"Israel has been the subject of numerous controversial U.N. inquiries related to armed conflict and responses to terror attacks. But, the scope and impact of the Report of the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, known as the Goldstone Report, were particularly extreme. Produced under the politicized U.N. Human Rights Council, the fact-finding reflected in the Goldstone Report has been shown to be largely inaccurate. Similarly, international legal claims were distorted in a manner that maximized allegations of Israeli violations, while minimizing Hamas war crimes during the December 2008 - January 2009 Gaza War. Applying a number of academic approaches, the contributors to this book systematically address the flaws of the report and examine its far-reaching consequences. As demonstrated, the Goldstone Report sets a highly flawed example for other investigations of armed conflicts and international justice. Its methodological deficiencies, double standards, misleading interpretations of law, and unsupported conclusions are antithetical to the universal principles of human rights, including the right to self-defense."--Publisher.

At the turn of the millennium, a new phenomenon emerged: conservatives, who just decades before had rejected the expanding human rights culture, began to embrace human rights in order to advance their political goals. In this book, Nicola Perugini and Neve Gordon account for how human rights--generally conceived as a counter-hegemonic instrument for righting historical injustices--are being deployed to further subjugate the weak and legitimize domination. Using Israel/Palestine as its main case study, The Human Right to Dominate describes the establishment of settler NGOs that appropriate human rights to dispossess indigenous Palestinians and military think-tanks that rationalize lethal violence by invoking human rights. The book underscores the increasing convergences between human rights NGOs, security agencies, settler organizations, and extreme right nationalists, showing how political actors of different stripes champion the dissemination of human rights and mirror each other's political strategies. Indeed, Perugini and Gordon demonstrate the multifaceted role that this discourse is currently playing in the international arena: on the one hand, human rights have become the lingua franca of global moral speak, while on the other, they have become reconstrued as a tool for enhancing domination.

This work outlines available resources and proposed standards for international NGO fact-finding missions. Chapter One presents an introduction to the issue of NGO fact-finding. Chapter Two discusses the problems caused by the lack of any generally-accepted guidelines for NGO fact-finding, in contrast with contexts where NGOs have achieved consensus. Chapter Three surveys proposed guidelines for human rights and humanitarian NGOs. In addition, this section examines United Nations fact-finding standards, as well as examples of internal fact-finding standards for major NGOs. Chapter Four analyzes the fact-finding standards used in five specific cases: the International Crisis Group (Kosovo, 1999), the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Conflict in Georgia (Georgia, 2008), United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights Mapping Exercise on the Democratic Republic of Congo (1993-2003), Conflict Analysis Resource Center/University London study on Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch (Colombia, 1988-2004), and Human Rights Watch (Lebanon, 2006). The final chapter offers conclusions and recommendations.

In The Roles and Functions of Atrocity-Related United Nations Commissions of Inquiry in the International Legal Order, Catherine Harwood explores how United Nations inquiries navigate considerations of principle and pragmatism to discern their identity in the international legal order.

Although early Zionist thinkers perhaps naively believed that anti-Jewish persecution would end with sovereignty, anti-Zionism has become one form of the “new” antisemitism following World War II. Because antisemitism has not been effectively addressed, anti-Jewish rhetoric, activism, and deadly violence have flourished around the world. In Anti-Judaism, Antisemitism, and Delegitimizing Israel editor Robert S. Wistrich and an array of notable academics, journalists, and political scientists analyze multiple aspects of the current surge in anti-Jewish and anti-Israel rhetoric and violence. Contributors Ben Cohen, R. Amy Elman, Lesley Klaff, Matthias Küntzel, Nelly Las, Alvin H. Rosenfeld, and Efraim Sicher, among others, examine antisemitism from the perspectives of history, academia, gender, identity, and religion. Offering a variety of viewpoints and insights into disturbing trends worldwide, the contributors provide a basis for further discussion and increased efforts to counter the increasingly vocal and violent hatred of Jews and Israel.

If you have ever wondered “Why is there so much violence in the Middle East?”, “Who are the Palestinians?”, “What are the occupied territories?” or “What does Israel want?”, then this is the book for you. With straightforward language, Phyllis Bennis, longtime analyst of the region, answers basic questions about Israel and Israelis, Palestine and Palestinians, the US and the Middle East, Zionism and anti-Semitism; about complex issues ranging from the Oslo peace process to the election of Hamas to the Goldstone Report and the Palestinians’ UN initiatives. Together her answers provide a comprehensive understanding of the longstanding Palestinian–Israeli conflict. This new edition includes sections on the continuing settlement crisis, the UN statehood bid and UNESCO, Palestine in the Arab Spring, BDS and the Palestinian nonviolent movements, the Israeli elections, and what’s ahead. Sections include: The Crisis; The Other Players: The Role of the US, the UN, the Arab States, and Europe; Recent History: Rising Violence; Looking Backward (1900-1991); The Future.

The most comprehensive study to date of Israel's national security. It combines an exhaustive analysis of the military, diplomatic, demographic and societal challenges Israel faces, with the responses it has developed, to present a detailed proposal for an overall new national security strategy, the first such Israeli strategy ever published.