The House is scheduled to vote on condemning the Goldstone report on Tuesday. You should call your congressman about this. Here is a support site collecting signatures of those who demand accountability for the slaughter, under the statement that the report is well-researched and fairminded.
Here is a Jewish appeal to support the Goldstone report. Tony Judt urges you to do so, from a Jewish place:
We Jews should be very proud of Richard Goldstone. In an ancient tradition of Jewish self-questioning and uncomfortable truth-telling, the author of the recent report from the UN Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict has braved personal vilification and institutional mendacity to describe the crimes committed by Israeli forces in the course of their invasion of Gaza in December 2008.
And here is Jewish Voice for Peace urging you to "fight efforts to kill the Goldstone report." JVP’s statement:
The continued attacks on the Goldstone Report prevent accountability for the civilian victims before, during and after the attack on Gaza — both Palestinians and Israelis — and shred the rule of law.
We believe the report is well-researched and fair-minded. It accuses both Israel and Hamas of war crimes and possible crimes against humanity, while rightfully placing greater emphasis on Israeli violations of international law, especially regarding the killing of civilians. And although almost no critics have addressed the actual substance of the report, it goes into important detail about violations of international law including Israel’s use of phosphorus and flechettes (metal darts that move in such a way as to cause maximum damage when they hit flesh) on civilians.
It is true that the Goldstone Report is not perfect, especially because Israel refused to participate in the investigation. It is also true that the UN’s Human Rights Council unfairly targets Israel and tends to overlook the human rights violations of other countries.
But neither of those issues should lessen in any way support for its recommendation that the Security Council pass the issue to the International Criminal Court if Israel and Hamas do not make “good faith” efforts to investigate the allegations within six months.
Related posts:
- Goldstone attacks House resolution on his report as ’sweeping and unfair… devoid of truth’
- Ask and you shall receive: the US appears willing to help Israel stonewall the Goldstone report
- 11 Palestinian human rights orgs call for investigation of Palestinian violations alleged by Goldstone
- ‘NYT’ bashes Goldstone by upholding Arab League report– which notioned genocide!
- ‘Newsweek’ columnist endorses Goldstone Report
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Via Niqnaq:
US-born Jewish Extremist Arrested for Alleged Series of Hate Crimes
I used my weekly letter to my Congressman to oppose the Clinton statement accepting the Netanyahu “compromise”.
I expect John Kerry will listen.
Will you expect John Kerry will be effective? He doesn’t actually have much of a track record in that regard, as a politician (or a statesman).
You are conspicuously quiet about what you’ve said to your Congressman about the Goldstone report. That’s what this article is about, specifically, isn’t it?
I hope he will speak up, as he has in the past.
I also wrote to my House rep.
You should too.
You say that like I don’t.
I don’t know what you do or don’t do.
Then do us a favor and stop writing as if you do.
Dear, dear Mr. Weiss….. What calling the Congressmen would achieve against “Zionist Fatwa” against Mr. Goldstoe??
You may not have heard Uri Anvery’s 2004 prophecy: “If Israel decide to table a draft, calling the Ten Commandments as a’a forgery’ – there will be 300 Congressmen and 70 Senators who would vote favor of the bill”.
Did not you read The Wall Street Jornal the other day? The US State Department ran a secret operation to airlift 60 Yemeni Jews – not to Israel – but to the US….while according to UN, there are 150,000 Yemeni Muslim and Christian refugees living under the most miserable conditions.
‘Save Yemen’ – Muslims Vs Jews
http://rehmat1.wordpress.com/2009/11/01/save-yemen-muslims-vs-jews/
60 new Yemeni Jews–anyone care to guess how many more cases of financial fraud, organ trafficking and ecstacy dealing this will bring us?
AF – you’re sounding like Eli Yishai, and that’s not good.
Seems to me I recall seeing that these Yemeni Jews did go to Israel, not the US.
Sadly no:
Secret Mission Rescues Yemen’s Jews
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125693376195819343.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_RIGHTTopCarousel
Now they’ll be working for Israel and corrupting American morals.
Certainly it is important to tell your congressperson what you think of the ongoing AIPAC effort to have Congress condemn the Goldstone report. But if you want actually to do something to get Congress to stop supporting the Israeli atrocities revealed in such impartial reports, you must do something to support broad-based organizations and lobbies which will oppose AIPAC and its fellow travellers in an organized way in the halls of Congress.
Telling your congressman doesn’t do a damn thing. Until he or she starts seeing BDS signs in the neighborhood, the congressman will not believe its real.
One side of my relatives lived in Russia before the revolution, just before the revolution. They wrote voluminous daily diaries about the political situation and who was doing what to whom. A whole trunk full of them. The spinsters in the group were real activists, even though the family had been invited to Russia under Nicholas I to bring Russia into the industrial age 60 years previously, and they lived a life of ease.
Anyway, their privilege allowed them to see both sides of what was going on. Bloody Sunday, I think was in 1905. It was supposed to be a peaceful public demonstration of ordinary folk petitioning the Czar outside his Winter Palace to improve their working conditions. The Czar left town a few days before for his dascha. The Czarist secret police fired on the crowd. My great-aunt or great-great-aunt, who participated in it (universal suffrage was one of the issue) until she could see what was going to happen, wrote something I never forgot and has been repeated in our family…for like, forever.
‘When you get ordinary women and children demonstrating in the streets in the middle of winter, you better pay attention. What’s wrong has reached down into the soil of the country, and the government is in trouble.’
Petitioning the 535 of Congress is not going to help. Has it helped so far? Made a dent? I get the same form letters back every time I write in. Pointless. They have to see it. Just like those people who drove to Connecticut and demonstrated outside the AIG exec houses. It got their attention.
BDS. BDS. BDS. Fuck Congress. They fuck us.
Good morning, MRW. Interesting story (about your great-great that is), and the quote is beautiful. I don’t know whether it was ever true, but I’ve spent a good part of my adult life – first in Israel and now in Italy – protesting against government policies, together with heaps of ordinary women and children, and it has NEVER made a bit of difference, in terms of the actions of those in power. Demonstrating makes you feel less impotent and less alone, and helps create grassroots contacts, but hundreds of thousands of ordinary people (I have participated in many demos that have attracted those nmbers) count less than a single big donor, corporate or crony interest, or effective lobby run by a handful of men and women without scruples. We have lost control (again, if we ever had it) of our politicians and political systems. They do not and will not act in the actual interests of their respective peoples. Maybe the countries I have lived in are special cases and have made me particularly cynical, but I believe the principle applies to all of our “western democracies”.
That I can agree with, precisely because the mechanism doesn’t go directly through our political systems. It is far more than a demonstration of our outrage, in the hope that some pol will think it’s a voter issue. The lobbies and corporate interests will always carry infinitely greater weight. Change will occur – as in the case of SA – when the global corporates and special interests decide to shift strategies. Besides, it’s the right thing to do.
How about freedom rides to AIPAC, J-Street and ADL headquarters? Why not go to the heart of the problem? Turn “set my people free” against them!
I’m organizing a sit-in at my representative’s office building. Letters are dandy, but they’re easy to ignore and shred.
They are insane to tie a colonial settlement to a religion. It’s a sure recipe for atrocity and failure. And they won’t stop just cause some Jewish people ask them to.
You know I think there’s a fair argument that having Congress pass this ridiculous anti-Goldstone screed will help the Palestinians more than it would if our elected lickspittles just stayed silent.
Clearly it seems to me, esp. with Obama having performed his about-faces on the I/P issues now, the central mass of opposition to what Israel is doing has moved from the milquetoast squeaking of this or that Western country to the screaming and proposed actions (such as BDS) of *private* individuals and groups, especially European, organizing ever more *specifically* in reaction to seeing the lack of action on the part of their Western governments.
So the Congress passes this and what could be more inciting and thus helpful to those private movements? Congress isn’t spitting on some mere media report here, nor on any critic that can be slimed as being anti-semitic. It’s spitting in the face of the entire international community in the form of the U.N., with the U.N. in this instance wearing the obviously sober and fair face of Mr. Goldstone.
Let Congress pass this, and let it be trumpeted as loudly as possible in Europe especially. As much as Israel has cast its lot with the U.S. it seems to be increasingly realizing that it would be in a helluva fix if it were be divorced from Europe. S0 let it see the Congress doing this dirty deed for it, and then see all the added people and resources and motivation the outrage over it means for such things as the BDS movement in Europe.
As someone once said, be careful what you ask for because you might get it. Well, Israel has asked for this, maybe they should get it good and hard.
Let’s face it folks, if aipac didn’t think it would get close to 99% support-vote in congress, they wouldn’t have allowed the Goldstone Report in through the front door in the first place.
It’s all a charade. It’s a foregone conclusion. US congress will CONDEMN the Goldstone Report tomorrow.
I’m taking bets on that if anyone is interested.
The Goldstone report deserves to be considered important even within the limitations of its methodology.
Both either/or approaches are the wrong one. It is NOT authoritative, and it is NOT inconsequential.
Anyone care to ponder why the Nordic countries have taken the lead in addressing
Israel on its actions? Perhaps we can learn something by investigating that situation?
A solid tradition of human rights and social justice? A virtually impeccable record of standing up to anti-Jewish prejudice (i.e. harder to manipulate)? Fewer interests/responsibilities in the ME/global arena?
My guess is that it is because so many men from the Nordic countries have served in the UN in Lebanon, and have had run-ins with the IDF. I’d also guess that Europe is much more anti-Israel than the United States because so many European kids have spent time in Israel travelling or working. The large number of Muslims in the Nordic countries probably has something to do with the attitudes, also.
Whatever the truth is, the Scandinavian countries are less pro-Israel than the United States. But I wouldn’t think that Nordic leaders are in any position to do anything, or to even rock the boat much.
I don’t know if graffiti taps into anything, but I did see several examples of “Boikott Israel” last summer in Bergen and Oslo.
http://www.boikottisrael.no/eng_faq.html
Here in Italy there is certainly more awareness of I/P issues than in the States, and BDS and anti-Israeli positions are completely respectable. Yet, the president of the Italian Republic (a former communist, with good lefty credentials) felt the need to meet with a delegation of Italian Zionists (Keren Hayesod) today, prior to a state visit to Lebanon, declaring that it is legitimate to criticise Israel, but not to question the existence of Israel as a Jewish state. Why the hell not!? The laws and values of “Israel as a Jewish state” happen to violate the principles of the Italian constitution. By the way, there is no significant Zionist lobby in Italy, and our media has its own woes, but Zionist interests are not among them. Nor do pro-US bias and interests explain this phenomenon (virtually across the political spectrum). It’s just the way things are. It is considered the “decent”, “moderate” approach: criticise Israel, settlements, Gaza, Lebanon, advocate 2 states, give the Palestinians financial support, but never ever question Zionism itself.
I think perhaps also because so many Israeli kids have gone rampaging through Europe.
The Norse are simply more civilized.
I’ve never heard that Israeli tourists are a problem, but I know that many kids who have worked and travelled in Israel come away despising Israel and Israelis.
Call your government reps–phone numbers here:
http://fromthewilderness.wordpress.com/2009/11/02/emergency-congress-debates-burying-the-goldstone-report/
The main question – is Goldstone report flawed or not? And it seems it is. Where his methods for evidence collection accurate? No, they weren’t . There is enough detailed analysis in the web which is proving that. So it is neither about justice and international law, nor about human rights protection. Just a pure politics. One more front in the Arab-Israeli conflict, that’s all.
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