Canadian Chief of Staff slams Goldstone Report    
October 27, 2009
By Gil Zohar    
The Jewish Tribune
Original source: http://www.jewishtribune.ca/TribuneV2/index.php/200910272250/Canadian-Chief-of-Staff-slams-Goldstone-Report.html

JERUSALEM – Canada’s top soldier has come out against the Goldstone Report, which sharply criticized the Israel Defence Force’s actions in the Gaza Strip earlier this year during Operation Cast Lead.

“I’m not sure if the Israeli standpoint is that much different than the Canadian standpoint, having had the experience in Afghanistan,” said Gen. Walter J. Natynczyk, Canadian Armed Forces chief of the defence staff, in an interview last week with the IDF journal Bamahane (In the Camp).

“I’ve got to look through the whole report and read it through myself. But I fully understand how when someone is attacked from houses, family houses, and so on, that there is a responsibility to protect oneself and protect civilians,” Natynczyk said. 

“I have just had a great education in terms of where weapons were fired from and so on. I want to look at the report in terms of how does it describe it…. My impression of the Gaza Strip up to now has been through media reports. Now I got to actually see the size, the space, the context…. It just puts into perspective many of the reports and also the operations that were conducted before.” 

The Winnipeg-born general’s three-day visit to Israel – his first official tour here since he began his tenure as head of Canada’s military in July 2008 – concluded last Tuesday. 

Natynczyk was in Israel for a work visit as guest of Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, the IDF chief of general staff. During the course of the visit, he also held meetings with Defence Minister Ehud Barak, Deputy Chief of Staff Benny Ganz, Head of the Strategic an
d Planning Branch Amir Eshel, and Maj. Gen. Gadi Shamni, the outgoing Central Command officer (who will soon be appointed as the IDF military attache in Washington).

Touring the country by helicopter, Natyniczyk, 51, visited both the Northern Command nea
r Safed and the Southern Command in Beer Sheva. In the north, the general visited the Galilee Division and the Israeli northern community of Mizpe Benaya. He also observed Israel’s border area with Syria and Lebanon, while being briefed by senior Northern Command officers regarding Israel’s relations with the two neighbouring countries, and the IDF’s experiences during the Second Lebanon War in 2006.

The general also visited the IDF Southern Command and the Gaza Coordination and Liaison Administration in Erez, and was briefed regarding Operation Cast Lead as well as the various weapons systems used by IDF forces in their routine activities. 

Towards the end of his visit, Natynczyk toured the Tel Nof Air Force Base near Rehovot in central Israel, which houses several fighter and helicopter squadrons. There senior officials in the ministry of defence administration for weaponry research and technology development briefed him on newly developed Israeli technologies.

The general stated that the Canadian military has “really come to understand and appreciate what the Israeli forces have had to counter for quite some time,” adding that he now saw in a new light “the techniques, the way and the procedures that the Israeli military has adopted and evolved over the past few decades.” 

Natynczyk related the similarities between what is required of Israel and what is required of his country as part of its battle against terror. 

“We’re learning what we can adopt from Israeli forces that will enable us to reduce risks to our people,” he concluded. 

In an unrelated development, Canadian Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon, visiting here to attend the Israeli Presidential Conference 2009, told Israeli President Shimon Peres that “Canada is willing to renew the Refugee Committee and to assist the peace negotiations between the state of Israel and the Palestinian Authority.”

Peres thanked Cannon for the support Israel has received from Canada over many years. He harshly criticized the Goldstone Report, saying “It is truly unimaginable that an institution such as the United Nations commissions a report knowing that it is based on biased, pre-determined conclusions and manipulation of the facts; a report that will, above all, reward terrorism.”

Cannon told Peres, “We as Canadians stand beside you particularly against the threat of terrorism and comments that deny the Jewish state or the Jewish people. These are things that are foreign to Canadian values and to Canada itself.” 
Last Updated ( Wednesday, 28 October 2009 )