Bill Moyers Journal

by Bill Moyers

  You never hear about this movement. I’ve worked with a number of them. There’s a great one in Madison, Wisconsin. The Union Cab Cooperative. A bunch of cabbies going broke back in the ’70s. Getting treated like Kleenex by the manager. And so they formed a union. The owner said, “Well, to hell with that. I’m not dealing with any union. I’ll just sell the thing.” But the workers said, “Okay, we do the work here. We do the dispatching and the driving and mechanical work. We could run it.” They created a co-op. They had a lot of ups and downs. But over the next thirty years, they were able to make it. And it’s the most successful cab company in all of Wisconsin. They get the highest consumer approval rating. I learned about this because I rode a cab to the airport in Madison once. And the guy turned around—full body, by the way—to look at me in the back. And he said, “You know you’re in a union cab?” And I said, “No, I didn’t.” And then he told me the story. He said he was one of the original founders. That he had been able to put his two kids through college driving a cab because the owners were the workers themselves, and doing a great service to the public.

  It’s been interesting to watch you over these thirty years. You’ve suffered defeat. You were beaten in your last race by the man who’s now been governor of Texas longer than anyone in history, whose campaign manager was—

  Karl Rove.

  A lot of what you want for America hasn’t happened. Yet you haven’t given up.

  Well, it could be stupidity. But I’m a lucky duck. I travel a whole lot. I give a lot of speeches. And that takes me all across the country on a regular basis. I’ve been just about everyplace that’s got a zip code, I think. And what I find in every one of those places is someone or some group of someones who is in rebellion. Not just ranting but actually organizing others and taking on some aspect of this corporate power. And winning. I see victories just about every week across the country in my travels. You can go anywhere and you see victories. Some of them political, but most of them in terms of civic action. People engaged in and making a difference in their communities. You want to see the populist movement where it actually is today, it’s in the communities.

  And they keep you going?

  Yes, exactly. I go all the way back to Thomas Paine, of course. That was kind of the ultimate rebellion. The media tool was a pamphlet or a broadside. The great men wrote the Bill of Rights and the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. But they didn’t create democracy. Their work made democracy possible, but what created democracy was Thomas Paine and Shays’ Rebellion, the suffragists and the abolitionists and on down through the populists, the labor movement, including the Wobblies. Tough, in-their-face people. Mother Jones, Woody Guthrie, the cultural aspect of it as well. Martin Luther King and Cesar Chavez.

  They were agitators. They extended democracy decade after decade. Now it’s down to us. You know, sometimes we get in the midst of these fights. We think we’re making no progress. But you look back, we’ve made a lot of progress. And you’ve seen it. And I have. That agitator, after all, is the center post in the washing machine that gets the dirt out. We need a lot more agitation. That’s the only thing that succeeds from a progressive side in changing politics in America.

  What do you mean when you say the water won’t clear up until we get the hogs out of the creek?

  That’s it. That’s right. They are in the creek. And they’re fouling our environmental, political, and economic waters. And you don’t get a hog out of the creek, Bill, by saying, “Here, hog, here, hog.” You got to put your shoulder to it and shove it out of the creek.

  RICHARD GOLDSTONE

  There’s a scene I remember from Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird. A neighbor is talking to the children of Atticus Finch, the attorney in a sleepy southern town who has just bravely but unsuccessfully defended an African American man against a false charge of rape. “I simply want to tell you that there are some men in this world who were born to do our unpleasant jobs for us,” she says. “Your father’s one of them.”

  To fight for justice when your voice seems alone against prevailing opinion, to stand up and speak truth when others cower—these are the “unpleasant jobs,” tasks of conscience, from which Judge Richard Goldstone has never shirked. Born and raised in South Africa, he rose to senior positions in the judiciary and wrote laws that helped to undermine apartheid, heading a commission to investigate the vicious behavior of white security forces. The United Nations named him to lead its investigation of war crimes in the former Yugoslavia, where ethnic cleansing had produced the deadliest violence in Europe since World War II. Then came the prosecution of genocide after the slaughter of almost a million people in Rwanda, followed by the independent inquiry he led into war crimes in Kosovo.

  In 2009, he took on the greatest challenge of his legal career. For years, Hamas militants had fired rockets into southern Israel from Gaza, those 139 square miles separating Israel and Egypt that are recognized as Palestinian territory. Israel retaliated in December 2008 with the aptly named Operation Cast Lead: twenty-two days of fierce military action targeting Gaza. More than twelve hundred Palestinians died. Three Israeli civilians and ten soldiers were killed. When the Israeli military withdrew, Gaza was left devastated and reeling from the loss of life and the destruction of homes, hospitals, schools, and mosques. The United Nations Human Rights Council called for an investigation, which Goldstone agreed to lead only after demanding that the mission’s mandate be expanded to include charges against Hamas as well as Israel. The Israeli government nonetheless refused to cooperate, arguing that the mission was biased from the beginning.1

  Over the next several months Goldstone and his team threaded their way through a minefield of accusation and denial. The resulting 575-page report, scorching in detail, accused both the Israel Defense Forces and Hamas of war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity. While condemning Palestinian rocket attacks, the report reserved its harshest language for Israel’s treatment of civilians in Gaza. Goldstone said, “These attacks amounted to reprisals and collective punishment and constitute war crimes. The government of Israel has a duty to protect its citizens. That in no way justifies a policy of collective punishment of a people under effective occupation.”

  Goldstone came under strident criticism. He was accused of running a “kangaroo court,” of denying Israel’s right to defend itself, and of misusing “the language of human rights and international law ... to isolate and demonize Israel.” Outwardly he seemed unfazed by the firestorm. A week after the UN’s Human Rights Council officially endorsed his findings, we had this conversation.

  —Bill Moyers

  Let me put down a few basics first. Do you personally have any doubt about Israel’s right to self-defense?

  Absolutely not. In our approach to our mission and in our report, the right of Israel to defend its citizens is taken as a given.

  The report in no way challenges Israel’s right to self-defense.

  Not at all. What we look at is how that right was used. We don’t question the right.

  Do you consider Hamas an enemy of Israel?

  Anybody who’s firing many thousands of rockets and mortars into a country is, I think, in anybody’s book, an enemy.

  Were those rocket attacks on Israel a threat to the civilians of Israel, to the population of Israel?

  Absolutely. The people within the range of those rockets and mortars in southern Israel and Sderot and Ashkelon have been living under circumstances of tremendous terror. Schoolchildren in particular, women and men, have less than forty-five seconds to seek shelter when the Israelis know that rockets are coming. The fact that the death toll in southern Israel wasn’t higher is really happenstance. It’s remarkable that none of those rockets caused a great deal more death and injury than they did.

  And Israel, in your judgment, was justified in trying to put an end to those rocket attacks.

  Absolutely. No country can be expected to accept that with equanimity.

  Yo
u’re Jewish, and a Zionist. In your case, when you say, “I’m a Zionist,” what does that mean?

  It means that I fully support Israel’s right to exist. And that the Jewish people should have their own national homeland, in Israel.

  Why, then, as a Jew and a Zionist, concerned for Israel’s survival, did you agree to stand in judgment on Israel’s action in Gaza?

  It was a question of conscience, really. I’ve been involved in investigating very serious violations in my own country, South Africa, and I was castigated by many in the white community for doing so. I investigated serious war crimes in the Balkans, and the Serbs hated me for that. I was under serious death threats, both in South Africa and in respect to the Balkans. Then I went on to Rwanda, and many people hated me for doing that. I’ve been a co-chair of the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute, and for the last five years I’ve been sending letters of protest weekly to governments in China, Syria, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka—you name it—complaining about violations of human rights. So I’ve been involved in this work for the last fifteen years or so, and it seemed to me that being Jewish was no reason to treat Israel exceptionally, to say that because I’m Jewish, it’s all right for me to investigate everybody else but Israel.

  You have so many ties to Israel. You were on the board of Hebrew University.

  I still am. That’s correct.

  So you had to know you were going to antagonize a lot of your friends.

  That’s correct, but I also have the support of many of my friends. It’s something that goes both ways, but antagonizing friends was inevitable—in respect to this investigation and previous investigations.

  Your report basically accuses Israel of waging war on the entire population of Gaza.

  That’s correct.

  There are allegations in here—some very tough allegations—of Israeli soldiers shooting unarmed civilians who posed no threat; of shooting people whose hands were shackled behind them; of shooting two teenagers who had been ordered off a tractor that they were driving, apparently carrying wounded civilians to a hospital; of hundreds, maybe thousands of homes destroyed, left in rubble; of hospitals bombed. It’s a damning indictment of Israel’s conduct in Gaza.

  Well, that conduct was outrageous, and there should have been outrage. The response to this report, by the way, has not been to deal with the substance of those allegations. I’ve really seen or read no detailed response in respect of the actual incidents on which we report.

  Why is that?

  I don’t know. I suppose people hate being attacked. There’s a knee-jerk reaction to attack the messenger rather than deal with the message. And I think this is typical of that response. I certainly don’t claim infallibility. But I would like to see a response to the substance of the report, particularly the attack on the infrastructure of Gaza, which seems to me to be absolutely unjustifiable.

  What did you see with your own eyes when you went there?

  I saw the destruction of the only flour-producing factory in Gaza. I saw fields plowed up by Israeli tank bulldozers. I saw chicken farms for egg production completely destroyed. I met with families who lost their loved ones in homes in which they were seeking shelter from the Israeli ground forces. I had to conduct very emotional and difficult interviews with fathers whose little daughters were killed, whose families were killed. It was a very difficult investigation, and will give me nightmares for the rest of my life.

  What makes these particular acts war crimes?

  With humanitarian law, it’s fundamentally what’s known as the “principle of distinction.” It requires all people involved—commanders, troops, all people involved in making war—to distinguish between civilians and combatants. And then there’s a question of proportionality. One can, in war, target a military target. And there can be what’s euphemistically referred to as “collateral damage,” but the “collateral damage” must be proportionate to the military aim. If you can take out a munitions factory in an urban area with a loss of one hundred lives, or you can use a bomb twice as large and take out the same factory and kill two thousand people, the latter would be a war crime, the former would not.

  Who is to say so? Who is to make that distinction?

  That distinction must be made after the event. I think the military must be given a fairly wide margin of appreciation, in the sense of room for mistakes, and ultimately it’s a question of looking at the intent, at any question of negligence on the part of the people who make the decision.

  You wrote, “The military operation [in Gaza] was a result of disrespect for the fundamental principle of ‘distinction’ in international humanitarian law.” So in layman’s language, the distinction is between—

  Between combatants and innocent civilians.

  And you’re saying Israel did not make that distinction in many of these incidents.

  That’s correct.

  Did you find evidence that it was deliberate on their part?

  We did. We found evidence in statements made by present and former political and military leaders who said, quite openly, that there’s going to be a disproportionate attack. They said that if rockets are going to continue, we’re going to hit back disproportionately. We’re going to punish you for doing it. And that’s not countenanced by the law of war.

  So they were doing, on the ground, what they had announced earlier that they intended to do.

  Well, certainly. One thing one can’t say about the Israel Defense Forces is that they make too many mistakes. They’re a very sophisticated army. And if they attack a mosque or attack a factory, and over two hundred factories were bombed, there’s just no basis to ascribe that to error. That must be intentional.

  The Israelis admit that they bombed some of what you call civilian targets in your report, but they argue that because Hamas is the elected leadership in Gaza, some of those facilities are, in fact, part and parcel of the Hamas infrastructure.

  Right. Well, there’s certainly room for difference of opinion in respect to some of them. We had a look, for example, at the legislative assembly in Gaza. Now, the legislative assembly consists of members of Hamas in the majority, but also opposition parties. And certainly, as we understand international humanitarian law, to bomb the legislative assembly is unlawful. It’s not a military target, it’s a civilian target. Let’s take an example closer to home. If the United States is at war it would be legitimate to bomb the Pentagon; I would suggest it would be illegitimate to bomb the Congress.

  We did bomb the Bundestag in Germany, during World War II. The Allies—

  I think the standards of World War II are a little outdated. Since then we’ve had the 1949 Geneva Conventions and the 1977 additional optional protocols to the Geneva Conventions. The law has moved considerably. I don’t believe one can judge a war in 2008 and 2009 by the standards of the 1940s.

  But what about Hiroshima and Nagasaki? The United States deliberately incinerated two cities with atomic bombs, knowing that tens of thousands of civilians, including women and children, would perish.

  Times have changed, the law has changed. And I have little doubt that if a similar situation arose today, it’s highly unlikely that there would be the use of nuclear power in respect to cities, or the civilian toll that we saw in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

  What’s the heart of the Geneva Conventions and those protocols?

  Again, it’s to give heightened protection to civilians, not only in international armed conflict, but also in non-international armed conflict. So the whole topic has expanded considerably, under the guidance and the guardianship of the International Committee of the Red Cross. It’s important to bear in mind that the 1949 Geneva Conventions is the first international instrument that’s been ratified by every single member of the United Nations, so that’s the law. It’s not only treaty law, but it’s become customary international law.

  And it applies to a situation like Gaza?

  Absolutely. And it applies, as we held in our report, cle
arly to Israel as a state party to the Geneva Conventions, and it applies also to Hamas as a nonstate party, under customary international law.

  During your investigation, did you find war crimes by Hamas?

  Oh, indeed. We found the firing of many thousands of rockets and mortars at a civilian population to constitute a very serious war crime. Possibly, we said, crimes against humanity.

  But Hamas is not a party to the Geneva Conventions, right?

  Well, it can’t be, because it’s not a state party. But Hamas is bound by customary international law and by international human rights law, and that makes it equally a war crime to do what it’s been doing.

  Some critics say that by focusing more on the actions of the Israelis than on those of the Palestinians, you are in essence making it clear who you think is the more responsible party here.

  I suppose that’s fair comment, Bill. I think it’s difficult to deal equally with a state party, with a sophisticated army like Israel’s, with an air force and a navy, and the most sophisticated weapons that are not only in the arsenal of Israel, but manufactured and exported by Israel, on the one hand, and, on the other, with Hamas using improvised, imprecise armaments. It’s difficult to equate their power. But that having been said, one has to look at the actions of each and judge the criminality, or the alleged criminality, of each. That’s the reason our main recommendation is to urge both sides to look at themselves, to conduct their own internal investigations—criminal investigations—and to prosecute and punish the people responsible.

  Was it possible to distinguish between militants and civilians among the casualties in Gaza?

  I can’t believe that the Israeli intelligence doesn’t enable them to do so, certainly to a higher degree. I’m not suggesting that there can be any infallibility. But I’ll give you an example. We spoke to the owner of a home in Gaza City. He said he looked out of his window and saw some militants, whether Hamas or other Palestinian groups, setting up their mortar launchers in his yard. He ran out and said, “Get out of here. I don’t want you doing this here. You’re going to endanger my family, because [the Israelis] are going to bomb. Get out.” And in fact, they left. Whether that was typical or atypical, I don’t know. But assuming the militant had disobeyed him, assuming they had launched the rockets over the objections of the household owner and his family, and disappeared, it would be a war crime, as I understand it, for Israel to have bombed the home of that innocent household that did not want this to happen.