Comments on: Read the ‘New Yorker’ for the pictures

By: Chaos4700

Chaos4700 — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 16:22:04 +0000

Israel is rejecting and condemning the report outright, and you want to shift focus to the fact that Hamas is too busy burying their dead children and preparing for the next IDF massacre to make a statmement about the Goldstone report? You are so incredibly dishonest and racist in your application of criticism, it hurts to read it sometimes, Witty.

By: Richard Witty

Richard Witty — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 16:16:59 +0000

But not accountable.

Where is the Hamas spokesman saying “Dr Goldstone, your report informed us of our organization’s deviance from international law. We will conduct internal investigations of all our chain of command and cadre, publish the results and institute the appropriate reforms, and hold the offending individuals responsible including prosecution.”

Where is that equal accountability to international law?

One of the criticisms of the Goldstone report was of the structured bias of investigating a state that could legally be held accountable, and implying that the investigation of a faction carries the same legal weight, as the faction cannot be held accountable, and does not submit to international law in any respect.

Do you think the Hamas cadre is trained in international law as a component of its professional military? (“professional” as a statement of quality, not of compensation)

By: GalenSword

GalenSword — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 20:47:42 +0000

Look at what the US government is willing to do for Jews while it dithers about besieged Palestinians and attempts to bury the Goldstone report!

The State Department took something of a risk in removing the Yemenis to the U.S., as it might be criticized for favoritism at a time when refugees elsewhere are clamoring for haven. The U.S. calculated the operation would serve both a humanitarian and a geopolitical purpose. In addition to rescuing a group threatened because of its religion, Washington was seeking to prevent an international embarrassment for an embattled Arab ally.

[WSJ] Secret Mission Rescues Yemen's Jews.

By: Donald

Donald — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 18:00:18 +0000

We at this blog are past the diamonds and dung stage. The MSM is not–this was a good first step towards diamonds and away from dung.

Also, I don’t remember your stance on the Moyers/Goldstone interview, but I can’t fathom the different reaction between the Moyers interview, which the majority here thought was great, and this New Yorker piece, which is simply better in every respect.
Moyers filled his interview up with the hasbara narrative about how the conflict came about, and totally left out the blockade and all the Israeli violence before it. It was “rockets from Hamas” and then “Israel’s over-reaction”. I was quite disappointed with it.

I’ll probably repeat most of this at the new thread, since I guess discussion on this piece will migrate over there.

By: Colin Murray

Colin Murray — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 16:52:19 +0000

@ Shmuel November 7, 2009 at 3:31 am

Has anyone else noticed the fact that Goldstone treats Hamas as a legally-recognised entity on a par with Israel?

That was a very deft catch, Shmuel.

By: Chaos4700

Chaos4700 — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 16:13:14 +0000

I still love it how the Israelis reject progressivism -- reject you, Witty, with your self professed "progressive Zionist" platform -- and you blame the way Israelis vote on Hamas. You're a racist. You literally blame everything on Palestinians and nothing on Israelis.

By: Shmuel

Shmuel — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 16:02:30 +0000

As discredited as the UN may be in the eyes of Israel and the US, the fact is that Goldstone refused to toe the Israeli line (shamefully accepted by Europe as well as the US), whereby the elected Palestinian government must be treated as a terrorist organisation, worthy only of boycott and sanctions (sadly, there is hardly anything to divest from in Gaza). Moreover, the way in which Hamas’ authority and responsibility is recognised by the report – Hamas must respect international law and if it commits war crimes it must be held accountable – is such that Zionists cannot possibly disagree. I am not saying that the “Quartet” will suddenly invite Hamas to the negotiating table, but that this aspect of the report is another crack in the hasbara wall.

By: VR

VR — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 14:00:01 +0000

I recommend you read it again Donald, we should be past the stage of trying to look for diamonds in dung. Frankly, I am tired of rhetoric lifted from context

By: Citizen

Citizen — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 12:53:38 +0000

Oops, Sorry Mister Witty. Somehow I missed your opening paragraph. It’s a good letter. I wish my congressman had voted NO. I tried to get him to do so; he just ignored my voice.

By: Shmuel

Shmuel — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 09:44:05 +0000

Absolutely, Chaos. To be remembered every time some Shavit or other proposes the “Sharon doctrine” or a “third way” (and of course every time someone spouts the garbage that “Israel generously withdrew from Gaza and all it got in return were Hamas rockets.”)