It’s finally happened. After being pummeled and bashed, defamed and defiled for nearly 18 months, the name “Richard Goldstone” has finally been demoted to joke status in Israel. And the joker was none other than a Supreme Court justice, one of the 14 people most responsible for guarding the sanctity of law in Israel.
Here’s the set up. Yesterday, Yesh Gvul, Israel’s most prominent conscientious objector group, petitioned the country’s Supreme Court to declare General Yoav Galant “unworthy” of his appointment as the IDF’s new chief of staff. Their argument: the good general is suspected of committing war crimes during Operation Cast Lead.
Galant, for those who don’t remember the name, was the architect of Israel’s 22-day invasion of Gaza. As head of the Southern Command, he was the one who planned and directed Cast Lead and argued for even more aggressive action – a role that should, by many accounts, among them the Goldstone Report, have opened him up to prosecution for war crimes. In Israel, however, it earned him a promotion to the post of chief of staff of the Israeli military.
All this might be cruel joke enough, but yesterday Justice Asher Grunis took the laughs even farther when he offered this quip after refusing to entertain Yesh Gvul’s petition against Galant: "Perhaps we should appoint Judge Goldstone as the next IDF Chief of Staff?"
Never mind that Goldstone’s legal judgment was respected enough to earn him the position of chief prosecutor of the international criminal tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. And never mind that the whole purpose of his report on the Gaza Conflict was to try to assert the rule of law over the brutality of war, to say that war (and those who inflict it on others) is not above the law. When the very people charged with protecting our laws become the first to deride them, there’s really not much left to do, but cry.
Lizzy Ratner is the co-editor of The Goldstone Report: The Legacy of the Landmark Investigation of the Gaza Conflict.
“Perhaps we should appoint Justice Goldstone to head the Israeli Supreme Court.”
May this remark live in infamy and come back to haunt them.
Has anyone heard or seen Judge Goldstone interviewed about the report on any MSM outlet in the states. Diane Rehm did not touch it, Talk of the Nation’s Neil Conan, none of the MSNBC talking heads, CNN anywhere anyone?
The only interview I’ve ever seen was the one on Bill Moyers, The Journal.
RE: “After being pummeled and bashed, defamed and defiled for nearly 18 months, the name “Richard Goldstone” has finally been demoted to joke status in Israel.” – Ratner
A PERTINENT FACEBOOK GROUP
Name – Richard J. Goldstone: Integrity Personified
Category: Common Interest – Beliefs & Causes
Description: A group for individuals who respect Justice Goldstone and admire his integrity.
Open: All content is public.
LINK – link to facebook.com
‘Goldstone’s legal judgment was respected enough to earn him the position of chief prosecutor of the international criminal tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. ‘
Whereas Israeli judges have no prospect of being named to any international tribunals. Not because of anti-Semitism (which was no bar to Judge Goldstone), but rather because Israel is an unreconstructed apartheid state which obdurately refuses to end its illegal occupation of Palestine.
Forever consigned to the dusty bush leagues of jurisprudence, Justice Grunis can only crack sophomoric jokes from his colonial peanut gallery about a man whose stellar international career track Grunis can only dream of.
South Africans used to feel much the same, imprisoned behind a debilitating apartheid wall of their own making.
The Goldstone report outlined a number of grave breaches of international law that have been permitted or facilitated by the judges serving on the Israeli High Court of Justice. Israel has no written constitution. The principle that the clear language of a Knesset statute prevails over a norm of customary international law is based upon a series of High Court of Justice rulings (cf. “Cr. A. 5/51, Steinberg v. Attorney General, 5 P.D. 1061″ and “Holding Detained Palestinians in Israeli Territory [HCJ 2690/09] “
In Samantar v. Yousuf the US Supreme Court held that there was no immunity shield for foreign officials when sued in U.S. courts over claims that they carried out or allowed human rights abuses to occur in other countries. The Court declared that a 1976 law that gives foreign governments’ immunity to many lawsuits in American courts does not provide immunity to lawsuits aimed at current or former officials of foreign nations.
If the ICC Prosecutor initiated an investigation proprio motu on the basis of information contained in the Goldstone report, he might decide to seek indictments of judges serving on the Israeli High Court of Justice. There is prima facie evidence there that Israeli judges have contributed with the aim of furthering the criminal activity or criminal purpose of a group pursuing illegal settlement and illegal restrictions on the freedom of movement of Palestinians in the occupied territories.
That is undoubtedly part of the reason the report is not held in high regard by the members of the Israeli government and the HCJ.
England has no written constitution either.
Israel has “basic laws”, which function as a constitution.
England has its common law, which the USA shares with it. Israel’s basic laws are never to be confused with a constitution such as the USA has.
Your comment is a diversion. The point of his post was that
“there that Israeli judges have contributed with the aim of furthering the criminal activity or criminal purpose of a group pursuing illegal settlement and illegal restrictions on the freedom of movement of Palestinians in the occupied territories.
That is undoubtedly part of the reason the report is not held in high regard by the members of the Israeli government and the HCJ.”
Not the lack of Israel’s constitution.
Ridicule when one has no argument (the now ongoing ridicule of Goldstone) is a primitive tactic appealing to primitive instincts.
Methods of twisting a possibly respected truth teller into a joke to discredit is nothing new. We see it now in references to Goldstone.
The notion that the Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty functions as a constitution is utter nonsense. Article 10 intentionally grandfathered all the existing discriminatory legislation regarding citizenship, law of return, absentee property, & etc. Those laws can be amended forever.
Article 8 permits the Knesset to pass new discriminatory legislation by inserting a boilerplate statement in the preamble explaining that the statute is “a law befitting the values of the State of Israel”. The HCJ spent a decade fiddling around the edges of the Ka’adan v. Israel Lands Authority case. In the end, the precedent was rendered moot by new legislation that permits communities to screen and reject Israeli Arab applicants and an agreement to reimburse the JNF for any land tendered to Arab citizens. The Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty has also been rendered moot by judge-made law in cases involving the rights of Palestinian “permanent residents” of East Jerusalem, family reunification cases involving Israeli citizens, & etc.
true but at the same time it also has a legal structure based on court cases going back hundreds of years. it didn’t just create a religious supremicist legal system on whim as was done in Israel
That should have read That is undoubtedly
part of the reasonone of the reasons the report is not held in high regard by the members of the Israeli government, the IDF, and the HCJ.Folks should contact all MSM outlets that they feel comfortable contacting and ask them to have Judge Goldstone on their programs along with Phillip Weiss and Adam to discuss the report that Rachel Maddow, Keith Olbermann, etc were absolutely silent about. Total silence. Have to protect their paychecks
Another important one up by Professor Juan Cole over at Informed Comment
Top Ten Horrible Things done to Us by Outgoing Sen. Joe Lieberman
link to juancole.com
QUITE a list of accomplishment for the orthodox jewish Lieberman “independent.” We Americans should raise a monument to him in DC and call it TREASON.
Oops where did that go?
This is important.
Pickering, Hills, Sullivan, Beinart, Dobbins, More Ask Obama Administration to Support UN Resolution Condemning Illegal Israeli Settlements
link to thewashingtonnote.com
Breaking: Livni forced to cancel South Africa trip!
Yeah right…………
South Africa, as an ex-apartheid state, is playing a particularly poignant role in holding Israel accountable for its apartheid system. How embarrassing that the U.S., another post-apartheid state, is Israel’s chief defender.
This is only possible because thanks to media suppression, most Americans do not realize how segregated Israeli life is. Tom Pessah states in his nearby post ‘Through the Looking Glass’ that ‘I made it into my twenties in the biggest industrial and cultural center of [Israel] without one Palestinian acquaintance, and without having any friend who even knew any.’
You would never guess this, seeing AIPAC’s intertwined US and Israeli flags. Now that Israel’s throwback Jim Crow society is being outed, it’s going to become awfully uncomfortable for Congress to praise America’s diversity and subsidize apartheid Israel at the same time. Thus the attempt to move aid for Israel into defense funding, so that ‘security’ can trump our values, as it does in supporting Arab dictators.
good
Last night Keith Olbermann had David “axis of evil” Frum on to discuss inflammatory and hate filled rhetoric. Talk about absurd. We all know Frum was one of the Iraq war pushers. And has repeated inflammatory and unsubstantiated claims about Iran.
Keith really thinks his listeners have short and muddied memories. Olbermann supporting David “axis of evil” Frum’s effort to reconstruct his stance on the run up to the illegal and immoral invasion of Iraq. This man has blood all over this hands and is well practiced in creating dangerous “axis of evil” sound bites.
What is up with Olbermann? Is he really unable to find more appropriate guest to discuss such an important topic?
“Public weighs in on Tucson shootings”
David “axis of evil” Frum
link to msnbc.msn.com
Keith should have stayed in sports news; his take is often good as far as it goes, but it’s always totally one-sided; he’s a PEP brother; I wouldn’t have a vehicle helped by him
Off-topic– Here’s a level-headed and depressing summary of the current state of the I/P conflict–
link
Yes, Donald, it is a depressing summary. Sure shows why Israel is content with the status quo; it’s got the superpower behind it, and subject to the slightest whine of the AIPAC squeaky wheel, and it’s helpful that not only does the US fund it, the US and EU also fund ther proxy Palestinian entity, which Israel use to have to fund just to keep a semblence of civilization for PR purposes. There won’t be any change unless, maybe if a half-dozen Palestinian Americans set themselves on fire in rubber tires at the gates of the WH every other week–to force the MSM to bring to the attention of the ignorant Americans what they support when they support Israel. Perhaps they could burn themselves up in tires in front of the Holocaust Museum too? Then maybe Obama would actually listen to Pickering, Hills, Sullivan, Beinart, Dobbins, More et al? But how could he face Dennis Ross?