The other night I came home from Judge Goldstone’s speech at Yale and, sensing that it was important, posted a quick report. In days since I’ve relistened to the speech and seen its depths. Though it was not about Gaza per se, nearly everything the judge said was a logical and quietly-impassioned response to the critics of his Gaza report to the U.N. Human Rights Council. Richard Goldstone is a sober jurist, a man of the law, but his speech was a spiritual/political discussion of racism and inequality, with a backdrop of the Holocaust and apartheid South Africa.
Indeed, the heart of Goldstone’s talk came when one of Israel’s defenders assailed the judge for conducting live TV interviews of witnesses and sneered, How can any Palestinian testify honestly when Hamas is watching? The judge responded calmly that this was a misunderstanding that had gone abroad. In fact, all Palestinian witnesses for his factfinding investigation were interviewed privately. The reason he did televised interviews of other Palestinians (and Israelis too) was to allow people on both sides "to see the faces and hear the voices of some of the victims." He’d seen this process work in the truth and reconciliation process in South Africa. "It’s my responsibility and it was very much a South African input… That was the only purpose of the televised hearing."
But let me go to the judge’s legal argument…
Goldstone explained that war crimes law came out of World War 2 and "the shadow of the Holocaust." And then for the 40 years of the Cold War, these laws slept. If only the law against apartheid had been enforced, Goldstone lamented, apartheid might have ended in South Africa 10 years before it did. But it was not until the last 15 years that these laws have been given life. The International Criminal Court was formed. There have been several prosecutions– lately involving four African nations.
The issue now is whether powerful nations are going to allow themselves to be subject to these laws so that the system will spread to the nations "outside the tent." If the powerful demonstrate their willingness to apply these laws to the powerful, the system will gain wide credibility, and we will have a better and more peaceful world.
The first turning point in the application of international law was the war crimes tribunal in the former Yugoslavia in 1993. Europe and the United States recognized that without justice there would be no peace. Let me repeat: No justice, no peace. And so the United States insisted on having a tribunal. Goldstone was made the prosecutor. When he first flew out to Belgrade, the Justice Minister said angrily to Goldstone that the tribunal was an American device. Why should Serbia be the first when Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein, and others all over the Third World went scot free with far more blood on their hands?
Goldstone didn’t have much of an answer. He said that the Serbian minister would be correct if this was the last and only prosecution.
But it wasn’t. A year later the Rwanda genocide was also investigated by order of the Security Council.
Still, this issue of unequal application nags. As Goldstone pointed out under questioning, there is gross unfairness in the application of international law. The Balkan war crimes were investigated because they were European, and the media brought back horrifying pictures of genocide. But this year the Sri Lankan government killed 20-30,000 Tamils and the media paid little attention, and the Human Rights Council of the UN has ignored that case. Regrettably in Goldstone’s view.
And yes: Gaza got a lot of media attention, and the result was the Goldstone report.
Today the Israelis have said that they want to change war crimes law to deal with the reality of terrorists operating amid a civilian population. That’s inappropriate. The laws still apply. If there are a few terrorists on the roof of a hospital shooting at you, you can’t bomb the hospital–what I took to be a direct reference to the missile attacks on Al-Quds Hospital when there were hundreds of victims of Israeli violence inside it.
The Israelis have indicated that they are going to have a military investigation of the Gaza war. If that process is not open and credible and genuine, it is pointless, Goldstone said. Or if the aim of the process is the "rebuttal" of the report, an obvious reference to this NY Times story, that does nothing to make the allegations go away. They need to be investigated.
Back to inequality, the core value in Goldstone’s universe. "In matters of international affairs, inequality is the rule," he said. Trade laws are unequal. The nuclear weapons club is unequal. The Security Council veto is unequal. There is "one law for powerful nations and a different law for the weak."
The mildmannered judge with the deep voice challenged his audience. You know about equality in this country because of the Civil War and the civil rights movement, remarkable events. Now look what role inequality plays out in war times. Inequality leads to assaults on human dignity; and the denial of human dignity leads to murder, killings, and rape.
"All citizens quite rightly demand to be treated equally," Goldstone said. "The greater the differentiation, the greater is the invasion of dignity."
The message of a South African who helped bring down apartheid, directed at Israel, which has denied basic rights to Palestinians for 62 years.
The other night I got down a lot of the Q-and-A, and Goldstone’s remarkable admission that Israel was being treated "unfairly." He said, "Israel isn’t the only nation that’s being treated disproportionately and, let me say, in my view, unfairly… It’s a matter of politics, not of morality. The United Nations has a dominant group of the non-aligned movement, and the issue of the Palestinians has assumed a tremendous importance to them, and they’re using it."
This group used to harp on the South Africans, he said. There were as many or more UN resolutions passed against South Africa as Israel.
But he heard this very same grievance, we are being singled out, from the Serbian foreign minister. And yes it is unfair. But does that mean that we don’t prosecute war crimes by powerful countries? Here Goldstone made the analogy to 9 murderers getting away in New Haven, and one being prosecuted. The one defendant can rightly claim that the law is unfair. But we don’t release him on that basis.
And he threw in this idea also: If Israel considers itself a democratic nation, then it must not complain if it is held to a higher standard. Later, in the reception room, I heard him say to an Israeli who was angry about being singled out, Look, if a priest hurts someone, we go after the case because we hold the priest to a higher standard. I don’t have the quote right; but that was the judge’s point. It left the Israeli answerless.
I hope I’ve conveyed the sequence of the judge’s moral reasoning. But let me say how I heard his speech: The world is a terribly unequal place. He saw this in South Africa. People were denied their dignity. The world took too long to address the problem. The world is still a very unequal place; and today a symbol of that inequality that justifiably upsets the Third World is Palestine. And so Israel, that self-described "outpost" of western democracy, is arraigned in world opinion for crimes that pass relatively unnoticed in other parts of the world, because of this symbolism.
No, this is not a perfect world. But today this is where the pursuit of justice carries us. And powerful nations must demonstrate their commitment to justice by responding fairly. The Goldstone Report.
It may not be a perfect world, but it was a perfect performance. Goldstone has thought through all these points for years. His experience has fitted him for this moment better than anyone else we might imagine, and I thought if he did not exist we would have to invent him: A Jew raised in South Africa, who fought apartheid there and then went to Europe to apply laws generated in the Holocaust to war criminals there, and then to Africa, to extend the same standards. And now he is knocking on our door.
Yes to your article. For USA Americans, in view of our political leaders on both sides of the political party fence in a country where those two parties rule, either one or the other, we must look at the facts on the world-wide ground (and the actual impact on peoples there) to judge what we are enabling via both USA American parties and their
supporters here in the USA. Foreign aid: we are accountable for this great disproportion
to Israel via blank check, and to Egypt, conditional it supports Israel uber alles. We give the entire rest of the world so much less. Why? The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Why are we there? And why do we think Iran has no justification for its stance in its own neighborhood? Why do we think Israel has so much more justification? Does no USA political operative read Middle East history? Imagine if we had the same blinders
on the USA history back in the early 1960′s when the civil rights movement commenced. Who is responsible for the blinding of the American public after the lessons of Nuremberg their ancestors died for?
“Dershowitz: Goldstone is a traitor to the Jewish people” … in today’s Ha’aretz..
link to haaretz.com
It seems that Judge Goldstone is a lot smarter than some thought he might be. I am so glad he is not retreating feeling the barbs flung by the Zionists. Something just and fair might come into the light of day.
Dershowitz is like the lawyer in Seinfeld trying to make a case for hot coffee spilled by Kramer on himself. He is despicable. He’s what gives Jews a bad name. I’m not saying that’s right or fair ; just pointing to the catalyst for the bad feelings. Of course, he does not have a clue. So, what’s new?
“He’s what gives Jews a bad name.”
So Jews have “a bad name”? Jeez, Citizen, it’s nice of you to come here and try to help us in spite of it.
And as always, thanks for the tip. I’ll try to remember in my dealings with Gentiles that I have “a bad name” to overcome.
At any rate, I’m glad you were able to look past that, all the way to marriage, and I’m glad your wife had you to steer her straight. We just can’t help ourselves.
Mooser, d0 you actually think that all white gentile Americans do not have to deal with
the assumption that they are racists to the core even if they don’t realize it?
Citizen is right. Dersh should make a Jew’s skin crawl if not anyone else.
The Dersh is looking more and more like a pompous fool who is draining Harvard Law of its reputation and credibility. As a tenured professor, he’s like an unleashed militant Zionist pit bull with no class. “Goldstone is a traitor to the Jewish people.” Gimme a break. It’s Dershowitz who’s the traitor — a traitor both to human rights and to the truth.
Dershowitz and Skip Gates, that’s some pair at Harvard.
I was brought to the Israeli/Palestinian question via Warsaw Ghetto. For me the similarity of Gaza and West Bank cantons to Warsaw Ghetto is nauseating enough to be outraged and to demand highest standards from Israelis, as descendants of those, who were slaughtered by lack of those standards in the international law in the past.
I agree with you on the Warsaw Ghetto similarities, but why not go a step further? Shouldn’t the Nazi state, founded explicitly for one group of people on a blood and soil philosophy to the exclusion of all others, not just Jews, inspire Jews not to create a state explicitly for one people based on a blood and soil philosophy that excludes others?
Sorry for the run-on sentence.
JSC,
I think concept of exclusion of all others has its roots in religious dimensions of Judaism, at least in Eastern Europe, where it was halachically forbidden to share social activities and eating with Gentiles.
Ideological exclusion of Arab labour in pre-Israel Zionist farms in Mandate Palestine also pre-dates Nazis.
I think we’re talking about two different things. I believe that Nazis and Zionists essentially defined Jews the same way. This racialized definition of Jews and blood and soil nationalism were created in 19th-century Europe, before Zionism and Nazism. Zionism essentially adopted it, Herzl and Jabotinsky said as much. And Zionism was always a chauvinistic movement by necessity, hence the exclusion of Arabs.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but the majority of Eastern European Jews were secular/socialist until WWII. The insularity you’re talking about is mostly limited to the Orthodox or Chareidi minority, but there are of course Jews who have prejudices for non-religious reasons. I’ve never heard of a halacha banning social activities with gentiles, at least not outside some of the kookier Hasidic communities who have always represented a pretty small minority of Jews. I’m not defending that, I just don’t think it has as much to do with Zionism as people think. The Orthodox were among the most prominent early opponents of Zionism.
Eva,
By the 20th century, even in Eastern Europe, Orthodox Jews were in the minority, and not all Orthodox Jews (today or then) adhered to that questionable “halakhah” (we can go into the details if you like, but religious custom was far more a product of social forces than the other way around). Furthermore, only a very small minority of Eastern European Jews were Zionists – and those were among the most secular and the most assimilationists, who freely mixed with non-Jews in the universities, cafes, writers’ circles, etc. throughout Central and Eastern Europe.
I am also a little bothered by the expectation that former victims should know better. It is quite obvious that they don’t. The hypocrisy of using their suffering (actually the suffering of a lot of long dead Jews and a few survivors, co-opted whether they like it or not) to inflict suffering on others is certainly an obscenity, and worth mentioning, but that’s a somewhat different argument.
Warsaw of course means something to me too. My grandfather lived and worked there until 1936, and his murdered mother, brothers, nieces, nephews, cousins and friends were all Polish citizens.
That’s what I said many weeks ago, as I was getting semi-banned.
That Zionists ‘racialize’ Jewishness. There can be something such as Christian culture, Christian traditions/etc. and the Christianity – the religion. However, there is no such thing as a Christian race. Ditto for Islamic etc.
So I would like to know what the rationale is for racialized perspective of Jewishness.
In Defamation, there is an elderly Jewish couple who say that since they are not religious Jews, they feel connected to their ‘Jewishness’ by ‘fighting’ antisemitism.
I think they are members of the ADL or something. Can’t recall the details exactly.
There was also a kid who went on trip to a Holocaust museum (I think, or maybe it was a former camp) – and said she couldn’t ‘get into it’ and that her instructor, essentially, could not get her to weep.
Not trying to criticize the experience (independent from the Zionist framework), just the coercion involved. And even the desire to be coerced. It just seemed weird. Cultish.
I agree with you completely. I’m actually watching Defamation right now and laughing at how those kids are being brainwashed, even though I guess I should pity them. Really, I should be afraid of what the mentality they’re creating will mean for Palestinians.
You were almost banned for suggesting Zionism racializes Jews? I’ve read that in plenty of books and experienced it myself. What was the logic behind this?
My best guess for Zionists to adopt the racialization of Jewishness would be to try to find an idea that would unite all Jews behind Zionism, since ethnicity, religion and language could not do so.
However, the racialization of Jews was actually invented by non-Jews after the Jewish emancipation from the ghettos – the idea that all Jews are a separate race and cannot integrate into their respective countries. I believe the Zionists simply bought into it completely. I’m not absolving them of any blame, but I don’t think they invented the idea.
This plays into what you mentioned about Defamation. It’s kind of sick that Jews are using hatred against them to define their identities. Perhaps that can only lead to psychosis.
JSC, so one would think. But that’s not the way it works. If it did, we could all beat the shit out of our kids and produce perfect adults.
Mooser, what the heck are you deducting from what JSC says; We want to know.
An excellent post Mr Weiss. The judges view is commendable, but I do not believe that it is going to become a reality. I know that it is not his (Goldstones) position to follow political reasoning, but previous applications of the law in instances like this served the position of the powerful in who was prosecuted. Whether you look at Serbia – which was tethered because it would not follow the lead of the “new world order,” or you look at South Africa because it struck too close to the “victories” of civil rights in the USA only to be submerged in a political realm with little to no justice for the majority of South Africans (not only did the money stay in the same hands, but the people were besieged by the same system of debt through the IMF and the World Bank – take a good look at South Africa today). Or whether we are talking about the exploited countries of Africa (Rwanda) which was the result of European exploitation and animus, to the knocking at the door of Sudan – all politically motivated to subjugate the poor in the short or long run.
Now, why is this the case? Whether the judges motives are pure or not, it does not remove the real underlying world system and its propagation which means to only strengthen and to allow to act with impunity dominant nations (of which, in your examples are Israel and India which had interest in the destruction of the Tamils). This is why I say Israel will never stand trial for its atrocities, not only because it is in for lack of a better term “the old boys club,” but because it is a slope which the dominants see as slippery and eventually leading to them.
I want you to remember this post when push comes to shove, because it is important that you realize that what I am saying is the truth, first of all. Secondly, because the only thing that will change it is the overthrow of the current world system by the people.
It is just like you’re correct assessment of the Israel Lobby, which is merely a cog in a system (albeit a predominant clog of elites), and that even if it were struck down the system would move on – and what are you going to do, vouch for some supposed “benevolent” elites after they are toppled? Both you and other individuals on this site like to say that you are totally different than lets say Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn, because you have the number of the Lobby and this is the fount of all ills – but even though you go further than Chomsky, you still in the end will be dashed on the same rocks of reality. Both you and the ones you like to differentiate from (Noam Chomsky, etc.), still work within a framework of reform from within, which because of the nature of the systems operation is a totally defunct position (with Chomsky and Zinn it is “pressure the powers that be,” so you can get surface change which reverts after a period of time, rather than substantive change). The reason I used this example is because it strongly relates to the themes on you’re web site.
So, instead of only using my own words, let me quote someone else, that I think hits the nail on the head -
“Normative rules are determined by power relations. Those with power determine what is legal and illegal. They besiege the weak in legal prohibitions to prevent the weak from resisting. For the weak to resist is illegal by definition. Concepts like terrorism are invented and used normatively as if a neutral court had produced them, instead of the oppressors. The danger in this excessive use of legality actually undermines legality, diminishing the credibility of international institutions such as the United Nations. It becomes apparent that the powerful, those who make the rules, insist on legality merely to preserve the power relations that serve them or to maintain their occupation and colonialism.”
GAZA: THE LOGIC OF COLONIAL POWER
I want you to remember this post, I want all of you to remember what I said here when we come to the conclusion of this issue. It is not an indictment of Goldstone, because I think he is right on track, it is just that the world powers will not follow (in other words, it does not matter how accurate the report is). It is not a get out of jail free pass for Israel, it is merely the reality of the current world condition. Frankly, I do not know what holds people back from crossing the apparent revolutionary line, perhaps they think they have something of “value,” and they do not want to disturb their own personal peace and comfort. After all of this I might be wrong about the outcome here – and if I am I will acquiesce – but I doubt if I am wrong. Deep down of judge Goldstone were to read this, he would know that I am right – and I think that many here know that what I am posting is the unvarnished truth. The only thing left to ask is, what are you going to do about it?
Another excerpt from the above article link –
“I have often been asked by policy analysts, policy-makers and those stuck with implementing those policies for my advice on what I think America should do to promote peace or win hearts and minds in the Muslim world. It too often feels futile, because such a revolution in American policy would be required that only a true revolution in the American government could bring about the needed changes.”
@VR, I think I would be satisfied with baby steps at this point. We are still crawling. An awakening will not happen quickly or easily no matter how obvious it might appear to me. As far as the IMF and World Bank, I applaud South America for it’s newfound understanding that these institutes are no more than promulgators for the current multinational capitalistic vampires. Argentina and so many other countries are coming out of their bankruptcy without them. As a result of the new awareness of the vampires many of these countries are moving toward socialism and a more balanced order.
It seems that the wool is coming off the eyes of many in many countries. How long will it take?
To begin at the top, at the source, Goldstone would have to take on the US.
Yep. And the USA is ZOG to make it clear. That 98% of the USA is Gentile makes the depressing point. Depressing only to the few alert goys.
This information did not get the proper play that it deserved when it came out about the Kosovo War, which was not reported accurately then according to the excellent NYT foreign correspondent in the region, David Binder. Binder was reported from Yugoslavia for 33 years. I offer it here as a historical reference. The exhumations were ordered by Carla del Ponte, former Chief Prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). [Ditto Chief Prosecutor for Rwanda, BTW]
Read the rest here: link to guardian.co.uk
Milosovic was not charged with genocide. He was charged with the war crime of ethnic cleansing, and the murder of hundreds of civilians in both Croatia and Kosovo. (Do not read wikipedia, read the ICTY website for the actual charges.)
And rather than it being the so-called 100,000 Kosovo Albanians who were murdered and stuck in mass graves, as William Cohen and NATO claimed during the war, new information from exhumations and testimony released April 2009 by the BBC and Balkan Investigative Reporting Network proved that it was the KLA/CIA who were kidnapping, torturing and killing civilians during and after the 1999 War.
link to therearenosunglasses.wordpress.com
Now MRW, the only thing to look at is the commiseration and exploitation of the country after the attack, from the point of impact to the present. What will be seen is most disturbing, hopefully even to its hardened supporters.
“The issue now is whether powerful nations are going to allow themselves to be subject to these laws so that the system will spread to the nations “outside the tent.” If the powerful demonstrate their willingness to apply these laws to the powerful, the system will gain wide credibility, and we will have a better and more peaceful world.”
The key word is “will”, a future word. In this case, Israel would be a precedent as applied to well-integrated developed nations, not a violation of the preestablished norm as has been WIDELY inferred here.
The reason that Israel objects to the report isn’t that it is singled out, but in the case of a state relative to multiple terrorist quasi-governmental militias (militias when opportune, governments when opportune) that do shell civilians, that their hands get unnaturally tied with legalistic definitions that make sense and don’t make sense.
Rather than being able to fulfill their obligation to protect their nationals and all civilian residents, they are compelled to accept civilians being shelled.
Phil MISSES the reality when he states that Israelis object to being singled out. That is a secondary concern. Relative to human rights assessment during times of war, they desire to be held to the standard of restraint in the course of pursuing their mission, rather than restraint from pursuing their mission.
Your rhetoric has changed over time, which is commendable. In another year or two you will have undergone the transformation to becoming an ex-Zionist. It’s a process much like drug addiction. But, over time, and due to the constant contact with non-Zionists on this website, some of it has rubbed off on you. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. All you have to do now is persist and remain resilient.
Israel could have averted the bottlerockets from Gaza at any time, if it were only willing to accept the Hamas offer of a ceasefire. It is Israel that insists on war.
It’s rather astonishing that Israel is not only the one to violate the ceasefire, but the only one who did not abide by the original terms of the ceasefire, and yet hacks the world over continue to place the blame on Hamas?
“The reason that Israel objects to the report isn’t that it is singled out, but in the case of a state relative to multiple terrorist quasi-governmental militias (militias when opportune, governments when opportune) that do shell civilians, that their hands get unnaturally tied with legalistic definitions that make sense and don’t make sense.”
You write as though Israel were just minding its own business when a bunch of terrorist bullies decided to shell them. In fact Israel has been the aggressor all along.
And your concern about legalistic definitions that tie Israel’s hands and don’t make sense sounds remarkably like apologetics for war crimes. In your mind Israel broke some laws of war that don’t make sense, because it doesn’t make sense to have certain laws when fighting Hamas. Needless to say I’m sure you don’t think that cuts both ways–you’d never say that Hamas has the right to fire a few rockets into Israeli towns. Gosh, I wonder why.
When you have an argument with both parties making valid points, when the person that you are arguing with starts punching you defend. Its still defense.
I’m glad that Phil posted Goldstone’s acknowledgement that the fixation on Israel is excessive, and that he was engaged by an organization that he regarded as structurally biased, and was “using” him.
It is similar to the client relationship of Dershowitz in a corporate trial. (I don’t know if he personally accepts corporate clients. Certainly, many lawyers do.)
There is still very very limited agitation that Gaza/Hamas conduct a similar investigation, if even to counter the assertion that Israel is being singled out. Some principled human rights organizations insisted on that, but with very limited support here.
“When you have an argument with both parties making valid points, when the person that you are arguing with starts punching you defend. Its still defense.”
More Orwellian BS . Israel’s oppression and coercion and violence towards Palestinians is a daily occurence–it dominates their lives. Ordinary Gazans live in a destroyed economy because of Israel’s actions. The only violence that matters to you as something that deserves a violent response is violence directed at Israelis. There is nothing Israelis could do to Palestinians that you would not see as a lesser crime compared to violence committed by Palestinians against Israelis, no matter what the relative level of the violence.
I’ve read you for years now and it still stuns me how vile your attitudes are. Of course there are plenty of pro-Israeli racists, but what makes your viewpoint particularly nauseating is the way you couple it with peaceful-sounding rhetoric.
As for Israel being singled out, they’re a fairly typical example of a Western democracy committing war crimes and crimes against humanity. There are certainly examples of war crimes on a larger scale. But we aren’t supporting the criminals on such a scale and we don’t have racist nitwits posing as liberals defending them.
Israel did have an option. It could have eased the blockade of Gaza. Right now, Zionists are boasting that food shipments to Gaza dramatically increased in 2009 relative to the same months of 2008. Why didn’t they allow the food to enter the Strip during the truce, when no missile was fired by Hamas?
Phil MISSES the reality when he states that Israelis object to being singled out.
Actually, Phil didn’t make a blanket statement about all Israelis. He said that the Israeli who addressed Goldstone in the reception room objected to the singling out of Israel. SAU (straw-man as usual).
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The Arab-Israeli dispute is not about equality or inequality, or about skin color, or about economic exploitation; It isn’t even about democracy. The conflict is about the establishment of a Jewish State. Everything else follows from that.
The conflict is also about religion, land, and history, but the central issue is the establishment of Jewish State.
So you agree that the establishment of an exclusively Jewish state on the back of an indigenous population is the problem. OK, we’re getting somewhere now.
It’s the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. There would have been no dispute between Jews and Arabs if the Jewish state had been established in Australia.
A Jewish state, or at least an autonomous province, already existed, long before Israel, in the Russian Far East. The Jewish Autonomous Oblast (Russian: Евре́йская автоно́мная о́бласть, Yevreyskaya avtonomnaya oblast; Yiddish: ייִדישע אווטאָנאָמע געגנט, yidishe avtonome gegnt. [It] forms a federal subject of Russia (an autonomous oblast) situated in the Russian Far East, bordering Khabarovsk Krai and Amur Oblast of Russia and Heilongjiang province of China. Its administrative center is Birobidzhan. It has has existed since 1934, when Stalin set it up.
Israelis never lacked somewhere to go to make a homeland, but took someone else’s territory instead
A Jewish State could not exist with all those Arabs. Hence, the ethnic cleansing. At least you agree, Zionism is the problem.
You are missing only one thing, Area Man, yes, it was important Jewish State be established. And it was just as important that it be established in ancient home of Jews, Palestine. We were not going to let the Gentiles tell us where we could have our Jewish State, we were going to tell them.
And now we have atom bombs! Let the bastards try to move us now! We’ll destroy big segment world!
And won’t everybody love the Jews then!
Oh, yeah, we’ll need at least a hundred million Jews to be aby kind of a creditable population, so we better get busy, ladies, lest the failure of Zionism be laid squarely at the feet of your closed thighs.
“This group used to harp on the South Africans, he said. There were as many or more UN resolutions passed against South Africa as Israel.”
How many of the UN resolutions that have been directed towards Israel’s violations have actually passed?
PLEASE CALL YOUR REPS AND TELL/ASK THEM TO READ THE GOLDSTONE REPORT AND TO INVITE THE HONORABLE JUDGE GOLDSTONE TO THE HILL TO DISCUSS HIS FINDINGS.
There is a full list of UN Resolutions, all totally ignored by Israel, at: link to icarabe.org
It may be important to remember that the much-reviled United Nations is the world’s parliament.
Thanks for sharing this Phillip. The integrity that Goldstone demonstrates is so damn inspiring. Wonder if there will ever be a call for him to go to Iraq and examine U.S. war crimes committed there. Hell the invasion was a war crime
“It may not be a perfect world, but it was a perfect performance. Goldstone has thought through all these points for years. His experience has fitted him for this moment better than anyone else we might imagine, and I thought if he did not exist we would have to invent him: A Jew raised in South Africa, who fought apartheid there and then went to Europe to apply laws generated in the Holocaust to war criminals there, and then to Africa, to extend the same standards. And now he is knocking on our door.”
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Is there a link to the speech somewhere? Did I miss it?
Goldstone said “Israel isn’t the only nation that’s being treated disproportionately and, let me say, in my view, unfairly… It’s a matter of politics, not of morality. The United Nations has a dominant group of the non-aligned movement, and the issue of the Palestinians has assumed a tremendous importance to them, and they’re using it.”
Because the non-aligned countries form the democratic majority in the UN. That may be very inconvenient, but it’s true.
Goldstone also said to an Israeli who was angry about being singled out, Look, if a priest hurts someone, we go after the case because we hold the priest to a higher standard I don’t have the quote right; but that was the judge’s point. It left the Israeli answerless.
Goldstone was right to say that singling out Israel from among the world’s most murderous countries was unfair, but he was also referring to “the world’s most moral army”, in mentioning the UN’s going after a case where a higher standard should prevail
RP,
Taken in context, I think these things simply mean that Israel constantly demands special status, special treatment and special attention. It cannot then turn around and say “why are you looking at me” or “why don’t you treat me like everyone else”. The very fact that it refuses to take its chances in the world arena that is the UN, relying instead on a combination of US protection and studied contempt for all iternational forums it does not like, demonstrates that it does not wish to be treated like everyone else. An well-known expression about cake comes to mind.
I’m sorry; I’ve forgotten the cake story.
But don’t you realise? Israel is a Special Nation-State, set up to take over other inferior Arab people’s territory, and establish a state with a population of Ashkenazi Jews (non-native, and mostly from Poland. No native Israeli (apart from Netanyahu) has ever become Prime Minister.
Damn. I was trying to be clever with that cake remark. Guess it didn’t work. I meant that Israel wants to have its cake and eat it too.
I think the SNS (Special Nation-State) you describe is a perfect candidate for special tribunals. As Mooser would say: You wanted to be Chosen? I’ll give you Chosen!
Following the Arab revolt of 36-39, the holocaust and its continent-wide persecution (beyond even the areas of Nazi control, persecution “lite”), the 1947 civil war, the Jewish state as a state and not just a social community, in 1948 was a need.
Its a revision to conclude otherwise.
“Following the Arab revolt of 36-39″
That was a reaction to the Zionists pouring into Palestine with the clear intention of setting up a state that would exclude the Arabs.
The 1947 “civil war” was the result of the same movement.
If the Zionists had not wanted to set up the state, neither of these events would have happened.
And the holocaust was over by the time the state was set up.
All in all, the message here is that the Rule of Law (and especially compliance with the International Humanitarian Law and Law of War) is important and Judge Goldstone supports it and so should everyone else.
I’ve put that in a petition. If you like it, sign it.
All in all, the message here is that the Rule of Law (and especially compliance with the International Humanitarian Law and Law of War) is important and Judge Goldstone supports it and so should everyone else.
I’ve put that in a petition (link to change.org
If you like it, sign it.
Yizhak Rabin was the first native-born prime minister back in the 70s. The generational shift was completed in the early 90s when Rabin was elected to his second stint in office (Netanyahu, Barak and Olmert followed), and the prime ministers have been native-born since then.
Of course, there’s no knowing whether the Polish-born Shimon Peres will ever make a comeback as a nonagenarian.
You’re right that only Israelis of European heritage have ever been Prime Ministers. No Arab Jews have ever won that office.
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