A Middle East history lesson

Goldstone mentioned in the executive summary that the Israeli government "did not cooperate" with the mission. Today's section elaborates on that claim: Israeli officials refused to meet with Goldstone's team, and denied them permission to travel to Israel and the West Bank. (They entered Gaza through the Rafah crossing with Egypt.)

The team wanted to interview Ali al-Khashan, the Palestinian justice minister, and Khalida Jarrar, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council. But both were prevented from traveling to Amman to meet with the U.N. mission

The report also elaborates on the case of Muhammad Srour, the Palestinian detained by Israeli authorities after meeting with the mission in Amman.

In response, the Permanent Representative informed the Mission that the detention of the person concerned was unrelated to his appearance at the public hearing. Mr. Srour was subsequently released on bail. The Mission is in contact with him and continues to monitor developments.

Another unnamed source talks about "apprehensions about personal safety and a feeling of intimidation." The report doesn't provide any detail on who this person is or how this person feels threatened -- though it does say he/she provided information about what happened inside the Gaza Strip.

A 40-year history

Around p. 52, the report begins to examine the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It begins its overview in 1967, immediately after the Six-Day War, which ended with Israel in control of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The pages that follow will be familiar to any student of the region: Israel's annexation of East Jerusalem; the Oslo Accords; the Camp David Accords; the "road map"; the 2006 Palestinian elections.

The history ends with the tahdiyah, the six-month period of calm that began in June 2008.

The report notes that Palestinian terror groups carried out 154 suicide bombings against Israeli civilians between 1993 and 2007. The attacks left 542 people dead. Palestinians also launched 3,455 rockets and 3,742 mortars into Israel during that period.

Goldstone doesn't provide comparable statistics for the IDF. But it does note that, between Israel's disengagement from Gaza (August 2005) and November 2006, the IDF launched 15,000 artillery shells into Gaza and carried out 550 airstrikes, killing 525 people. Palestinians launched 1,700 rockets or mortars during the same period, injuring 41 Israelis.

Contours of the conflict

The final pages of the history section address the aggravating factors that led to Operation Cast Lead. One of them is Israel's ongoing control of Gaza's borders and infrastructure.

In addition to controlling the borders, coastline and airspace, after the implementation of the disengagement plan, Israel continued to control Gaza's telecommunications, water, electricity and sewage networks, as well as the population registry, and the flow of people and goods into and out of the territory while the inhabitants of Gaza continued to rely on the Israeli currency.

The report also discusses the separation wall, Israel's frequent detention of Palestinians (750,000 since 1967, according to Palestinian human rights groups), and the Israeli government's periodic demolition of Palestinian buildings in the West Bank. None of these are proximate causes of the war in Gaza, of course, so I'm not sure whether the mission included them simply to be thorough or whether they'll play a role in later conclusions.

Approaching the end of today's reading. Beginning on p. 66, the report outlines political structures in Israel and Palestine. It includes some detail about the Palestinian police and the "armed wings" of both Hamas and Fatah. I suspect these will come up again in later sections: You'll recall from the executive summary that Israel justified its attacks against Palestinian police stations by claiming the police were also fighters affiliated with Hamas.

That's it for today! Tomorrow's section deals with the tahdiyah itself -- the six months leading up to the war.