Nation Books has just published our new book -- The Goldstone Report: The Legacy of the Landmark Investigation of the Gaza Conflict, which is an abridged copy of the UN report accompanied by a dozen essays, exploring the political, legal and social legacy of the report and the Israeli attack on Gaza in the winter of 2008-2009.
The book comes out at an important new moment in the history of the conflict, with the collapse of talks between the two sides, and growing international calls for accountability for Israel’s conduct in the occupied territories.
A diverse group of leading commentators on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is assembled here. Our forward Is from Justice Goldstone’s longtime friend, Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Our introduction, which says that the report has revived the principles of universal human rights and international law, is by bestselling author Naomi Klein. Human rights leader Raji Sourani describes the situation in Gaza today, legal scholar Jules Lobel explains the post-World War II standards on which the report is based, Jerome Slater takes apart the many criticisms of the report, Rashid Khalidi describes the rapidly-shifting western view of Israel that has given the report such an extended life.
Among other essayists, Noam Sheizaf explains the siege mentality inside Israel that the report has helped to generate, Letty Cottin Pogrebin says that the personal attacks on Goldstone have been a blot on the Jewish community, Henry Siegman says Israel’s indifference to the loss of innocent life has undermined its legitimacy, and Ali Abunimah lays out the manner in which Israel’s crucial support in the west, from liberal and progressive communities, is beginning to crumble in part due to the Goldstone Report.
We include a leading critical piece on the report, from Moshe Halbertal, a professor of philosophy at Hebrew University, while former Washington State congressman Brian Baird relates that when the Report came to the House, “many of my colleagues, several of them prominent, literally did not understand either that collective punishment is a war crime, or why it is a war crime.”
The book concludes with a wrenching piece by Laila El-Haddad, about how her family survived the onslaught.
Our book can be read by newcomers to the issue and by old hands. It anchors the historic report with a range of insights on what is happening to Israeli and Palestinian politics. It will be widely read, and we ask for your help in getting out the word.
Find out where you can buy the book here and follow the book on Facebook and Twitter to get the latest news about the book. Thanks!
Elf Mabrouk, Mondo. I’ll be buying it. Cast Lead is a definite turning point.
Mabrouk! Congratz! Mazel tov!
Congratulations on the publication.
Will you be undertaking speaking tours? New England?
I pre-ordered a copy from Amazon, and it already arrived yesterday. My wife snapped it up first.
Thanks Hostage!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Love, Phil
Former Washington State congressman Brian Baird relates that when the Report came to the House, “many of my colleagues, several of them prominent, literally did not understand either that collective punishment is a war crime, or why it is a war crime.”
Doh! Some of them probably were lawyers, too.
Thus the 344-36 vote in the House for the Ros Lehtinen-Berman resolution condemning the Goldstone report — a vote which will go down in history along with the Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision legalizing slavery as one of the major disfigurements of U.S. democracy.
Here’s the apartheid Hall of Shame:
link to clerk.house.gov
I’m really sorry Baird decided to leave Congress.
RE: “Doh! Some of them probably were lawyers, too.”
To my knowledge, US law schools do not offer a stand-alone course dedicated to war crimes or international humanitarian law, or the law of war; at most there may be a single elective course offered which includes these subjects to some extent–I would guess, without a casebook. Certainly that was the case where I went. And certainly, no state bar exam requires such knowledge. Where I went I took an elective Jurisprudence, which studied the legal philosophy and theory regarding how court’s apply the law. My professor was totally PC about such topics as affirmative action. If you disagreed with his preferred opinion, your grade got hit big time. It was the only subjective course I took in law school. The socratic method vanished in it.
“I took an elective Jurisprudence, which studied the legal philosophy and theory regarding how court’s apply the law.”
This was an elective?
Yes. It’s not a subject dealing with the nuts and bolts practice of law, such as contracts, real property, UCC, criminal law, etc; US Constitutional Law is also not an elective subject.
The mind boggles!
Aside from my simple-minded idea that people who practice a profession should understand what it is actually about, surely any lawyer worth his colossal fees is going to have to argue a case on fundamental principles and concepts of natural justice. How can that be done without a grounding in Jurisprudence?
US Constitutional Law? Deos anyone care about that?
In my experience most people who complete the rigors of law school and the bar admittance aren’t primarily motivated by the philosophy of natural justice. Also, law school is expensive. If you really want to get depressed you should meet the graduates of Florida’s insular legal community.
“the 344-36 vote in the House for the Ros Lehtinen-Berman resolution condemning the Goldstone report ”
Congress is truly a bordel de merde, the ultimate whorehouse.
Any reviews yet?
Feel free to go right ahead. I mean, it wouldn’t be the first time you told us your opinion on something before you read it.
i’m very excited to read it!
Just brought the book home from my p.o. box. Thanks phil adam and lizzy.
“…Washington State congressman Brian Baird relates that when the Report came to the House, “many of my colleagues, several of them prominent, literally did not understand either that collective punishment is a war crime, or why it is a war crime.”
Now he’s out of Congress — did he actually name names?
“did not understand”
When the “bad guys” do it, they “understand”. “They” are basically 90% of our political class. Crimes are what bad guys do it, good stuff is what good guys do. If USA has no position in the conflict, no moral opinion either.
Forget “collective punishment” which is a subtle concept. What about sending a death squad to kill someone sleeping in his bad? Even if this is the “right person”.
Our Congresscreatures have even hard time grasping that “riot control” tools should not be used to gouge the eyes of American citizens standing nearby. I guess, we can at least congratulate Congress that they did not pass a resolution condemning Emily Henochowicz and pledging full solidarity with Israel.
Emily who? Remember Anne Frank!
What is with mocking the Holocaust on here? it is pretty f-in petty.
yonira, you’re stretching
What is with the wilful ignorance on here, yonuhra? citizen is not mocking the holocaust, he is satirizing those who exploit the holocaust for political and personal gain while simultaneously excusing other crimes. more. on.
Although, I think the Congress did pass a resolution congratulating Israel for, among other things, murdering a 19-year-old American citizen in international waters.
Shelly Moore Capito ( link to capito.house.gov
who went to and graduated from the same high school as Henocowitcz belongs to the Hall of Shame.
Moore, like so many in Congress is clueless.
Read what Peter Schiff recently has to say about his introduction to the American political class when he went to Washington DC. I think I read it in the Washington Post, but maybe not. He doesn’t talk about foreign affairs but rather domestic economy issues, but the game’s the same.
So what do you think is going to go down when Netanyahu’s request
for Pollard’s pardon reaches the sausage makers?
Congratulations Phil and thanks for again putting your head above the trench. It takes courage and I for one appreciate it.
I got my copy!
And not from Amazon, but from Barnes and Noble!
I just wish I could boycott Apple as easily as Amazon :P
Thanks Phil and Adam!
thank you rob@!!!!!
ditto, rob, as to bn.com. amazon lost me for good.
I ordered my copy from
link to bookdepository.com
A great alternative, especially for the global community.
I couldn’t be politically correct: I ordered the Kindle version so I could get it immediately for my iPad.
Will be ordering at least five for informative gifts. Congrats Phil Adam and Lizzy.
The Most Powerful Lobby in the U.S.
Lawrence O’Donnell, Rachel Maddow, Keith Olbermann are all promoting the idea that the NRA is the most powerful lobby in the U.S. Yet when a massacre takes place in Tucson they are all over the slaughter. As they should be. They are all over the NRA and the lack of enforcement of existing gun laws etc. As well they should be.
Yet when there is a slaughter in the Gaza, on the Mavi Marmara, killing of non violent Palestinian protesters by Israeli forces. Barely a peep out of them. Total silence out of them when the Goldstone Report came out. The NRA is not the most powerful lobby in this country. The Israel Lobby is. They have been able to completely block out even a whisper about the Goldstone Report or the UN Report on what took place on the Mavi Marmara on Rachel Maddow’s and the rest of the so called liberal media.
The NRA is not powerful enough to keep the facts on the ground, the debate, well recognized reports off the air when there has been a slaughter of individuals. The I lobby can.
To Taxi’s “Mabrouk! Congratz! Mazel tov!” if I may add “mubarak!”
Phil, Like Kathleen I’d be ordering five for my daughter and friends.
Felicitations, mon vieux!
Please support Archbishop Desmond Tutu who is being smeared by Israeli apartheid supporters.
Could you read this and consider signing electronically to support Tutu? He is being victimised by the South African zionist organisation for standing up for Palestinian human rights.
Here is the link: link to thepetitionsite.com
Done. Thank you Miss Dee Mena. If “never again” is not universal, then Goering was right.
Was not Desmond Tutu was disinvited from a talk at a college campus of University of Minnesota in 2007 under pressure of local Jewish communty elders?
there goes he again
Goldstone Needs to Recant In Light of the New Evidence
Alan Dershowitz, 01.12.2011
www.huffingtonpost.com
I’ve ordered the book and am looking forward to it. Since my local library system has been devastated by budget cuts, I’ll probably donate it to the library after I read it.
This evening I was thinking about how my parents and their generation were always talking about relatives who died in The Holocaust. I used to wonder why they hadn’t sponsored those relatives and brought them here to the U.S. Could it have been that they didn’t like them?
Both my parents were the fully assimilated, U.S.-born children of immigrants, and had nothing but contempt for immigrants. Immigrants didn’t speak English, didn’t understand American ways, and were generally a nuisance. They dressed funny and tended to be very critical of American ways. Chances were that if you brought them here, instead of thanking you for saving their lives, they’d immediately start criticizing you because your kosher housekeeping wasn’t strict enough, because you went to a Conservative or Reform temple instead of an Orthodox synagogue, because you drove your car on Shabbos, because you had non-Jewish friends, or other signs of decadence. Many of them would have been no different from today’s intolerant ultra-Orthodox Israeli Zionists. They wouldn’t have fit in with a modern American lifestyle.
Besides, it would have cost money, and if you had barely struggled your way out of the ghetto and into middle-class suburbia yourself, it could have sent you right back to where you’d come from. This is just speculation, but I think there might be a grain of truth in it.
belated congratulations,
mondoweiss.net
where the seemingly impossible
is matter of fact