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4 of Goldstone’s rightwing assailants charge him with ‘blood libel’

A couple months back Sarah Palin used the term “blood libel” to try and smear liberals who accused her of having fostered the attack on Congresswoman Gabby Giffords by putting a gunsight image on Giffords’s district (along with the districts of other Dems). Several Dems accused Palin of using anti-Semitic language.

Well, many on the right are attacking Judge Richard Goldstone’s op-ed in the Washington Post that steps away from his report on the Gaza conflict– saying he can’t undo the damage he’s done. And they are throwing around the term “blood libel,” no problem. Four examples:

1, Jeffrey Goldberg says the report was a “blood libel.” 2, Israel Today has an article by Ryan Jones headlined, Goldstone’s Blood Libel Unmasked. 3, Aish Hatorah, the religious Zionist group, has a post by Rabbi Shraga Simmons that says it’s too late, Goldstone helped destroy Israel’s international reputation, like a diplomat serving Nazis. 

The Goldstone Report has fueled rabid anti-Israel sentiment. Especially in today’s Internet age, when a blood libel is spread throughout the world, it is impossible to get the genie back in the bottle.

4, here’s Avi Bell, a professor in San Diego and Israel, going after Goldstone in JPost. It’s quite a hayride, here’s an excerpt:

When the Goldstone Report was first published in 2009, with a brew of blood libels and legal fallacies that exceeded even the usual anti-Israel vitriol produced by the UN Human Rights Council, Goldstone went on a PR offensive. He took to the airwaves to try to sell the idea that the report, which conspicuously and repeatedly denied or whitewashed nearly all of Hamas’s crimes, was accurate in accusing Israelis and Israel’s leadership of the most monstrous crimes and motives….

Now Goldstone has produced less than a thimbleful of contrition. He still refuses to acknowledge the cocktail of lies and distortions that comprise the Goldstone Report. Goldstone has refused to disavow the report’s attempt to eliminate laws against terrorism from the international legal codex, and its refusal to acknowledge that Hamas is a terrorist organization. He has not renounced the preposterous characterization of Gaza as territory under Israeli occupation, or the report’s shocking claim that Israel’s limited economic sanctions against the Hamas government are an unlawful form of collective punishment.

This piece’s count was updated from 3 to 4 based on help from Alex Kane.

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