Waging Peace, Page 58

United Nations Foundation Senior Adviser Defends Goldstone Report

GILLIAN SORENSEN, senior adviser and national advocate at the United Nations Foundation, defended Judge Richard Goldstone and the Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict during an Oct. 21 presentation at Central Academy in Des Moines, Iowa.

“In the matter of Gaza, as you may recall, there was a conflict between Hamas and Israel that went on for a long time,” she explained. “A study was requested as to whether one side or both sides committed crimes or went beyond what is normal in terms of military action. The accusations on both sides are very sharp. Justice Richard Goldstone, a very respected jurist from South Africa, is the leader of this study. He has put out a report saying essentially both sides went ”˜beyond the pale’ and should be accountable for what they did, including killing and injuring numerous civilians. That report in now the subject of considerable discussion and dispute.

“I put great faith in the work of Justice Goldstone,” she added. “He was not an accidental choice. He is highly respected, very experienced as a lawyer and as a judge. I think his analysis is fair.

A recognized authority on matters related to the United Nations and U.S.-U.N. relations, Sorensen traveled to Iowa to speak as part of the Iowa United Nations Association’s U.N. Day celebrations.

Sorensen, a former assistant secretary-general for external relations (1997-2003) and Kennedy School of Government Institute of Politics Fellow at Harvard University (2002), noted that the Goldstone Report is easy to access on the Internet and encouraged her listeners to read it.

The report concluded that Israel had violated international human rights law and committed “grave breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention in respect of willful killings and willfully causing great suffering to protected persons,” she noted, and refers to Israel’s continuing blockade of Gaza as “collective punishment intentionally inflicted by the Government of Israel on the people of the Gaza Strip.”

Sorensen urged her listeners to take more active roles in public affairs.

“In the U.N. context, civil society is extremely important,” she explained. Citizens’ activity on behalf of issues including health care, human rights, the environment, international law and many more concerns are represented in the UN setting by 4,000 non-governmental organizations (NGOs), she pointed out, which UN officials regard as essential partners.

—Michael Gillespie