Tomorrow in Fredericton, New Brunswick (not that far from Maine), St. Thomas University will confer an honourary degree on Naomi Klein. I mention this because all honors to this young author are deserved, especially as she brings her vast powers to bear on the global warming issue; because she played a helpful role in the Kushner honorary degree flap; and also selfishly, because it’s our honor to be hosting Klein a week from today in New York, at a panel on the Goldstone report and Palestinian human rights. (You can get your ticket here.)
I’ve observed Klein at several events now and want to dwell (proudly) for a moment on her appearance in New York. Klein is the closest thing we have to a rockstar on the left, because she always brings the conversation to a higher ground… and because she has presence, reserve, glamour. All the times I’ve seen her there are people in a line to talk to her. In fact, when St. Thomas announced the awarding of her degree, a student group formed to demand that she be the commencement speaker. Klein wrote them a lovely letter apologizing for disappointing them.
“The reason I said no is that I consider giving a commencement address not just an honour but a huge responsibility. I’ve actually never done it before. And knowing myself and my work habits I would have stressed about it and written and rewritten it for a month, a month when I need to be writing this book… However, reading your comments, I see now that I let you down and I feel terrible about that. I also want to fix it.”
I saw those work habits for myself in the care Klein took in writing the introduction to our Goldstone book, a higher-ground piece if ever there was one, that answered the issue of Israel being singled out by the U.N.
The Goldstone Report… has revived the old-fashioned principle of universal human rights and international law—a system which, flawed as it is, remains our best protection against barbarism. When we rally around Goldstone, insisting that this report be read and acted upon, it is this system that we are defending. When Israel and its supporters respond to Goldstoen by waging war on international law itself, characterizing any possible legal challenge to Israeli politicians and military officials as “lawfare,” they are doing nothing less than recklessly endangering the human rights architecture that was forged in the fires of the Holocaust.
One other thing about our event next week. We’re going to have five women on that stage, beginning with Trudie Styler, who will read from a testimony created by Goldstone, and including Laura Flanders, Noura Erakat, and Lizzy Ratner. Our one male participant is Colonel Desmond Travers. This is an achievement, too, touching on the struggle for human dignity in the face of sexism.
And that awareness we extend to the Palestinians. Here’s my sense of what the evening holds:
Human dignity is at the core of international law; and yet Palestinian human dignity has been eroded for decades by occupation. And so tonight we ask, By what means will Palestinians achieve human dignity among the peoples of the earth? Will it be international law–the Goldstone Report? Will it be a political process: a U.N. General Assembly declaration of statehood, as the PLO has indicated, or the efforts of the Quartet? Will it be the efforts of civil society, through the boycott of Israel and a new internet-fed discourse of human rights? What role will America play in this process? What role will Jews play in this process? What role will the Arab spring play in this process?
Our conversation will begin by discussing the most blatant and egregious abuse of human dignity by Israel in recent years, Operation Cast Lead, and the Goldstone Report, a landmark document that was supposed to help restore Gazan dignity…
