NY Times coverage of the Goldstone report has been surprising. Basically the paper of record can’t wait for it to go away. The Times did an initial story on the report–evidence of war crimes on both sides–that was OK.
And then the next day the Times ran a piece on the Op-Ed piece by the South African justice himself. Goldstone was somewhat apologetic and lukewarm: "in many cases Israel could have done much more to spare civilians without sacrificing its stated and legitimate military aims." Nothing about persecution and wanton destruction.
The next day the Times ran two letters attacking Goldstone. One from the American Jewish Committee. The Times surely got a million letters, many favorable; but the next day it printed two more letters attacking Goldstone.
And today here is a small story buried in the paper to say the Obama administration considers the report unfair.
And that’s been the end of it. The Times has missed the most important angle: the huge black eye the Goldstone report has given Israel, and Israel’s vigorous effort to counteract the damage by propagandizing. Here for instance is the Financial Times with a piece about Israel stepping up its counteroffensive. Or Ynet’s analysis: "The Goldstone Report is a grave blow to the State of Israel on three significant international fronts: The diplomatic theater, the media front, and the military-legal arena. The Israeli government and mostly the Foreign Ministry must engage in a difficult battle in order to minimize the report’s damage."
All true. And it is amazing that the Times just can’t seem to wrap its head around the report. Where is the editorial about the report? This is a newspaper that editorializes on spring and fall, to say that the change of season is a good thing. Here, silence.
Where am I going? I suspect the reason for silence is that the report is a giant blow to Israel, and the Times is uncomfortable with the idea of giving it ink. It doesn’t want to be in the position of pushing the report on to the nation’s agenda. The Times has a Jerusalem-focused idea of what Israel is. Both its correspondents in I/P are married to Israelis. A stunning statement about Palestinian "persecution"– and it looks the other way.
One bright spot: online coverage by Eric Etheridge in the Times’ opinionator blog. Etheridge knows this thing is a big deal.
Thanks to James North for all the thinking on this post.
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The Solomon letter does not seem to be an attack on Goldstone. But the situation changed radically after Israel won governance of the territories in the 1967 Six-Day War. Israel’s settlement building, still continuing, to achieve sovereign domination over the entire Holy Land assures a dynamic of endless tension and violence. Solomon seems to be saying that the Israeli settlements are the root cause of the violence, although he does not explicitly mention Gaza.
I wouldn’t second guess the Times editorial practice.
If Goldstone himself tempered the tone of condemnation in his op-ed, I would assume that that is authoritative. (I doubt highly that he was censored.)
You don’t know what the end result of reporting will be. You are far from prophetic.
I think the best that can come out of this is reform.
Again, there is a path for Israel to reform. There are institutions and powers that it is actively accountable to, whereas as Hamas is a militia and ot a state, there are none that it is accountable to.
“Again, there is a path for Israel to reform. There are institutions and powers that it is actively accountable to”
This is incoherent. What institutions and powers are “Israel” actively accountable to? What do you even mean by “Israel”? The government? The people? And why haven’t those institutions and powers prevented “Israel” from practicing a form of apartheid, imposing a blockade which is a form of collective punishment, and killing civilians at random, sometimes deliberately, both in war and in peace?
And supposing you meant something like “the government of Israel will hold itself accountable for war crimes”, since when did any government, democratic or otherwise, ever do such a thing? At most a few low-ranking people are treated as scapegoats or a minister might resign. This is accountability? Only if you’re an idiot. Members of governments which lose wars or which are overthrown are held accountable –it doesn’t happen otherwise, not when it comes to things like war crimes and crimes against humanity. A democracy which commits such crimes (as many have) isn’t going to punish itself because the people themselves would have to admit some guilt for what has happened and in practice, people tend not to do that.
Cheney is a torturer–if he ever faces trial for it it will be an unprecedented event.
Israel is accountable to all of the states that it holds treaties with (Egypt, Jordan, European), the UN and associated international law, particularly the US, and to its own diverse electorate, and also the diverse international Jewish community.)
It is frustrating that in the areas that Israel does have latitude to unilaterally change policies, those accountabilities haven’t yet resulted in the change in policies that you and I would hope.
In contrast, Hamas is accountable only to allied factions in electorate, some limited informally in the Islamic world, but no formal accountability. There is no legal path to hold an alternating political party/militia, that is part of no state, accountable.
Its a structured deniability. The only options that any entity has with Hamas is persuasion (which the left restrains from making any self-initiated criticism) or force.
Hamas is accountable in your definition–the US and the EU refuse to talk to them directly, though their crimes are no worse than the PA’s and on a far smaller scale than those of the government of Israel. And far worse, they allow the blockade of 1.5 million people to continue. The problem here is that the US is an accomplice to Israeli crimes against Palestinians. Israel is held to no standard–they receive verbal condemnations from human rights groups and the US promptly jumps to their defense.
Israel is accountable to all of the states that it holds treaties with (Egypt, Jordan, European), the UN and associated international law, particularly the US, and to its own diverse electorate, and also the diverse international Jewish community.)
Give me one instance were Israel had to modify its action due to accountability based on treaties during the last decades.
What relevance has the fact that the larger world of treaties didn’t care much about the destiny of the “nationless” Jewish people in Hitler’s times? And why is this now, that Israel has state rights and thus can enter treaties no longer a problem the world faces? In other words irrelevant.
Is this the crux of why you think the past has to be kept out of “persuasion to mutually humane means” at all costs?
Leander,
The approach of persuasion is oriented towards a goal, which by definition is a description of seeking to CHANGE the present condition towards a different future condition.
Again, there is justice whose goal is to return to a past status, and there is justice whose goal is to seek a just future status.
Both goal orientations, change from the present to some different future.
And right on schedule, the Obama Administration comes out with a weasel-like statement about the report, where the only atrocities they specifically condemn are those by Hamas–
link
Notice how many lies and half-truths they manage to pack into this. Yes, the original mandate was one-sided, but Goldstone changed that. And it goes downhill from there. I particularly enjoyed the part (echoed by Richard) that Israel has democratic institutions and can therefore handle its own war criminals. I’ll dispense with sarcasm and just say that’s an utterly cynical statement. The US has thus far been utterly incapable of going after its own high-ranking war criminals and supporters of terrorism–people like Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon had nothing to fear from those particular charges. Neither does any other President, including Bush II or Obama. War crimes trials are for dictators who’ve outlived their usefulness, or for low-ranking guys in the military who can serve as scapegoats. And that’s it. Obama can’t support war crimes trials for high ranking Israelis because of the precedent it would set–he might be in the dock next. And we know damn well the Israelis aren’t going to prosecute any high-ranking generals or politicians. We’d be lucky to see some lowly grunt get a few years in jail.
The Obama administration appears to be shameless, which should come as no great surprise given how US foreign policy is generally conducted. Talk a lot about peace, but only condemn the politically acceptable villains and then find some quislings in the PA who don’t really care what Israel did to the Gazans–they could certainly broker an agreement with Palestinians who would be willing to wink at war crimes and worse committed against their own people. The kind of Palestinians who would be hailed as peaceloving by Richard. Since there were Palestinians (like Dahlan) willing to start a Palestinian civil war with America’s urging, there’s no doubt such people exist. You can’t get very optimistic about the “peace process” with this sort of thing going on. And it also casts a clear light on all the people who want peace with the West Bank first, and Gaza later if at all. The subtext–the Gazans are irrational and so it’s okay to kill them and in the meantime we’ll work out a deal with Palestinian leaders that we can buy.
And for Witty’s benefit, not that he will let in anything that might disturb his view of things-No, I don’t hold Hamas leaders blameless. But they deserve about the same amount of respect as the murderous hypocrites in the Israeli and American governments.
And the left similarly weaseled out of any criticism of the report.
The US criticism was on the basis of methodology, resulting in what was described as a distorted conclusion. The left should have similarly criticized the methodology, and the precedents of that.
Again, I think that Israel should take the opposite tack to denial, and instead actively and sincerely reform its military training, protocols of chain of command, so that the argument that Israel’s military is unethical can no longer be made with any veracity.
That would enable it to conduct its defense effectively, in which the only criticism could be of policy, which deserves criticism, but does not devolve to the opportunist hateful condemnation that seeks its demise.
“The US criticism was on the basis of methodology, resulting in what was described as a distorted conclusion. The left should have similarly criticized the methodology, and the precedents of that.”
The left should not criticize the report because the report is fine as it is. There are some lefties who criticize the report on the grounds that it should not have criticized Hamas, but they’re wrong, on both moral and pragmatic grounds. Morally, human rights investigators should not show favoritism or claim that one side’s crimes are justifiable or too insignificant to investigate–pragmatically the report has more credibility precisely because Goldstone went into it determined to investigate all sides (including Hamas crimes against Fatah supporters and vice versa, as well as crimes against Israeli civilians). And Goldstone obviously found that the Israeli crimes were by far the largest (quantitatively).
I don’t think Israel’s problem is chain of command–I think the problem is a society that has decided it can do whatever it wants and call it “self-defense”. There are obviously honorable exceptions to that, but they’re not the political mainstream.
I didn’t read the report, so can’t comment on it directly.
As I said before, I think the tack that Israel should take is to similarly read it, for the purposes of reform.
The wrongs that occurred in its military behavior can be corrected. It is accountable to international institutions as a signatory to the Geneva convention for example.
Hamas is institutionally NOT accountable. It is not a state, not part of a state.
My understanding is that the report was specific in the evidence that it was able to gather, and related to use of weapons, targets, carelessness in identifying civilians form combatants (a very difficult task in an embedded guerilla militia).
So, that is useful information for an army that desires to improve. (And, that is not clear yet either.)
Witty, it hasn’t been that long and you’re already summarizing what ‘the Left’ thinks of this report.
We’ve heard what Israel and it’s supporters think though.
Furthermore, how can you come to conclusions about the methodology? Let’s be clear, you have done so, because you go on to say:
Yet, you go on to state that you haven’t even read the report:
What is the specific issue with the report’s methodology?
Furthermore, you have also stated that Hamas was hiding amongst civilians. Where is your proof? Are you alluding to the ‘human shield’ argument?
“The wrongs that occurred in its military behavior can be corrected. It is accountable to international institutions as a signatory to the Geneva convention for example.”
Meaningless, if they won’t investigate themselves and if the United States prevents any action in the ICC. And Hamas is subject to prosecution by the ICC as well, if they don’t investigate themselves.
This whole business about accountability was discussed back in the 90’s when American liberals and conservatives argued about the ICC. The conservatives were afraid that the ICC would try Americans and presupposed this would be a travesty, because Americans by definition never commit war crimes. The “liberals” claimed there was no chance of this, tacitly agreeing that such a thing would be a travesty, because we are a democracy and have our own structures of accountability and so the ICC would have no jurisdiction. Both sides were half-right, half-wrong and completely full of BS. No US official is going to be tried in the ICC, not because we have our own structures of accountability or because no official is a possible war criminal, but because we are a hyperpower and nobody can make us submit to this. That’s how accountability works in the real world, outside the pious slogans of liberals. And Israel is our close ally, so the same applies to them.
I don’t find this surprising in the least. It is exactly what I would expect of the Times.
When are we, collectively, going to not tolerate the hyperbolic rebuttals coming from the pro likudnik camps?
Goldstone: “Pursuing justice in this case is essential because no state or armed group should be above the law. Western governments in particular face a challenge because they have pushed for accountability in places like Darfur, but now must do the same with Israel, an ally and a democratic state. Failing to pursue justice for serious violations during the fighting will have a deeply corrosive effect on international justice, and reveal an unacceptable hypocrisy.”
This really cuts to the chase. He’s saying that when the West gives Israel a pass, it essentially loses its moral authority to pass judgment on anyone else.
He’s up against “Jewish exceptionalism” on this one (that is, the rules to which everyone else must abide don’t apply to the Jews). And Jewish exceptionalism is clearly a tenet to which the current (corrupt) two-party Washington establishment whole-heartedly subscribes, despite its phony claims of fidelity to “All men are created equal.” No, it left the U.S. Constitution behind long ago as far too restrictive for its new self- conception as Israel’s imperial body guard.
Funny how Washington thought it could parlay its partnership with Israel into global hegemony and actually wound up as a drooling goon dancing to the Yiddish tunes of Zionist Jews. Talk about “The Plot Against America”…
I think the real block is US exceptionalism. Of all the Israeli excuses for discrediting the report, the effective one is that it hobbles the “war on terror.” Essentially, if Israel can’t commit war crimes with impunity, the US and its surrogates (NATO) can’t commit war crimes with impunity. If Israel is held accountable, the US must also be held accountable.
And the first principle of US exceptionalism is immunity and non-accountability for anything it does.
If Israelis can be hauled before an international criminal court, Americans can be hauled before an international criminal court. And there are far too many Americans who qualify.
Good point echoing the point made above regarding Obama only going so far after
Bush & Company; he’s worried he might be next in the docks.
@ potsherd,
Agreed, but who conceived the entire “war on terror” in emulation of Israel’s own? Whose relentless lobbying on behalf of Israeli impunity led to the 9/11 attacks that enabled the war on terror? America is suffering from successive generations of gullible, complacent and corrupt leadership, and their cowardly failures to root out the Zionist fifth column, which dating back to its Trotskyite days, never has subscribed to basic American tenets and has been playing its own angle all along.
It’s such an elaborate and sophisticated operation, it’s not too hard to see how both the Left and the Right were seduced by Zionism, but on the other hand there have been Americans (mostly on the “isolationist” Right) who have been warning about this entire state of affairs for decades. But just as the ploy used against the Palestinians, they were smeared as somehow in continuity with Nazism, even though what they really were was old-fashioned patriots — the kind who fought and died defeating Nazism.
Look what they got for their trouble.
I can’t see the entire weight of US exceptionalism stemming from its relationship with Israel. I think the two states have been co-enablers for decades.
wrt Iran, for example, the US quarrel with Iran has far deeper roots than the Israeli, which dates only from the end of the Iran/Iraq war. Israel wasn’t responsible for Kermit Roosevelt. But now it’s the Israeli warmongering trying to drag along the slightly-reluctant partner.
Following its victory in WWII against Nazism and its Cold War victory against Soviet Communism, both of which a reasonable case can be made were moral imperatives against totalitarianism, America was like a kid who had inherited the candy store, and Zionism was like his Jewish best buddy who encouraged him to gorge himself, and then start using the candy store as a front for all kinds of illegal vices.
America crossed a lot of lines in its battle against Communism, and profiteering elements also used the Cold War to facilitate abuses, but Communism had murdered so many tens of millions (hundreds if you add in Mao) that a lot of those transgressions are understandable, given the context.
But after the Cold War victory, the excuses were gone. 9/11, perpetrated by a relative handful of Islamic terrorists, might have justified Afghanistan, but the Zionist and war-profiteering/oil imperialism complex ploy to parlay it into the Iraq war and a wider war against Islam clearly turned America into a nation of imperial aggression.
IMO, none of this would have happened but for Washington entanglement with Zionism and the Jewish lobby. There is no way the war profiteering complex could have pulled Iraq off on its own, because it didn’t have the intellectual foundation and game plan provided by Neoconservatism, and it didn’t have the MSM in its pocket. The Jewish Zionist element provided it both of these.
What we’re dealing with is a case of extremely bad influence (both parties upon each other), and the best way to short-circuit the aggression is to sever the relationship with Zionism.
The NYT does have one piece in its Week in Review section on Goldstone. They are apparently behaving exactly as Phil says–they don’t want to say a word about this report, and I suspect David Landau speaks for them–
link
It’s smarmy and hypocritical. The author is not interested in the facts that led to Goldstone’s conclusions–he only thinks of the feelings of Israelis. They’ve long claimed that they don’t target civilians, but only kill them by accident while trying to kill terrorists. The Goldstone report refutes that. The Israelis, of course, are outraged. So David Landau is unhappy and says “Isn’t it a shame that the report didn’t talk about how difficult it is for a civilized nation like ourselves to fight against terrorists who hide behind the civilian population?” In other words, isn’t it a shame that the report didn’t follow the Israeli propaganda line and ever so gently point out that it might have been possible to kill fewer people? One must spare Israeli feelings of self-justification at all costs.
This is called “saving face”. Israel and its supporters have always told themselves that the difference between them and the Palestinian groups is that Israel doesn’t target civilians. They will squirm and twist and do anything rather than admit this is false. This narcissism is a major factor in why the conflict continues. So long as Israel and its supporters use this sort of reasoning, they will see not see how much in the wrong they are and they won’t be willing to treat the Palestinians as human beings and they’ll continue to think that whatever sins their side has committed, the Other is worse.
And the NYT has always been a strong supporter of this narcissistic mythology.
That is an odd interpretation of the Landau op-ed.
You really are only committed to radical condemnation, aren’t you?
“You really are only committed to radical condemnation, aren’t you?”
You and Landau are committed to narcissism. You don’t mind radical condemnation of Hamas, but when someone follows the evidence and concludes that Israel also targets civilians, you and Landau close your eyes and ears and start attacking the messenger. I suppose Judge Goldstone is also committed to radical condemnation–he wrote the report.
The fact is that over and over again, so-called Israeli liberals claim to favor peace, but they insist that the other side is worse. (I exclude genuinely honest groups like B’Tselem). The same dynamic is no doubt at work on the Palestinian side, among those who try to justify their violence. So long as you have hypocrites on both sides claiming to support peace, but also claiming that their own atrocities are justified (even Hamas now claims they don’t intend to kill civilians), one is always going to have the phenomenon of self-proclaimed peace advocates supporting acts of violence. Look at you, supporting the Gaza War. And I bet you agree with what I said about Hamas–that’s the funny part. You are a fascinating part of this blog, because in reading your rationalizations it’s possible to see how self-proclaimed peace lovers have kept the cycle of violence going.
It’d be easier for you, much easier, if I romanticized Hamas and defended their right to use violence against civilians, but I don’t. So all you can do is frame a consistent standard regarding violence on both sides as “commitment to radical condemnation”. I guess that’s the best you could come up with on short notice.
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