The Justice

Media Credit: Asher Krell Director of the International Center for Ethics, Justice and Public Life Daniel Terris, far left, educated event attendees about the findings of the Goldstone report on the Gaza conflict last Sunday.

Daniel Terris, director of the International Center for Ethics, Justice and Public Life, and Prof. Ilan Troen (NEJS) led a discussion last Sunday about the controversial report by the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, which was presented to the U.N. Human Rights Council on Sept. 29.

Sunday's forum was a pre-event held in the lead-up to Thursday's event, "The Challenge of the UN Gaza Report," at which Justice Richard Goldstone, who led the U.N.'s fact-finding mission, will discuss the final report with former Israeli ambassador to the United States Dore Gold.

Attended by around 30 Brandeis students and community members, the open-ended discussion focused on providing a basic understanding of the 600-page U.N. mission's report and the reasons it has engendered so much controversy in the international community.

In an interview with the Justice after the event, Terris said that he thought it was good to have as many opportunities as possible for Brandeis students to explore the issues involved in the Goldstone report.

"Having an opportunity in a quiet setting to exchange ideas and exchange information is valuable in itself," he said.

When Goldstone, who has a long-standing relationship with Brandeis and is currently on the advisory board of the International Center for Ethics, Justice and Public Life, first agreed to head the U.N.'s mission to investigate the state of human rights in the midst of the Gaza conflict, he refused to operate under the original U.N. mandate, Terris said at the event.

The original mandate called for an investigation focused solely on Israel's actions regarding the conflict in Gaza; Goldstone articulated his desire to investigate human rights violations on both sides of the conflict.

Despite this initial ideology, according to Troen, when the final report of the four-member mission was published, Israel took issue with the "astounding" one-sidedness of the report, which details 36 individual incidents of Israeli violations agains the Palestinians.

Continued...

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