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Goldstone "Reconsiders"

It appears that Goldstone himself has partially withdrawn support for the conclusion that Israel engaged in war crimes.

Quotes :

  • Although the Israeli evidence that has emerged since publication of our report doesn’t negate the tragic loss of civilian life, I regret that our fact-finding mission did not have such evidence explaining the circumstances in which we said civilians in Gaza were targeted, because it probably would have influenced our findings about intentionality and war crimes.
  • We made our recommendations based on the record before us, which unfortunately did not include any evidence provided by the Israeli government. Indeed, our main recommendation was for each party to investigate, transparently and in good faith, the incidents referred to in our report. McGowan Davis has found that Israel has done this to a significant degree; Hamas has done nothing.
  • The Palestinian Authority established an independent inquiry into our allegations of human rights abuses — assassinations, torture and illegal detentions — perpetrated by Fatah in the West Bank, especially against members of Hamas. Most of those allegations were confirmed by this inquiry. Regrettably, there has been no effort by Hamas in Gaza to investigate the allegations of its war crimes and possible crimes against humanity.
  • The purpose of the Goldstone Report was never to prove a foregone conclusion against Israel. I insisted on changing the original mandate adopted by the Human Rights Council, which was skewed against Israel. I have always been clear that Israel, like any other sovereign nation, has the right and obligation to defend itself and its citizens against attacks from abroad and within. Something that has not been recognized often enough is the fact that our report marked the first time illegal acts of terrorism from Hamas were being investigated and condemned by the United Nations. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.176.122.34 (talk) 13:04, 2 April 2011 (UTC)
The money quote is "If I had known then what I know now, the Goldstone Report would have been a different document".
His reconsidering should have a prominent place in the lead. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 13:31, 2 April 2011 (UTC)
I agree that this should be mentioned in the lead (as of this writing it is mentioned there). The article could present the various charges somehow in connection to Goldstone's statement to convey which one was being retracted and which ones are left in place. --Dailycare (talk) 14:48, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

If his reconsidering has a prominent place in the head then the views of the other authors of the report should be there as well.They disagree with Goldstones reappraisal. Their views are buried at the bottom of the article. Surely it would be a fairer article if their view was next to his view in the lead.As I see it now it is clearly more pro Israeli than neutral Owain the 1st (talk) 17:19, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

owain - could you be more specific about what makes it more pro-israel? looks pretty fair to me, but maybe i would get rid of the last sentence about hamas? Soosim (talk) 17:40, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

How can it be fair when the opposing view is not there?Obviously it is more pro Israeli as they are jumping around at what has happened and are ignoring that 2 of the other authors of the report stand by it. This place is supposed to be neutral, so therefore including the thoughts of the other authors in the lead is essential. At the moment their views are buried at the very bottom of the article.Owain the 1st (talk) 18:24, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

I believe that what has been posted at the bottom of this article or something similar, namely this.

Two of the other four members who wrote the report (along with Richard Goldstone) have repudiated Richard Goldstone's recent statements deviating from the original report the four wrote. Hina Jilani, one of the four writers of the "Goldstone Report", noted when asked if the report should allegedly be changed: ""Absolutely not; no process or acceptable procedure would invalidate the UN Report; if it does happen, it would be seen as a 'suspect move'." Also another of the four co-writer's (along with Richard Goldstone) Irish international criminal investigations expert Desmond Travers noted: " 'the tenor of the report in its entirety, in my opinion, stands,' Travers said."

Should be included in the lead as it gives the opposing view to Goldstones conclusions by two other authors of the report who frankly disagree with him. Owain the 1st (talk) 18:46, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Technical comment: Owain, you might be interested in reading the WP:LEAD guideline, which explains how lead sections should be written. Basically, only the most important points worth inclusion, where "importance" is defined by coverage in reliable sources. --ElComandanteChe (talk) 22:39, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

So it is important that Goldstone has changed his mind but it is unimportant that the other authors of the report do not agree with him?OG 22:42, 5 April 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Owain the 1st (talk • contribs)

Everything that receives significant coverage by reliable sources is important. --ElComandanteChe (talk) 00:03, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

It has been covered by the Guardian and I consider that a reliable source.It is also in the New York Times,Owain the 1st (talk) 00:31, 6 April 2011 (UTC) So I see no reason it cannot go in the lead.

maybe something like this: On April 1, 2011, Goldstone retracted his claims that it was Israeli government policy to deliberately target citizens, saying "If I had known then what I know now, the Goldstone Report would have been a different document", while other authors of the report maintain its validity.Soosim (talk) 08:10, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
I guess it is fair enough, of course we gonna need sources for the second part of the sentence. Please don't forget to sign. --ElComandanteChe (talk) 07:54, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

That's a bit betterOwain the 1st (talk) 12:17, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

I posted this in the talk page of the Richard Goldstone article, I can post it here as well: "The Swedish Radio (national public service radio broadcaster) reported today that the sources Goldstone referred to as cause for his change of position have been quite wrongly misinterpreted/misused, according to one of the authors of the source report. Goldstone referred to the Aspergren-Davis report which was a follow up on Goldstone's own report. Author Lennart Aspergren said in an interview today that Goldstone has referred to unverified material (ie interviews from the report, not the result itself) from that report and used it as if it was verified material. Source in Swedish (audio): ." 80.217.207.79 (talk) 20:45, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Problem with "white phosphorus" image

White phosphorus?
White phosphorus allegedly used during the conflict (picture from Al-Jazeera)

Forgive me if this has been discussed in the archives already. What source is the article relying on in determining that the object in the sky is spraying white phosphorus over the town below? The caption should be modified if there is no WP:RS to attribute that claim to. Better yet, if there's no RS it shouldn't even be in that section.—Biosketch (talk) 15:48, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

I think that this can be covered by WP:DUCK? Bjmullan (talk) 17:18, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
Not likely, as DUCK doesn't apply to actual content in an article. Anyway, upon further investigation it turns out the images are freeze-frames of a video made available by al-Jazeera here. There are descriptions below the video – not time marked but fairly easy to match to what appears in the clip. None of the descriptions mentions white phosphorus. The one most likely applying to our situation says, "Various shots of Israeli shelling Gaza strip with cluster bomb and smoke raising from building." Since there's no RS describing the image as an incident of white phosphorus, and there's nothing in the article about cluster bombs, I'm taking the image out altogether as not within the scope of the article.—Biosketch (talk) 21:52, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
But it's clearly a white phosphorus airburst. It's as recognisable as the objects below it being buildings and the smoke being smoke. The video has been reused by other sources such as HRW (see timemark 06:16). I don't know why the caption says "allegedly used". The IDF confirmed their use of white phosphorus shells as an obscurant. There's no controversy about whether it was used in Gaza. Sean.hoyland - talk 06:28, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
Right, there's no dispute about (at least I'm not disputing) Israel having used white phosphorus during its campaign in Gaza. But saying "it's clearly a white phosphorus airburst" is (a) not a verifiable claim and (b) conflicts with the information provided by the RS that is the source of the image. The caption should say cluster bomb, because that is what al-Jazeera identifies it as. And as an image of a cluster bomb, it doesn't belong in the article.—Biosketch (talk) 06:53, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
Since it's clearly a 155mm WP shell, I'd suggest to keep it per WP:CK or per WP:IAR, if WP:CK do not apply. --ElComandanteChe (talk) 13:15, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
If it were WP:CK, why would the al-Jazeera people have described it as a cluster bomb? It would be one thing if the image were made available by al-Jazeera without any accompanying description. Then you could say, The source is reliable and it's clearly white phosphorus, so we can create a caption of our own. That is not the case, however. al-Jazeera's credibility is being both relied upon (for the image) and disputed (re the caption) in the same breath. I'm sorry, I don't see how an exception can be made in this case without flagrantly flouting established Misplaced Pages policy. Which brings us to WP:IAR – but what possible counterargument could be formulated in relation to that policy? I think that in order to invoke IAR, you really need to build a compelling case. What, for example, will replace the Template:Citation needed in the caption as a source? If al-Jazeera isn't competent enough to know the difference between a cluster bomb and a white phosphorus explosion, how can they be trusted to have provided us with a factual context for the image to begin with? These are reasonable questions to ask.—Biosketch (talk) 13:58, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
Ok, let me put it a simple way: if everybody here agrees that it is a Willy Pete shell over Gaza during Gaza war - there is no need to apply complicated exercises in formal logic over Misplaced Pages policies, keep it per CK or IAR or whatever. If not - no big deal, remove it, since it lacks proper sourcing. I like pictures of explosions. Am I biased? --ElComandanteChe (talk) 14:56, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

I would also like to know why the picture says allegedly, the Israelis have already admitted that it was used.I think the word allegedly should be removed as it clearly points to there being a debate if it was or not used but as we know from the Israeli foreign ministry it was used.Owain the 1st (talk) 16:13, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Presumably it says allegedly because at the time the image was added to the page Israel's use of white phosphorus was still in dispute. That isn't the case anymore, so the word allegedly is anachronistic. Still, that's a secondary problem. The problem is that whatever caption is under the image needs to be sourced, per WP:V. How would the editors feel about this idea: Leave the image, delete the caption altogether. Or just leave a ref there to the al-Jazeera page with the whole video.—Biosketch (talk) 16:31, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Get rid of the caption or at the least the allegedly bit.I think people would make out what it is about as it is opposite the piece on WP use.Owain the 1st (talk) 16:47, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

If it is iconic enough (and I think it is, especially with al-Jazeera logo, which makes the picture a state of the art on it's own), no caption is all right. Btw, I think WP:IMAGE#Pertinence and encyclopedic nature regulates image verifiability rather then WP:V , and after reading it I have to raise a question of image relevancy to the article. --ElComandanteChe (talk) 17:00, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
With lingering misgivings about displaying the image at all, I've replaced the caption with a simple attribution and ref. ElComandante, I'm now in the position of not quite following your logic vis-a-vis WP:IMAGE#Pertinence and encyclopedic nature, if you'd care to elaborate.—Biosketch (talk) 15:18, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
I don't think WP:V and WP:RS requirement of visual content are as strong as of written material. --ElComandanteChe (talk) 20:37, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
The demand to remove the image has been withdrawn. And as you no longer question the relevance of the image to the article, there's consensus that it can stay. There is, however, still a problem – at the level of policy – with using an image provided by a source but denying that same source's explanation for the image. Which is why having no explanation at all is preferable to being selective as to what's reliable and what isn't. I would revert Owain the 1st (talk · contribs) and remove the caption altogether until the matter can be calmly resolved, but I already did and he's not self-reverting despite having been asked to. We should be more adult than to have to edit war over this.—Biosketch (talk) 20:56, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
Sorry, I have to call this out as silly. It's white phosphorus. We have an RS that wrote an entire report about white phosphorus usage in Operation Cast Lead using that exact AJ video to illustrate WP usage over Gaza. I provided a link above with the exact timemark of the segment of the same AJ video showing that shell exploding. It's difficult to conceive of a better reference to provide WP:V compliance. Readers can actually watch that shell exploding themselves on the site of an RS discussing WP usage in Gaza. Whether the image belongs in this article is another matter but captions are there to tell readers what things are and in this case we know it is white phosphorus. Sean.hoyland - talk 18:54, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
Put it back in then just leave out allegedly as we all know they used it, they even admitted it themselves. Owain the 1st (talk) 19:04, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
I have taken out the word allegedly as Israel admitted it used it.Owain the 1st (talk) 19:49, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
(edit conflict)I self-reverted to the original caption per Sean.hoyland (talk · contribs)'s objection, but the stays because there is still a sourcing conflict: embracing the reliability of the image and simultaneously rejecting the source's description of it is self-contradictory. Also, let's please not start making changes to the caption before consensus.—Biosketch (talk) 20:10, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
What seems to be the problem? There is no allegedly about them using WP.they have admitted they used it.I changed it back.Owain the 1st (talk) 20:15, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
The problem is that now you're synthesizing information from other sources with the information provided by the source of the image. If you start playing around with the wording of the caption rather than relying on the source's wording, you're questioning the reliability of the source and, by extension, of the image. This is why having no caption at all – which you initially had no problem with – is the least problematic solution. By removing the word "allegedly," you're introducing a change to the caption that wasn't there before, when the whole existence of the image is in dispute. Please self-revert and wait for consensus.—Biosketch (talk) 20:23, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
If there is such a big problem with the wording of this image then why not use another image which has a caption saying that they used WP. As the article speaks about the attack on the UN in Gaza maybe that image would suffice, that is if we can use it. I will put the allegedly back into this one for the momentOwain the 1st (talk) 20:50, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
I believe that the image in dispute is a still from an Al Jazerra video, Gaza war day 14. Well they have more videos and on the day 20 one it has images of WP shells bursting over Gaza and it states "Various shots of attacks, white phosphorous".Or in another one it says "Israeli Army drop White Phosphorus bombs on Gaza residential areas".We can take a still and use one of them.I believe the 2nd one would be better as that describes what actually happened Thoughts?Owain the 1st (talk) 21:25, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
Thank you for reverting. Your suggestion would be fine by me. Again, I'm not disputing that Israel used white phosphorus or that what's in the image is white phosphorus. My objection is policy-based: using a source in one way and then contradicting it in another, or captioning an image without being able to cite the source because the source says something else entirely. If there are other images available without these conflicts, it would definitely make things easier on everyone.—Biosketch (talk) 21:46, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
I have posted a new picture and caption and a link to Al Jazeera video from where it came.I removed the other disputed caption/picture.Hopes this now solves this dispute.Owain the 1st (talk) 16:42, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
Good. Problem solved. (You may need quotation marks around the caption, because it's verbatim a copy-paste from the source.)—Biosketch (talk) 16:52, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
added quotations marks.Owain the 1st (talk) 17:22, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
I don't know the first thing about working with images; but some articles have animated illustrations, and maybe you could do the same for this one, seeing as it's derived from a video. It does make a significantly stronger impression when you see the shell exploding in motion like in the video clip. By the way, I used the image to resolve the same situation that was at White phosphorus.—Biosketch (talk) 17:34, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
I think it is good enough as a picture.There is a link to the actual video if people feel the need to have a look.If someone else wants to upload the video they can.Owain the 1st (talk) 17:40, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

goldstone recantation section

can someone clarify the use of mondoweiss - looks like a blog, with no editorial oversight - and the use of middleeastmonitor - looks like many of the other 'monitors' out there, which require (as i have learned) a secondary reliable source to make it wiki ready. Soosim (talk) 13:11, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

I've replaced these two sources with better ones. --Dailycare (talk) 20:27, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

I added comments from a UN spokesman.Owain the 1st (talk) 23:32, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

thank you both! Soosim (talk) 03:59, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Section name for Goldstone's April 2011 announcement

Hi, all. I saw the news today about Goldstone's April 1, 2011, announcement, and came here to add that to this article. I was surprised and impressed to find it had been added almost immediately. It's my impression that the section is really well written; all of you who worked on it should be proud of your contributions. I do have one quibble, though: The section was named "Goldstone reappraisal" but was changed to "Goldstone recantation" in this edit. But I don't think "recantation" was the best choice. The meanings listed for the word "recant", from the Oxford English Dictionary, are given below, with emphasis added:

  • To withdraw, retract, renounce, or disavow (a former statement, opinion, belief, action, etc.) as erroneous or heretical, esp. formally or publicly.
  • To renounce or abjure ( a course of life or conduct ) as wrong or mistaken. Obs.
  • To withdraw or retract ( a promise, vow, undertaking, etc.); to go back on ( one's word ). Now rare.
  • To go back on an agreement; to renege. Now rare.
  • To renounce, give up (an intention or purpose).

As you can see, the word "recant" has a strong shared meaning element with a notion of morality and religious beliefs. I know many people here probably feel strongly that Goldstone should recant in this moral sense, but it's not really the best choice of a word for what he actually did do. I've revised the section heading to read, "Goldstone's retraction of civilian targeting claim", which avoids the use of the use of "recantation" and accurately summarizes the section's content, as well. I also added an "anchor" for the former section name, of course, so any links to it won't break. Best,  – OhioStandard (talk) 07:51, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

I agree with OhioStandard in that this is a better section title taking into account the scope of the "reivsal". Cheers, --Dailycare (talk) 15:23, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Goldstone report: Statement issued by members of UN mission on Gaza war

I have put in a new section covering the statement from the other co authors of the report and also adjusted the lead to reflect this.I have basically quoted most of what their statement was.Discuss Owain the 1st (talk) 15:26, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Agree it should be featured in the article, good work. I formatted the ref to make it easier to locate in case the url goes dead. --Dailycare (talk) 21:15, 14 April 2011 (UTC)
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