When Israel announced the formation of an independent commission to investigate the Flotilla debacle, Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs issued a statement welcoming the news and noting that
"the structure and terms of reference of Israel’s proposed independent public commission can meet the standard of a prompt, impartial, credible, and transparent investigation."
In the time since then, it has emerged that Amos Horev, one of the three Israeli panel members, helped castrate an Arab in the mid-1940s who had been accused of attempting to rape a Jewish woman. The act of castration inspired a popular song in Hebrew.
It has also emerged (thanks to Richard Silverstein) that another member of the panel, Shabtai Rosenne, helped David Ben-Gurion brainstorm lies which would cover up the Israeli military’s massacre at Qibya, in which Ariel Sharon led a force that murdered 60 Palestinian civilians, an act that outraged the world in 1953.
Richard Goldstone was subjected to the most savage obloquy for his work as a judge under the Apartheid South African regime.
If he had personally castrated a Black South African or helped cook up lies to exculpate the South African government for the Sharpeville massacre, maybe he would have been treated a little more gently?
