Law professor clashes with Goldstone Report

NYU's Taub Center for Israel Studies held a lecture called "The Goldstone Report: Armed Conflict and the Duty to Investigate" at the Silver Center's Hemmerdinger Hall last night.

David Kretzmer, a post-doctoral fellow at the NYU School of Law and a former member of the United Nations Human Rights Committee, spoke about what he thinks are problems with both the Goldstone Report and investigations of armed conflict in general.

The Goldstone Report, the UN's recently published investigation, charged Israel and Palestine with war crimes during their 22-day conflict in Gaza last December and January. Both the Israeli government and the US House of Representatives have denounced the report as biased against Israel.

Kretzmer made his position about the report clear: "Let me state from the start that I don't agree with the report." He said he thinks the report is flawed because it confused fact finding with political analysis, consistently gave Hamas the benefit of the doubt and made statements that were not factually accurate.

Kretzmer said Israel should conduct its own investigation about what happened in Gaza, and that it would be "for the good of the health of Israelis if the government ordered an investigation right now."

Taub Center Director Ronald Zweig, who organized the event, said he hoped the attendees gained "an insight into how lawyers of human rights interpret political events and an understanding of how human rights law can make the world a better place for all of us."

Sinan AbuShanab, a CAS foreign exchange student from Palestine, said he attended the event because he wanted to hear Kretzmer's thoughts on the Goldstone Report.

"I am one of those who is exposed to the [Israeli] army every day," AbuShanab said. "I don't feel like they are moral to me."

Despite Kretzmer's view that the Goldstone Report was inaccurate, AbuShanab said he thought the lecture provided a valid perspective.

"I thought it really gave an inside look because he obviously had a good knowledge of the Goldstone Report," he said. "I didn't feel like he was attacking the report."