B’nai B’rith Welcomes Resignation Of U.N. Panel Leader Overseeing Implementation Of Goldstone Report Demands

B’nai B’rith International has issued the following statement:

B’nai B’rith International welcomes the resignation of Judge Christian Tomuschat—as reported in the online edition of the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth—from the U.N. panel monitoring the implementation of the Goldstone Report.

In July, as it became increasingly clear that Tomuschat was far from a neutral arbiter, B’nai B’rith called for his removal from the panel.

In calling for his resignation B’nai B’rith noted:

It was recently revealed that in 2002 Tomuschat, a law professor and jurist, reportedly said Israel’s retaliation against “presumed terrorists” was, in effect, another form of terrorism. Compounding this, according to a Jerusalem Post report, in 1996 Tomuschat prepared an advisory analysis for Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat. Furthermore, he wrote in 2002 that states are fundamentally unable to investigate themselves effectively.

It is impossible for him to review and evaluate how Israel is conducting its own investigation into its Gaza actions when he has already concluded that Israel commits acts of “state terrorism.”

The Goldstone report was meant to offer an assessment of events during Operation Cast Lead, Israel’s defensive operation in the Gaza Strip that ended in January 2009. Undertaken with a biased mandate, the report’s controversial conclusions quickly became discredited. Under Tomuschat’s distorted lens of judgment the implementation panel also discredited itself.

The report, and the ensuing panel, were each convened with a predetermined outcome. Tomuschat’s resignation is a welcome development.