At a number of points in the controversy over his report, Judge Goldstone has referred to the fact that his Mission selected 36 “representative” incidents to investigate. Here he explains to Bill Moyers:
We chose those 36 because they seemed to be, to represent the most serious, the highest death toll, the highest injury toll. And they appear to represent situations where there was little or no military justification for what happened.
While Goldstone never made the list public, here is, as close as possible, a list of the incidents that the Goldstone Report discussed in some detail, which only come out to a somewhat vague 32. The only two that examine behavior unbecoming of the Palestinians are Gilad Shalit (6 paragraphs) and Palestinian attacks on Fatah supporters (25 paragraphs). The Qassams are condemned, but not investigated, and Hamas is never named as a culprit in the “war crime and possibly crime against humanity that these rocket attacks constitute.”
In other words, the principle incidents — those chosen, and those upon which the Report lavished their attention and their ink — are exclusively about alleged Israeli attacks on Palestinian victims.
List of 32 Incidents in Goldstone Report (compiled by Anne Herzberg, NGO Monitor)
1. The Israeli air strikes on the Gaza main prison and on the Palestinian Legislative Council building (paras 336-373)
2. Arafat City Police HQ (398-402)
3. Attacks on 5 police stations (403-407)
4. UNWRA Compound Gaza City (paras. 543-595)
5. Al-Quds hospital, Tal el-Hawa, Gaza City (paras.596-629)
6. Attacks on al-Wafa hospital, 5 and 16 January 2009 (paras. 630-652)
7. The shelling in al-Fakhura Street by Israeli armed forces (paras. 653-54)
8. Al-Samouni (paras. 706-35) (yet this involves 3 specific incidents)
9. The shooting of Iyad al-Samouni (paras. 736-744)
10. The death of Muhammad Hajji in the attack on his family’s house
11. and the shooting of Shahd Hajji and Ola Masood Arafat (paras.745-754)
12. The shooting of Ibrahim Juha (paras.755-763)
13. The killing of Majda and Rayya Hajaj (paras. 764-769)
14. The shooting of Amal, Souad, Samar and Hajja Souad Abd Rabbo (paras.770-779)
15. The shooting of Rouhiyah al-Najjar (paras.780-787)
16. The Abu Halima family case (paras.788-801)
17. The attack on the al-Maqadmah mosque, 3 January 2009 (paras. 822-43)
18. The attack on the al-Daya family house, 6 January 2009 (paras. 844-866)
19. Attack on the Abd al-Dayem condolence tents (paras. 867-885)
20. The destruction of el-Bader flour mill (paras.913-941)
21. The destruction of the Sawafeary chicken farms (paras.942-961)
22. The Gaza wastewater treatment plant, Road No. 10, al-Sheikh Ejlin, Gaza (paras. 962-974)
23. Namar wells group, Salah ad-Din Street, Jabaliyah refugee camp (paras. 975-989)
24. The destruction of housing (houses of Saleh Hajaj, of Wa’el al-Samouni, of Khalid Abd Rabbo and of Muhammad Fouad Abu Askar [–are these all one incident or four?] (paras. 990-1007)
25. The case of Majdi Abd Rabbo (paras. 1033-1063)
26. The case of Abbas Ahmad Ibrahim Halawa (paras. 1064-1075)
27. The case of Mahmoud Abd Rabbo al-Ajrami (paras. 1076-1085)
28. The case of AD/03 (paras. 1086-1088, 1143-63)
29. Al-Atatra sandpits (paras 1112-26)
30. Detention and abuse of AD/02 (paras 1127-42)
31. Gilad Shalit (paras.1336-1342) [6 paragraphs]
32. Several cases of Hamas killings of Fatah members [though none are mentioned by name and the specificity does not approach other incidents – are these part of the 36? No idea.) (paras 1343-1368).
33? Various incidents in the West Bank?
34? No specific incidents of rocket attacks are detailed.
35? Repression of Dissent chapter lists several incidents.
What’s missing here, of course, is any investigation into the extensive evidence that Hamas used the civilian population as a shield, that they deliberately fired from the midst of civilian neighborhoods in order to provoke attacks, that they dressed as civilians, commandeered ambulances, stole food supplied by Israel to the Gazan population… in short that they did everything they could to maximize their own civilians’ casualties.
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