I’m doing something good this Christmas; I’m reading the Goldstone Report. It’s amazing. I never did read it through. It’s the greatest work by a Jewish writer since Norman Mailer left town. No it’s not literary, but it’s a fervent effort to give dignity to the lives of Palestinian civilians gunned down in their homes because Israeli soldiers were pursuing a policy of frightening the population and "communicating" with bullets.
I see now why the Goldstone report will resonate for a long time. Because it’s overwhelming. Because its findings are inarguable– or so far uncontested. Because it’s been nullified by the Israel lobby, and this offends the world, when civilians are wantonly murdered and there is zero accountability.
15 civilians killed when a mosque is hit by a missile; Israel denies it hit the mosque. 22 huddled civilians killed when a house is blown up. Israel says it was going for a weapons storage facility next door, and apologizes; but it never did went after any other house in the neighborhood and had plenty of time to do so, so Goldstone dismisses the explanation. 35 civilians killed when mortars are lobbed into the street outside a UN school, where hundreds have gathered. Israel says it got a "well known" Hamas fighter. And gives the name of a boy, 13 years old.
And here, on Christmas Eve, is Christopher Dickey in Newsweek, imagining Jesus in Israel/Palestine.
the truth rarely sets anyone free, as proved most recently by the fact-filled United Nations report by South African Judge Richard Goldstone, which was dissed by Washington and dismissed by Israel….
No, I don’t know what Jesus would do, but I know what Obama should do. He can embrace the most important finding of the Goldstone report, which is essentially a call for Israel and Hamas to embrace a process of truth and reconciliation similar to the process that helped to heal the wounds of apartheid. (Thus far, the State Department has been claiming the report is actually an obstacle to peace.)
The mendacity of Congress in condemning the report is just breathtaking.
It’s only breathtaking if you expect Congress to be anything but mendacious.
A $5 hooker is common, a $5 billion hooker is exceptional.
That’s Congress.
Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah indeed.
Christmas in the Holy Land:
link to youtube.com
Truth and reconciliation would be reconciliation.
Hamas???
Israel???
The aspect of the report that deters peace, is the functionally limited scope of the report, which both Hamas and Israel influenced. Neither can claim that they didn’t see opportunity from the report, and offered selective access. (Hamas did not offer access to its internal records – if it bothered to keep any, nor did Israel – which did.)
Israel was secretive and insisted on retaining its secrecy. Hamas did as well. Phil’s quoting of Goldstone accusations is a critique of secrecy, a reasonable critique of the US (though the US military is sadly very secretive, even to responsible legislative leaders legally entitled to the data).
Should the Israeli military be compelled to be transparent? Is that even close to the norm, the expecation?
I don’t see that that will change, at least not before reconciliation, which would take a change of heart from Hamas and from Israel.
So to sum up Witty’s overly verbose, torturous tripe: Just blame Hamas. For everything.
From the 4 ways to win any hasbara argument, Witty uses #1 and #3 . . . “We rock” and “they suck.”
I know. Why don’t they just use the numbers 1-4 and maybe a percentage to indicate to what degree their argument rests on each of the four axioms.
Think of the bandwidth saved. I don’t care hiow much Witty claims to contribute to Mondoweiss, he uses it all up, and lot’s more besides.
The aspect of the report that advances peace is (compared to the propaganda veiling/distorting
reality that both the Israeli and Palestinian regime leaders indulge in) it’s relative objectivity about what’s been happening in a key part of the world, in a physically small locale affecting the security (hence peace) of whole world more than any other.
It’s a real start towards Truth, the pre-condition for reconciliation. The factual allegations in the Goldstone Report need to be investigated; that’s the next step
towards the truth that will set the disputing parties free to reconcile with each other. But the USA dissed the report, declaring it ironically an obstacle top peace, while Israel dismissed the report and denied some allege facts in it, e.g., those silly responses Israel threw back that Phil uses as samples in his article. Was the “Hamas leader” a 13 year old boy, or not? The world doesn’t need vaults of confiscated
meticulous German records to determine such facts.
Truth and reconciliation would be reconciliation.
Each presentation and allegation of fact in the Goldstone Report needs to
be addressed by the disputing parties and their respective findings; then made public. “…when mortars are lobbed into the street outside a UN school, where hundreds have gathered. Israel says it got a “well known” Hamas fighter. And gives the name of a boy, 13 years old.” Well, that’s a start towards unraveling the Truth as to what needs to be reconciled; the aggregate of factual allegations in Goldstone
needs facing, and pursuing. This cannot happen under the USA and Israel regimes.
Those two regimes have thrown away the keys to peace. The world sees this. The ultimate culprit here is the USA regime because it alone has the power to lead on towards more truth–stifling Truth is never an effective long-term peace policy.
Yes, you favor reconciliation, want to limit truth and demand to keep apartheid forever. I think that’s the PEP stance.
He can embrace the most important finding of the Goldstone report, which is essentially a call for Israel and Hamas to embrace a process of truth and reconciliation similar to the process that helped to heal the wounds of apartheid
First, the end to colonial apartheid in Palestine. Then only, the truth and reconciliation process. As in South Africa.
Cong. Howard Berman made a point by point rebuttal destroying Goldstone his team and the report. Great reading.
link to washingtonindependent.com
If he’s read the report, Berman could not have written this. It is laughable to conceive that Berman sat down at read all 575 pages. Not even Witty read it. Neither did you.
I’m sorry Berman destroyed your illusions. Berman does a beautiful job of taking Goldstone’s lies and distortions and revealing the truth. Even the basic fact of the Goldstone alleging the Human Rights Council changed his mandate to be fair to Israel turns out to be a blatant lie. The Mission was never changed.
R.W.Johnson does a masterful job in revealing who Goldstone really is. Just a small man, a self promoter, looking to get ahead.
link to rferl.org
I just read it and hardly found it “great reading” but merely obfuscating lawyer talk. If Congeress Berman had any real interest in the truth he would have had Judge Goldstone appear before a Congressional committee BEFORE voting on the resolution condemning his report and broadcast the hearing on CSPAN so that people could decide for themselves the truth how valid the his allegations may be. At this point in my life, what hurts me more than anything, is that Israel has more to fear from truth than anti semitism. I have yet to find a substantive response to the substantive findings in the report and I have looked. Mostly you get diversionary allegations regarding Goldstone’s and the UNHRC objectivity.
Julian your nonsense in the above posts is just as ridiculous as Berman’s hit piece, it addresses nothing of the factual account but merely repeats the lies of Israel. It is the same old worn out old nonsense that is spit out repeatedly, his so-called rebuttal is trash, and I have specifically told him so. It is not worth the paper it is written on.
Than you use for support this slop from R.W. Johnson, which is merely a non-factual hit piece brought out in a ridiculous venue, Radio Free Europe my ass. In fact, I have previous on this site fully exposed the garbage that Johnson and sycophants like him produce, which is nothing but racist diatribe against Africa’s capability to rule itself without the colonial or neocolonial white bwana, clearly supportive of Apartheid. He is a re-run of the verbal demolition for you –
There are two things one must keep in mind, the absolute nonsense that goes over as “liberty” news in the first place, it should right be called “Propaganda Radio.” It is no different than its US counterpart. Second, who is this fellow writing and what has been his background and legacy? South Africa’s current dilemma has nothing to do with bad leadership, it has to do with leadership complicit and the bill of goods sold to the South African people, with virtually none of the wealth and land moving from the hands that held it since apartheid. Instead of the real wealth of the nation leaving the coffers of the privatized few it remained there (to this day), and instead the black population (except for a few that would acquiesce by being the fat around the midsection of the elite white few) received “civil rights” which does not amount to parity and the deadly loans offered by the IMF and the World Bank to the commiseration of poverty (neocolonialism).
R.W. ’s concentration during this entire time is just to lampoon the black “leadership” and never get to the source, similar to the issues in Zimbabwe -
NEOCOLONIALISM 101, EXAMPLE ZIMBABWE
To drop the entire debacle at the feet of Goldstone is patently ridiculous, and all R.W. does is follow a long train of neocolonialism tradition which vilifies the black populations to write hard what has been internal propaganda in the developed countries, especially the UK and the USA. As an example in the introduction to his book you can see the play on what I have said above –
“Equally damaging were the new leaders, many of whom had lived in exile or in prison for much of their adult lives and who tried to impose decrepit, Eastern Bloc political ideas on a world that had long moved on. This disastrous combination has had a terrible impact – it poisoned everything from big business to education to energy utilities to AIDS policy to relations with Zimbabwe.
At the heart of the book lies the ruinous figure of Thabo Mbeki, whose over-reaching ambitions led to catastrophic failure on almost every front. But, as Johnson makes clear, Mbeki may have contributed more than anyone else to bringing South Africa close to ‘failed state’ status, but he had plenty of help.”
R.W. is a “Rhodes Scholar” which should speak for itself (see my Zimbabwe link). He is the recipient of the Helen Suzman Foundation legacy being its head, which builds itself as a non-partisan human rights think tank which helps to lay all of Africa’s ills at the door of the oppressed and exploited black populations. Some of the big funders for the foundation (all foundations have at times used the good names of others for their own purposes, some good some bad) – Isaac & Jessie Kaplan Centre for Jewish Studies and Research at UCT – Oppenheimer Memorial Trust – Wendy Appelbaum Foundation – Mary Slack and Daughters Foundation, need I say more?
I could develop this further but I trust this helps to suffice as a small primer.
The problems that we have here in the states, in regard to information about this region is minimum to zero. What you have is miles and miles high propaganda, not just in Africa, but almost everywhere exploitation is occurring. Hell, most do not know the deep undercurrents working in their own system domestically, the ignorance is astounding.
Take for instance the very workings systemically against minority from exploited countries, now everyone has an idea of lets say – profiling, and the general disenfranchisement of people of color. What is not know is how the systemic activity related to what takes place in their countries of origin. The activity here is meant to amke you think that they are “inferior,” and that they cannot rise to the occasion socially or economically. Vilification works through the media which gives the impression of laziness (welfare queens, etc.) and crime which is supposed to be rampant (what you are not told is the high concentration of standing “armies” in these ghettos, and how the simple fact of the makeup of those ensnared in the prison industrial complex should give you a clue of what is going on).
Now, what does all of this have to do with areas like Africa or Latin America? Why the very fact of the targeting, the lack of opportunity, and the systemic prejudicial aim cause the people in the USA to be anesthetized. How so? Because it is just “those people” again, “the ones who cannot get it together here – so is any surprise that they cannot run countries?” That is the mindset created, and with the lack of proper news from the regions (foreign) and the false information flowing, you do nothing but buy into the process of propaganda and vilification while your corporations, government both here and elsewhere in developed countries, both exploit and destroy the future of those people. You become like the well to do families that made their fortunes on exploitation, who sit on their lawns and drink tes asking “why are the native so uppity?” What a tragedy.
If you look carefully at the connection of Zionism to apartheid South Africa, especially in the exploitations of the resources both natural and human it will be no surprise (coupled with the other information I have given you), that Zionism is a full fledged partner in this activity primarily in South Africa. The damning history between the two rises like so much feces in a sewer, did you think there was suddenly a disconnect when the anti-apartheid movement won a political battle? So there should be little surprise of why this was chosen as a hit piece on the character of Goldstone.
Now I could go on (as I have elsewhere on this site) to show who supports the “foundation” which Johnson heads up, but you are not worth the effort Julian. In fact you, and blatant supporters of these atrocities committed against the Palestinians, are a collective social of sociopaths. Neither you, nor many leaders of this Zionist ideology should be allowed in the halls od power in Washington, nor anywhere near the seat of power in Israel.
Hey, Julian, I know where you can get in on this great investment deal, a guaranteed return of 50% a week, but you have to act now. Send $6million to imadupe.com
Julian: R.W.Johnson does a masterful job in revealing who Goldstone really is. Just a small man, a self promoter, looking to get ahead.
So, Israel committed no war crimes in Operation Cast Lead? The use of white phosphorus on a civilian population was completely permissible? There were no war crimes committed because the Goldstone report was “imbalanced?”
The problem is that hasbara is a losing proposition as a cover-up to the most egregious crimes committed against humanity of our time. Had the tables been turned and an Arab nation committed similar war crimes against Israeli children, would you be able to be as intellectually dishonest as you are here? NFW, Julian. NFW.
Goldstone’s distinguished life of service speaks for itself. The little people who smear him only get shit on themselves.
I’m confident that if Goldstone had authored a report similarly criticizing, say, Pakistan, people like Julian would scream that critics of it were anti-Semites. It’s as if they can’t deal with the fact that he is a distinguished Zionist Jew.
“At this point in my life, what hurts me more than anything, is that Israel has more to fear from truth than anti semitism.”
Ouch! A cogent and damning sentence.
Oh yeah, that one was like a kick in the gut, a great prod to regularity, anyway.
Merry Christmas to all, and that’s about all I can take. Talk to ya’ later.
Berman’s ‘point-by-point’ rebuttal of the Goldstone Mission’s Report is merely a critique of their methods of fact-finding, by someone who has absolutely no knowledge of the facts (having done no fact-finding himself).
You can find plenty of visual and other evidence of the facts if you care to look.
There are no substantive rebuttals by Berman, just as there have been no substantive rebuttals from the Israelis.
A case in point: “If Imad Abu Askar was as notorious and important as alleged, despite his young age (13) , the Mission presumes that the Israeli authorities would have known where he lived and, in particular, that he lived in the very house
they were about to destroy”. (Which they had warned should be cleared).
The Israeli authorities claimed within hours that they had killed a senior Hamas operative. “A further assertion made several times by Israeli spokespersons on 6 and 7 January and confirmed again on 12 January was that the strikes had not only managed to hit the militant rocket launchers but had also killed two senior Hamas militants, namely Imad Abu Askar and Hassan Abu Askar.” “Mr. Mark Regev indicated that Imad Abu Askar was a well-known member of Hamas’s militant operation and of some significance in the rocket-launching operations”).
It is quite clear, from the testimonies of Israeli soldiers to ‘Breaking the Silence” that Israeli squaddies were ginned up to attack anyone they saw.
The significance of this article is that Christopher Dickey wrote it. He is the Paris Bureau Chief and Middle East Regional Editor for Newsweek. He is highly respected overseas, and around the world, as an even hand at reporting and commenting, which he has been doing for a long, long time.
my thoughts exactly! this is huge.
merry christmas everyone. this was a wonderful way to start my day.
From: Just Foreign Policy (naiman@justforeignpolicy.org)
Sent: Wed 12/23/09 5:30 PM
Just Foreign Policy News
December 23, 2009
Just Foreign Policy News on Break Until January 6
The editor of the JFP News is going to Gaza for the Gaza Freedom March – if the Egyptians let us in.
[The Egyptian government has announced that it will not allow internationals to enter Gaza. Write the Egyptian Embassy in Washington and ask them to reverse the decision - link to justforeignpolicy.org
]
If Egypt does not let us enter Gaza, we will protest the blockade from the Egyptian side of the border. In either event, you can follow our progress by blog here –
link to bit.ly
and by Twitter here: @naiman.
The entire substantive question of the Goldstone report rests on the relevance of secrecy in military operations.
If you regard secrecy as important, then the Goldstone report is barely valid for conclusions, likely valid for information for a state seeking reform.
If you regard military transparency as important, then the limitations in evidence collection are critical.
In either case, the report itself is at best information to undertake internal review.
On secrecy, who is more transparent?
US
Israel
Hamas
NONE of them are transparent. Should they be, in the presence of genuinely violent enemies? Or, to what extent?
I find no “secrecy” valid for what was done and factually recorded in broad daylight Witty. I put as much stock in Israeli secrecy as I do US National Security ploys – zero, in the face of unmistakable crimes against humanity and blatant war crimes. The enumeration of equally spurious entities convinces a thinking person of nothing, it is just fodder for ideological sycophants.
Israeli atrocities and those who support them (like you) do not represent us, you are a collective of kapos, traitors to Judaism and as valid as the Christian counterpart of Christian Fundamentalism. Your pretentious behavior, and that of Israel’s in the sense that you represent anything remotely Jewish with these atrocities is beyond the pale. Neither worth salt nor spittle and a blight on humanity.
It’s relevant to note that near the end of Charlie Rose’s interview with Richard Sonnenfelt, the chief interpreter at Nuremberg, Sonnenfelt concludes that the death camps were purposely located outside Germany (in Poland) and knowledge of them
was kept from the German people during the war–that to do otherwise would have
ended Hitler’s rule (made possible by Reichstag fire pretext) via mass German protest even in that fascist state–secrecy was absolutely key. The other key was that (absolute) power
runs on the same track as the worst evil; all the Nuremberg Defendants were yes men (except Schacht) and followed orders, and they were intellectually mediocre.
link to charlierose.com
VR,
That you hold “NO” validity to military secrecy puts you at odds with every community in the world, every state in the world.
It puts you at odds with Hamas, with Hezbollah, with the Weather Underground, with the Panthers, with EVERY military effort.
Further, that you fail to engage the question of “extent” of secrecy, puts you in the black or white camp, a uniquely absurd, dogmatic and inflexible one.
Witty, trying to cast aspersions on someone else’s arguement doesn’t actually hide the fundamental flaws in your argument.
The basis of the “National Security State” is a defunct one, based purely on war and destruction. The entire framework of the current Hegelian menagerie of states has the framework for constant disenfranchising of their own people domestically and any contrived enemy. The countries belong to the people, not the hired help.
Yes, VR, that’s true in theory. All our elected leaders and their appointees claim to speak in behalf of “We, the people.”
VR is correct and logical, and you are hyperventilating with off-the-wall and ridiculous arguments. And that endlessly tiresome, ‘when in doubt invoke Hamas’ response to everything….as if the participants here don’t read this and research.
Mooser, which of the four Hasbara ladder steps is this one, once again? The whole world sucks? #4?
Actually Citizen, as I’m sure you know, almost all hasbara contains a generous dose of all four, these days. “Israel Rocks, Arabs Suck” just won’t cut it without the extra obfuscation and diversion contained in “You Suck, and the Whole World Sucks” (so leave poor beleaguered Israel alone)
It’s all so well explained in the article, at:
link to jewssansfrontieres.blogspot.com
Anyone who wishes to may read it, it’s not very long, and know the whole of Hasbara
Thanks for the link. This is very funny, and quite a valuable guide.
Many thanks, Mooser – a lot funnier than either Goldstone or Berman, easier to read, and probably truer as well
I love how you just keep fleeing downstream, Witty. You can’t even muster up a half-assed defense of you weak arguments anymore, huh?
“Witty. You can’t even muster up a half-assed defense of you weak arguments anymore, huh?”
Actually, that speaks well of him.
“The entire substantive question of the Goldstone report rests on the relevance of secrecy in military operations.”
That’s incorrect. The substantive question is whether Israel committed war crimes in Gaza. There is strong evidence that indicates they did.
As for secrecy, centuries ago people used to brag about the atrocities they committed, because they were proud of them. Heretics,witches, and unbelievers were fair game. In the past century or so attitudes changed–people still commit atrocities, but it’s not considered “civilized” to admit it, so everyone lies. The US lies, Hamas lies, Israel lies.
I’d like to think your talk of “secrecy” was some backwards way of saying this, but it appears to me that it’s just your way of changing the subject from mass murder to something that sounds less harsh–”lack of transparency”.
Under pressure from the Israel Lobby, Congress repudiated the Goldstone report, and in effect endorsed Israeli war crimes against Gaza. It depressing, but not surprising. For a thorough account of the whole sorry charade, see the following piece
link to monthlyreview.org
Noted liberal Howard Berman was one of the worst.
Nevada Ned: Thanks for this link; I had forgotten that Berman and Ros-Lehtinen were the leading shills for AIPAC in Congress, taking their instructions and their arguments directly from the horse’s mouth.
The first sorry fact is that the vast majority of Congress members, blackmailed or paid by AIPAC, follow them like sheep.
The second sorry fact is that there will have to be a bloody great war, where the US has to intervene, between Israel and rump Palestine before Americans will pay attention.
You should have put scare quotes “” around “Noted liberal”
As I understand it, liberals in the US are not so right of centre that they are mistaken for Commies.
Berman has taken over from the late unlamented Tom Lantos, who was also praised for his liberal views, except when it came to Israel.
With the enhanced aid the Obama regime is providing Israel, everything is shaping up for the next third Infitada, the pretext for the ever-expanding status quo:
link to counterpunch.org
the State Department is actually an obstacle to peace…. that much has been obvious to the rest of the world for some time…..
Give supporters of Israel’s aggression the Goldstone Report for Christmas.
Time to read an historical exploration of Dick Witty’s love affair with multiple loyalties:
link to sscnet.ucla.edu
Which reminds me, has Dick ever acknowledged on this blog any particular instance
where the USA’s best interest is not the dame as Israel’s? Has he ever even acknowledged
the inherent problem of dual loyalty in such an instance–even hypothetically? Is he like
the husband in BIG LOVE?
Why are you insulting the husband in BIG LOVE? :-)
I don’t understand why you all keep having a go at Witty.
I don’t understand most of his contributions. If there is any wheat, there’s an awful lot of chaff, and his pomposity and flatulence very much obscure any points he might be trying to make.
So, rather than try, I just skip over his entries. It’s less painful.
You’re right, Richard Parker. You are absolutely correct. I need to keep remembering it.
That’s a reasonable POV, but RW is also representative of many (not all) liberal Zionists. The pomposity and doubletalk and gibberish are there precisely when he takes a position he can’t defend in plain English. Orwell wrote about this technique in “Politics and the English Language”. In Witty’s case, on those occasions when he does have some facts he can cite to support his position, he often writes very clearly. When he descends into gibberish, it’s a dead giveaway that he’s got nothing.
There’s no “double-talk or gibberish”. We regard different concerns, criteria, as most important is all.
Ignoring me is ignoring the majority, the reasonable, liberal, kind, progressive majority.
You can derive some sense of self-congratulation by ignoring the concerns of the majority of Jews and Israelis (different views than American), but you won’t change reality by ignoring our perspective.
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