Several organizations came together to host a discussion with Philip Weiss titled “The Goldstone Report” at the Bernath Auditorium on the campus of Wayne State University in Detroit on Tuesday, March 8.

Weiss is a co-author of a condensed version of the official fact-finding report to the UN investigating war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the Dec. 2008 to Jan. 2009 Israeli invasion of the occupied and blockaded Gaza Strip.

Philip Weiss (right), a co-editor of a condensed version of the Goldstone Report, fact-finding mission about war crimes committed during Israel’s Operation Cast Lead invasion of late 2008-early 2009 in Gaza, talks with an audience member following his guest speaking event at Wayne State in Detroit. PHOTO: Nick Meyer/TAAN

The event was sponsored by Jewish Voice for Peace – Detroit Chapter, WSU Arab American Student Union, WSU Faculty for Peace and Justice in the Middle East, WSU Middle Eastern Law Students Assn., WSU Muslim Law Students Assn. and the WSU National Lawyers Guild.

Over 100 people showed up to hear Weiss’ thoughts on the report, during which he had pointed words about the Israeli side’s reluctance to accept the findings.

“The original report’s author Richard Goldstone himself, who is a Jewish Zionist, pleaded with the Israelis to cooperate in a Gaza investigation and they declined to,” Weiss said.

Weiss, who is also Jewish and a journalist by trade, said he found common ground with Goldstone over their trips to Gaza.

“I went to Gaza and I had fears of entering it much like Goldstone because this is a place that is completely demonized in the Western understanding of it,” he said.

“When Goldstone got there he found he was treated with cordiality everywhere he went, and said the kindness of the people was something he will never forget just as the scenes of destruction during his visit are something that will forever be imprinted on his mind.”

Weiss too felt a sense of kinship with the Gazans and had many of his stereotypes shattered on his visit to gather information for his report.

His voice swelled with emotion as he recounted his experiences.

“The most powerful feeling of visiting Gaza and the takeaway of the Goldstone Report as well is that these are people that have been stripped of their dignity through a constant assault and erosion (of it),” he said.

“These are people that feel completely abandoned by the world and when the international community did come up with a response to it, the Goldstone Report, which was an effort to bring international law to bear and say collective punishment of people is against it, the United States stopped it.

“As Goldstone himself said, the purpose of international law is to make sure this doesn’t happen and yet it is happening.”

Goldstone said that people in the occupied, besieged and blockaded Gaza Strip were “hungry” to tell him their stories.

Weiss’ colleagues agreed with him on one assertion that ran contrary to many stereotypes Weiss mentioned.

“These people are civilized to the core,” they agreed.

“My stereotypes were just demolished,” Weiss said.

Weiss got into the nuts and bolts of the Goldstone Report as well, noting that both Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas were charged with war crimes for failing to discriminate between combatants and civilians, which is a critical provision of humanitarian law.

But Weiss’ harshest criticism was for the Israeli side as he cited numerous instances of Israel attacking civilian targets deliberately including the destruction of hundreds of thousands of chickens, the one flour producer in Gaza, the few remaining factories the territory had left including tile, cement, and juice factories, and more. Weiss noted from his tour that the entire eastern district of the industrial zone had been “leveled.”

Israel has also drawn heavy criticism for killing over 1,400 in the invasion, most of them civilians.

One of their main defenses, noted Weiss, was noting that they dropped many leaflets warning people of the attack and where it would be, but Weiss said the people had nowhere to go.

“Whole families huddled in houses were hit by mortars and white phosphorus rockets, they even huddled in UN compounds that were supposed to be safe zones,” he said.

“In another case, Israel said there were weapons in a mosque where people were hiding, which justified their shelling that killed 35 people and maimed scores of others, but Goldstone actually found no arms in that mosque.”

Weiss said that the report has gone a long way toward changing a shift in consciousness in the Israel-Palestine situation and has led to an incredible amount of bad PR for Israel despite their efforts to block it.

The question and answer portion of the talk began after an audience member asked Weiss about the “precautions” he said Israel took to avoid civilian casualties regarding the leaflets and other measures.

Weiss was also asked if he was essentially using his Jewish background as a way to legitimize his findings further .

“I deploy my Jewish identity very sincerely in this case,” Weiss said, “I was called to be a Zionist all my life but I’ve always been disquieted by what Israel does.

“I think it’s important to show that the Jewish community is not monolithic or has to support Israel, come what may we have to speak out and every part of me, I believe my Jewish essence, rebels against the conduct of this militant, racist regime.” 

After Weiss spoke about the frustration he and other progressives felt as President Barack Obama refused to condemn the Gaza attacks, he noted that the failure of political leaders to find solutions for peace in the region has fired up communities of activists across the world.

One audience member asked audience members to push for total divestment resolutions from Israeli companies at city council meetings or student government meetings as Wayne State and Michigan-Dearborn’s student bodies have done in the past, and also talked about the importance of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, to which loud applause was given.

Weiss, who has a strong sense of history of the World War II Holocaust from his own family experience growing up, also spoke about what he believed to be an important psychological aspect driving the Israelis as they continue to brutalize the Palestinians after fielding a question from the audience about the subject.

“I spoke to a psychiatrist in Gaza who said to me, you know, we are in a prison here but in Israel the prison is in their minds and we are freer than these people in some ways,” he said.

“There are legit Jewish fears from the European experience, but what have we done but write it onto the body of other people who did not participate in those actions?”