks on the West Bank and Gaza before Hamas launched its first rockets to end …

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Goldstone Reconsidered, Richard D. Rosen

Richard D. Rosen

Following the 2008-2009 Israeli-Hamas war, the Human Rights Council dispatched a fact-finding mission headed by South African Jurist Richard Goldstone to investigate the hostilities. In September 2009, the mission issued its findings in a nearly 500-page report containing a variety of complaints against Israel, the most explosive of which was that Israel, as a matter of state policy, intended to kill Palestinian civilians and destroy their property. A year and a half later, Justice Goldstone reconsidered the mission’s conclusion, acknowledging that Israel may not have deliberately targeted Palestinian civilians during the conflict. This paper argues that Justice Goldstone’s reconsideration of …

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