This Goldstone hit piece, clearly supportive of South African apartheid, was on the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty web site. RFE/RL is funded by US tax dollars. Even though there is a disclaimer that the opinions are that of the writer, R.W. Johnson, what the heck is it doing on the Radio Free Europe website? From RFE/RL:
as the political situation [in South Africa] changed, so did Goldstone. Entrusted by President F. W. de Klerk with a commission to investigate the causes of violence, Goldstone publicized much damning evidence against the apartheid regime but refused to investigate any form of violence organized by the African National Congress (ANC). This naturally made him the ANC’s favorite judge.
…De Klerk was furious at Goldstone’s sensational use of untested evidence and, knowing that Goldstone was ambitious to succeed Boutros-Boutros Ghali as UN secretary-general, referred to him as "Richard-Richard Goldstone."
Then, to the ANC’s delight, just weeks before the 1994 election Goldstone made dramatic allegations of illegal and partisan behavior against three police generals, effectively ending their careers. Yet Goldstone had made no attempt to put these allegations to the men concerned, nor allowed them to defend themselves or test the accusations through cross-examination.
Goldstone justified publicizing these untested allegations by saying it was important to give them publicity before the election. The ANC couldn’t have agreed more strongly: when they won, Goldstone was given a seat on the Constitutional Court.
Heedless of the fact that the doctrine of collective guilt has been the basis of anti-Semitic campaigns down the ages, Goldstone publicly urged all whites to apologize for their collective guilt and advised younger South Africans that they must not expect top jobs because of "the sins of the fathers."
The effect of these high profile actions was to give Goldstone international fame as an icon of political correctness.
I would imagine that there must be some bitterness over collapse of the Afrikaaner regime in S. Africa. And what is even worse, Israelis can’t publicly complain. I guess Goldstone allows them to revisit the good old days and denounce ANC .
Typical. Since Goldstone denounces Israel, Goldstone must be denounced. Since Goldstone denounced apartheid, apartheid must be defended – as Israel was always a defender of the apartheid regime. Now anti-apartheid is anti-Semitic, although it is also anti-Semitic to be anti-apartheid when the apartheid is Israeli.
Oh what a tangled web we weave!
Bitterness insofar as the American neoconservative movement and Israel invested heavily in the Afrikaaner’s regime and ended up losing that investment, one supposes.
Character assassination at its best!
Blankfort doesn’t state what isn’t true in the piece, just attacks the author who states facts he doesn’t want to hear.
Oh, so we have another Jack Abramoff disciple on the board.
What this is called is a racist, Islamophobe variety.
Any way you cut it, the official USA regime’s stance on the Goldstone report assures the status quo; I would like to know what average Americans will gain from this, especially in these economic times:
link to counterpunch.org
Wonderful. So at what point does the United States actually declare war on the UN itself, if that’s what it takes to defend Israel’s interests?
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.
Want to know know what is going on in South Africa and the rest of the so-called third world?
THE FOURTH WORLD WAR
In other parts of Africa, whewere does the famine come from?
NIGER FAMINE
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.
I imagine the same discussion goes on daily in the back yard’s of the gated communities across the USA.
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.
When I saw the title of this piece I thought it you were exaggerating. It looked like a gimmick to grab the reader’s attention.
Turns out, I was wrong.
So, what? We need more USA grunts with war nightmares and no limbs?
War is good for business, apparently.
Has anyone seen this bit of propaganda from Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs?
link to jcpa.org
It doesn’t take long to get hilarious:
“Yet the comparison of Israel to South Africa under white supremist rule has been utterly rejected by those with intimate understanding of the old Apartheid system.”
Except for Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela, Richard Falk, John Dugard, Bill Fletcher, Jr., etc., etc…..
The truth is that the anti-apartheid movement is popular now….more than a decade after apartheid fell. While it was ongoing, though, the ANC were a bunch of terrorists and anti-apartheid activists a bunch of rabble-rousers. Zionism might have more political power here in the U.S. than apartheid did (a debatable assertion, I think, until the dying days of apartheid) but its contradictions are bound to collapse at some point.