John Dugard: Apartheid and Occupation under International Law, Palestine Center, March 26, 2009.
Editor Note: Richard Goldstone has just published a new Op-Ed in today's New York Times titled "Israel and the Apartheid Slander." This recent article by South African international law expert John Dugard provides an interesting counter argument.
I spent most of my adult life in South Africa opposing apartheid, as an advocate, legal academic and, from 1978-1990, director of the Centre for Applied Legal Studies( a research institute engaged in human rights advocacy and litigation). In my work I compared and contrasted apartheid with international human rights standards and advocated a Constitution with a Bill of Rights in a democratic South Africa. Unlike many other South Africans, I was never imprisoned but I was prosecuted, arrested and threatened by the security police. My major book, Human Rights and the South African Legal Order (1978), the most comprehensive account of the law and practice of apartheid, was initially banned.
I had wide experience and knowledge of the three pillars of the apartheid state – racial discrimination, repression and territorial fragmentation. I lead lawyers campaigns against the eviction of black persons from neighborhoods set aside for exclusive white occupation by the Group Areas Act, and against the notorious “pass laws”, which made it an offense for blacks to be in so-called “white areas” without the correct documentation. These campaigns took the form of free legal defense to all those arrested which made the systems unmanageable. Through the Centre for Applied Legal Studies I engaged in legal challenges to the implementation of the security laws and emergency laws, which allowed detention without trial and house arrest – and, in practice, torture. I also challenged the establishment of Bantustans in the courts.
After South Africa became a democracy, I was appointed to a small committee of experts charged with the task of drafting a Bill of Rights for the 1996 South African Constitution.
I visited Israel and the OPT in 1982, 1984, 1988 and 1998 to participate in conferences on issues affecting the region. In 2001 I was appointed as Chair of a Commission of Enquiry established by the Commission on Human Rights to investigate human rights violations during the Second Intifada. In 2001 I was appointed as Special Rapporteur to the Commission on Human Rights (later Human Rights Council) on the human rights situation in the OPT. In this capacity I visited the OPT twice a year and reported to the Commission and the Third Committee of the General Assembly. My mandate expired in 2008. In February 2009 I lead a Fact-Finding Mission established by the League of Arab States to investigate and report on violations of human rights and humanitarian law in the course of Operation Cast Lead.
From my first visit to Israel/OPT I was struck by the similarities between apartheid in South Africa and the practices and policies of Israel in the OPT. These similarities became more obvious as I became better informed about the situation. As Special Rapporteur I deliberately refrained from making such comparisons until 2005 as I feared that such comparisons would prevent many governments in the West from taking my reports seriously. However, after 2005 I decided that I could not in good conscience refrain from making such comparisons.
Of course the two regimes are very different. Apartheid South Africa was a state that practiced discrimination and repression against its own people. Israel is an occupying power that controls a foreign territory and its people under a regime recognized by international humanitarian law. But in practice there is little difference. Both regimes were/are characterized by discrimination, repression and territorial fragmentation. The main difference is that the apartheid regime was more honest. The law of apartheid was openly legislated in Parliament and was clear for all to see, whereas the law governing Palestinians in the OPT is largely contained in obscure military decrees and inherited emergency regulations that are virtually inaccessible.
In my work as Commissioner and Special Rapporteur I saw every aspect of the occupation of the OPT. I witnessed the humiliating check points, which reminded me of the implementation of the pass laws (but worse), separate roads (unknown in apartheid South Africa) and the administrative demolition of houses, which reminded me of the demolition of houses in “black areas” set aside for exclusive white occupation. I visited Jenin in 2003 shortly after it had been devastated by the IDF. I spoke to families whose houses had been raided, and vandalized by the IDF; I spoke to young and old who had been tortured by the IDF; and I visited hospitals to see those who had been wounded by the IDF. I saw and, on occasion, visited settlements; I saw most of the Wall and spoke to farmers whose lands had been seized for the construction of the Wall; and I traveled through the Jordan Valley viewing destroyed Bedouin camps and check points designed to serve the interests of the settlers.
A final comment based on my personal experience. There was an altruistic element to the apartheid regime, albeit motivated by the ideology of separate development, which aimed to make the Bantustans viable states. Although not in law obliged to do so, it built schools, hospitals and roads for black South Africans. It established industries in the Bantustans to provide employment for blacks. Israel even fails to do this for Palestinians. Although in law it is obliged to cater for the material needs of the occupied people, it leaves this all to foreign donors and international agencies. Israel practices the worst kind of colonialism in the OPT. Land and water are exploited by an aggressive settler community that has no interest in the welfare of the Palestinian people - with the blessing of the state of Israel.
John Dugard is a South African international lawyer who headed the Centre for Applied Legal Studies in Johannesburg during the Apartheid era. In 1995 he assisted in the drafting of the Bill of Rights in the South African Constitution. For seven years he was Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory to the UN Human Rights Council and Commission on Human Rights. This article originally appeared in the Autumn 2011 issue of Al-Majdal.
Welcome to MW John Dugard. Your observations are most interesting.
Apartheid is probably the best analogy to what the Israelis are doing in the WB, but they do have armies of lawyers splitting hairs and claiming that the OT and the Bantusans are not exactly congruent, hence it is false to call the Israeli occupation of the WB an apartheid situation. Your experience and observations will go far to refute that dissembling.
they do have armies of lawyers splitting hairs and claiming that the OT and the Bantusans are not exactly congruent
In neighboring Namibia there was an occupation despite a Security Council resolution. There was also a policy of apartheid and Bantustans (e.g. East Caprivi, Ovamboland, Kavangoland, & etc.). Namibia was a former LoN mandated territory like Palestine. South Africa had failed to fulfil its Charter obligations toward the inhabitants of the territory and the policy of apartheid had impeded the exercise of the right to self-determination. So, the illegal situation in the OPT has several parallels to the situation in Namibia.
I also have a very hard time viewing the treatment of the Bedouin citizens of Israel and the OPT as anything but an example of apartheid. Nothing in Judge Goldstone’s NYT article changed my views regarding that situation.
Of course it’s Apartheid, within and without Israel and it’s also Genocide.
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel is forcing Palestinians out of East Jerusalem as part of a deliberate policy that might constitute a war crime, a prominent Israeli non-governmental organisation said on Monday, a charge rejected by Jerusalem’s mayor.
The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) has presented the United Nations with its findings and demanded an inquiry, saying Israel targeted Palestinians by demolishing homes, revoking residency and eroding quality of life.
“We are witnessing a process of ethnic displacement,” said Michael Sfard, a lawyer who helped draw up a 73-page report into the issue. “Israel is manifestly and seriously violating international law … and the motivation is demographic.”
Stephan Miller, a spokesman for Israel’s mayor of Jerusalem, Nir Barkat, dismissed the report. He said in a statement it was based on “misleading facts, blatant lies and political spin about Jerusalem, so I’m sure the UN will enjoy it.”
Israel seized East Jerusalem, including the Old City, in the 1967 Middle East war. It later annexed the area and surrounding West Bank villages into a Jerusalem municipality that it declared the united and eternal capital of Israel.
Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of a future state and world powers have not recognised the annexation.
There are some 300,000 Palestinians residents in East Jerusalem, representing about 35 percent of the city’s total population, but ICAHD said that since Israel took control of largely Arab areas it had systematically prevented their development.
One third of land in East Jerusalem was taken for the construction of Jewish neighbourhoods, while only nine percent of the remaining land is legally available for housing. This has all been built on, making expansion impossible.
ICAHD said it was virtually impossible for Palestinians to obtain building permits to house their growing families.
“They have no other option than to leave East Jerusalem, build illegally or live in appalling, cramped conditions,” said Emily Schaeffer, who authored the report.
DEMOLITIONS AND RESIDENCY
Those who leave lose residency rights if they are gone for seven or more years and cannot return. Some 14,000 Palestinians lost their residency between 1967 and 2010, with half of those revocations taking place after 2006, ICAHD said.
Residency entitles you to Israeli health care and national insurance benefits.
Those who built houses illegally, lived in fear of having their property demolished and also faced hefty fines.
Israel demolished more than 2,000 homes in East Jerusalem since 1967, with 771 being pulled down between 2000-2011. A further 1,500 demolition orders are pending execution.
“Palestinians will de facto be deported from East Jerusalem, not by using guns or trucks, but by not allowing them to live a decent, normal life,” Sfard said.
Because the annexation of East Jerusalem was not recognised, Palestinians living there should be considered as a people under occupation, ICAHD said. As such, Israel had no right to strip them of residency or demolish their homes.
“There is a suspicion that a war crime is taking place and that is why an investigation should take place,” said Sfard
Is this your response to the Goldstone op-ed? or is it just a coincidence it was posted today.
LOL John Dugard. fits right in here @ MW.
I suppose Jack Abramoff was more your speed, right?
LOL Am_America is a sock for eee
Fits right in @ Jpost comments section
Those Leftist Marxist Liberal Neo-Ottomans @ MW……
Yes, educated and way above your intellect.
LOL John Dugard. fits right in here @ MW.
Yes I’ve been citing his reports here from the moment that I began commenting. He is much too modest. He authored the standard textbook on “Recognition and the United Nations” and served as a Judge on the International Court of Justice. He also served as a Rapporteur for the International Law Commission and was nominated to serve on the International Criminal Court. There aren’t a lot of people anywhere, much less on Mondoweiss, with that breadth of experience or first hand knowledge. It’s good to have the opportunity to compare his recent article to the latest article by Judge Goldstone.
Yes, Hostage, and thanks! Dugard is an amazing resource.
I almost threw up reading the Goldstone op-ed. I wonder if The Dersh still thinks hes “despicable”
It’s always an eyeopening experience to see the occupation through the eyes of an outsider, someone who witnessed the grim and vicious of it all.
After reading your great article, I am left with two questions about some of the information that piqued my interest.
1. You mentioned that after 2005, “I decided that I could not in good conscience refrain from making such comparisons.”
What happened in 2005 that changed your opinion, that pushed you to say to yourself, enough is enough?
2.
As you may know by now, within Israeli society there are groups on both the so-called right and left that call for the establishment of a Palestinian state, or for some form of Palestinian autonomy. And they espouse such opinions not because they are concerned about the welfare of Palestinians, but because they simply wish to push Palestinians behind the walls; as if to say, Take a couple of dollars from the US or your Arab oil brothers and go build yourself a lousy hospital or two, or a couple of schools. Just stay on your side of the fence and don’t bother us with your pesky rights, your stolen property from 1948 or your confiscated lands.
To a degree, that’s what the Oslo Accords accomplished. It is for that reason that self-styled ‘liberal’ Israelis support the two-state solution, but don’t mind taking over the house of a Palestinian if doing so happens to be convenient.
So were such sentiments dominant within the South African government that which implemented the programs you described? If you were to estimate or characterize South African society of the time, would you say there was more support for separate development? I’m simply trying to quantify or gauge the impetus that brought about such initiatives.
Thank you for your time and for your writing.
Now let’s see that printed in the NYT.
Lazy analogies expose the disingenuousness of those who scream Israeli Apartheid. The crime of apartheid is defined by the 2002 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court as inhumane acts of a character similar to other crimes against humanity “committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime.”
There is nothing institutionalized or racist about the situation in Israeli. Of course if the Palestinians keep shunning a peace agreement (in their interests) they can keep up this ridiculous ruse by construing what is happening in Gaza and the West Bank in their favour.
I am waiting now for the Israel haters to come out of their rabbit burrows shouting that Goldstone is in the pay of the evil Zionists.
“committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime.
link to en.wikipedia.org
israel’s oppression against palestinians definitely falls under the category of the crime of apartheid as defined by the UN.
touche
Touche I think not.
Annie, you label Israel racist as a means of criticizing the treatment of the Palestinians by Israel. By resorting to a false analogy you undermine the case for Palestine. It gives you an excuse for avoiding the real issues, dishonestly painting Israel with a veneer of hatred that you use to smear Israeli society. By delegitimizing the other side you attempt to convey the message that they are wrong but that is illusory. Those who see through your ruse are not convinced.
Die-hard anti-Zionists might not need much to justify their position, but those who are genuinely weighing up the pros and cons will not be fooled.
Mayhem
Are you on your tablets ?
“By delegitimizing the other side you attempt to convey the message that they are wrong ”
most of the posters here could show you some of the videos we have been watching over the last 6 months. Here is one :
link to youtube.com
Israel has gone way beyond the point where a hasbara appeal to some sort of imaginary fairness is going to move minds
Avoiding the real issues? and what would they be?
@Seafoid:
Can we please avoid the ad hominem stuff about tablets and labelling everything that contradicts the prevailing anti-Zionist ethos as hasbara and stick to the topic? The video is about some fringe fundamentalists, so is not pertinent here. I thought apartheid by definition was supposed to be institutionalized, embedded in the state apparatus and practiced everywhere under strict authoritarian control. That depiction does not match the reality of Israel. Maybe you should pay a visit sometime and see for yourself.
excuse me? you made a lame ass comment about Lazy analogies expose the disingenuousness of those who scream Israeli Apartheid. so i took you directly to the definition of racism as defined under international law sans editorializing other than to comment “falls under the category of the crime of apartheid as defined by the UN” and what do you do? you claimed i was resorting to a false analogy.. ?. it is not an analogy dude. it’s the law straight from the horses mouth.
you claim i am avoiding the real issues when it is you completely avoiding international law. i’m not avoiding anything. you brought up the ‘The crime of apartheid is defined by the 2002 Rome Statute ‘ and proceeded to represent it AS IF racism could not be applied. so if you want to refute my argument it is up to YOU to prove how ethnicity is not applied, because under the same UN body racism absolutely applies to ethnicities and i copied the text to prove that.
dishonestly painting Israel with a veneer of hatred that you use to smear Israeli society.
triple yawn! i mentioned nothing of israeli society and posted a wiki link to international law and you find a ‘veneer of hatred’ and then have the NERVE to accuse others of ad hominem? hello ;)
you are not even making sense. your logic is so off the wall seafoid was doing you a favor implying it was perhaps merely a matter of not following a medical prescription. a joke he made light of. you on the otherhand are making no sense, no sense at all.
to redeem yourself try staying on topic instead of diverting w/ several ad hominems. iow, grow some cajons.
ps, contrary to your bloviations i am not an anti zionist much less a “Die-hard anti-Zionist” . dig deeper, you’ll have to use your noggin this time instead of your hasbara handbook.
ciao and touche (iow massive fail dude)
I thought apartheid by definition was supposed to be institutionalized, embedded in the state apparatus and practiced everywhere under strict authoritarian control.
If you did, then you aren’t much of a thinker and you must be a poor reader to boot too, since neither the Rome Statute nor the the Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid say that apartheid is by definition supposed to be “embedded in the state apparatus and practiced everywhere under strict authoritarian control” or words to that effect.
Annie,
You claim to not be an anti-Zionist,
When you gloat about sticking a fork into Zionism.
When you exhort someone to ask ‘why do you trust any zionist on this subject?’
When you detect a tinge of support for the Israeli position and scream blue hasbara murder.
What I can’t understand most of all is why you deny it.
Next you will be pompously refuting that you are an anti-bloviator.
mayhem, i am not a zionist. i self identify as a non zionist and explain why here. zionism is an ethnic nationalist political construct, one that runs contrary to an ideal of american multi culturalism i was raised to believe in. i would have no problem with zionism if it weren’t carried out in palestine, ethnically cleansing people. seriously, go find an uninhabited piece of land in south america for all i care, i wouldn’t complain in the least. i’m a live and let live person and do not demand everyone accept my political beliefs. if jews want to live amongst themselves let them.
that said i don’t judge zionism by some ideal or definition, i judge it by the way it acts and has always acted which is very very ugly. so go clean up your own house because the zionism operating in the world today doesn’t deserve our support or any support. fix it.
i see you didn’t address my earlier argument again and are resorting to more diversions.
, one that runs contrary to an ideal of american multi culturalism i was raised to believe in
you sound like a hypocrite to me, you support Hamas and Hezbollah with open arms.
Lazy analogies expose the disingenuousness of those who scream Israeli Apartheid.
The Rome Statute cites an example list of constituent acts. The International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid also contains a list of inhuman acts. The findings of fact in the 2004 Wall case included a number of the constituent acts of the crime of apartheid found in those instruments, including violation of:
*the right to adequate supplies of food and water;
*the right to work;
*the right to education;
*the right to health;
*the right to freedom of movement and residence.
The findings also included the creation of Jewish only settlements; the displacement of Palestinians; the creation of isolated enclaves; expropriation of Palestinian land; home demolitions; and the establishment of an illegal separation wall and an illegal administrative regime.
There is nothing institutionalized or racist about the situation in Israeli.
The State has laws which prevent marriages between Jews and Arabs. The public state bodies of Israel have systematically carried out home demolitions and have expropriated property of the Palestinian citizens. They have denied Bedouin children enrollment in nearby schools. The Courts have prevented any Arab list of candidates from participating in the political life of the country if they deny that Israel is the State of the Jewish people, and only the Jewish people. See Ben-Shalom v. CEC 1988, 272. The State has deported Palestinians from East Jerusalem and transferred thousands of Bedouin citizens from their ancestral lands into isolated ethnic enclaves. Publicly funded schools have refused to enroll Bedouin children. The state has used “Green Patrols” to destroy Arab crops. It also has destroyed wells, pumps, and cisterns used to supply Arab citizens with water. The State has refused to investigate and prosecute serious crimes committed against Arabs. There are many statutes that are designed to prevent Arabs from participating in the political, economic, and social life of the country.
“There is nothing institutionalized or racist about the situation in Israeli”
What on earth are you talking about? Israel has erected an entire state apparatus of discrimination, dispossession and oppression. It operates a dual legal system. All of this is targetted at people according to the culture or origin of their parents. I would say, as would anybody, that is institutionalised and it is racism.
Of course there is. Everything about Israel represents institutionalized racism. There are at least 20 laws in Israel proper that are blatantly racist.
That BS is debunked every time one of you newbie hasbrats comes to this forum.
Needless to say, we already know what you are referring to. Israeli foreign minister, Shlomo Ben-Ami debunked the lie that Arafat turned down a generous offer at Camp David and Tzipi Livni debunked the claim that Abbas rejected Olmert’s offer.
First of all, Goldstone admits to being a committed Zionist and secondly, the Zionist community of South Africa has admitted that they made his life unbearable after the Goldstone Report.
I doubt he was paid, they simply punished him and his family relentlessly until he gave in.
The form of the Mondoweiss response, before a reporting of the article even, is pretty classic damage control.
Goldstone is a Mondoweiss person non-grata now.
Tainted. When compared to the pure.
The purpose of the term “apartheid” in this case has two possible uses:
1. Information – for the purpose of reform
2. Name-calling – for the purpose of partisanship
Reform is the motivation of those that desire that the world be a better place, that social change occur. Name-calling is the motivation of those that have other confused or malevolent motives.
The new message from Mondoweiss is that now Goldstone is only a “Zionist-hack”, not one deserving of respect or consideration of his reasoning.
What are you blabbering about now? A reasoned response to Goldstone doesn’t deserve consideration or respect on MW? Does Goldstone get a free pass to say anything he likes? All you do is shoot the messenger, when you don’t like what you are hearing, and dress it up in meaningless pompous wittering, as well as impugning anybody who happens to disagree with you. Cut the crap, and if you have something to say (highly dubious), say it.
Read the article and see if you can spot what is missing in his description of Israel’s actions in the West Bank. Hint–it can be summarized in one word that starts with an “s”.
After reading his response in the context of his first message and then the personal attacks on him by fellow Zionists after his criticism of Israel for it’s massacre in Gaza, he doesn’t deserve much respect for his pathetic attempt at PR damage control for a fascist regime.
You do know that Israel is a facist entity?
Respect isn’t automatic, Witty. IMO you only deserve the bare minimum based on what can only be seen as serial lying…
I’m interested in Phil’s and Adam’s original commentary, what they think.
I’m different than Goldstone. When speaking of Palestinian rights within Israel, I use the term prejudicial, and occasionally “Jim Crow”. And, when I speak of Palestinian rights within the West Bank, I use the term “apartheid-like”.
But, I am critical of the expropriation of Goldstone the person, and Goldstone’s work in ways that extend the person and work, that demand loyalty to the cause, and punish in anticipatory response.
A single article describing a different usage is not yet a punitive anticipatory response.
It is damage control.
There was no original article “Today the NY Times published a Goldstone OP-ED”.
“But, I am critical of the expropriation of Goldstone the person, and Goldstone’s work in ways that extend the person and work, that demand loyalty to the cause, and punish in anticipatory response.”
So you’re not interested in the content of what he said or in reading commentary which exposes the weakness of his op ed piece.
This is rich, coming from you, Witty. You mercilessly attacked Goldstone and the UN report before you had even read it.
What do you mead “read” Chaos?
Witty never read the Goldsyone Report. By his own admission, he was to afraid to.
“The new message from Mondoweiss is that now Goldstone is only a “Zionist-hack”, ”
First he said it was, then he said it wasn’t, first he said he did, then he said he didn’t.
If Goldstone isn’t a hack he’s at least a wimp intimidated by the tribe.
Hope it was worth it to him not to be excommuniated from the tribe cause he’s sure lost whatever respect he had from his peer jurist.
He blew his entire career and reputation with his recant.
This is what is so typical of the zionistas—their willingness to deny the truth and junk all personal and professional ethics and morals for the tribe’s cause.
When evil-doing comes like falling rain, by Bertolt Brecht
Like one who brings an important
letter to the counter after
office hours: the counter is already closed.
Like one who seeks to warn the
city of an impending flood,
but speaks another language. They do not understand him.
Like a beggar who knocks for the
fifth time at the door where he has four times been given
something: the fifth time he is hungry.
Like one whose blood flows from
a wound and who awaits
the doctor: his blood goes on flowing.
So do we come forward and report that evil has been done us.
The first time it was reported that our friends were being
butchered there was a cry of horror. Then a hundred
were butchered. But when a thousand were butchered
and there was no end to the butchery, a blanket of
silence spread.
When evil-doing comes like falling rain, no body calls out
“stop!”
When crimes begin to pile up they become invisible. When
sufferings become unendurable the cries are no longer
heard. The cries, too, fall like rain in summer
Useless observation, Witty.
The piece stands on its own and is very well readable without the Goldstone link. Actually, it was published without that link, and at Thursday, 27 October 2011 13:21 i.e. before Goldstones.
So more probably is: Goldstone write a “reply”, but did not offer his stuff to MW. Now why would that be?
Goldstone is a Mondoweiss person non-grata now.
so MW has linked to an op-ed by a named someone who has been banished by MW? you, apparently, don’t know what ‘persona non grata’ means. or oxymoron.
The new message from Mondoweiss is that now Goldstone is only a “Zionist-hack”, not one deserving of respect or consideration of his reasoning.
no, wrong again. if MW thought goldstone to be ‘one not deserving of respect or consideration’ presumably it would not have linked to his op-ed piece and taken the time to publish a thoughtful response.
The purpose of the term “apartheid” in this case has two possible uses:
1. Information – for the purpose of reform
2. Name-calling – for the purpose of partisanship
3. To describe an on-going crime or criminal enterprise. Apartheid is not a victimless crime. Prosecution, not mere reform, may also be appropriate.
is this the twilight of a new era
where the prevailing spirir is that of those eighteen magical days in tahrir square?
how would one know?
more and more, and for reasons that one can’t quite identify, one will be looking forward to the coming day .
no longer mad at the world?
sometimes mad at oneself, perhaps
for having a say in the way things are, but not speaking out
leaderless, yet everyone a leader?
+ all inclusive
When I read Goldstone’s article I was silently counting the entire hasbara phrases in the text: it is word for word what they all write.
This is like asking Catholic about his faith: we all use word for word what we learned in lessons. Reading original Catholic thinkers is like a breath of fresh air, but you do not encounter this in media wars.
Same with Israel and hasbara. I almost doubt that this is the same man who was so deeply affected by what happened in Gaza. That is all now buried in his mind.
The man has been shaken to his core by what happened to him in the hands of his pro-Zionist community : shunning, like solitary confinement is incredibly cruel, but effective discipline tool.
Goldstone’s infamous letter “Goldstone report would be different if I knew then what I know now” was a hesitant, troubled prose, written in a great discomfort and with inner conflict that can be seen in it’s uneven structure.
This latest article is Goldstone re-educated – Mao China style – and this article accepts him back into the Party.
Totalitarian regimes must destroy you – whether you are with them, or against them.
It is worse than that for Goldstone, Eva. He is someone with credibility. They don’t have so many of them now. So he must be their vector. He was an apostate and now he has been reclaimed but he can’t be private any longer. He must be paraded through the media . It is very sad to watch.
Reminds me of this
link to aerin.centerblog.net
He’s a judge and they made him write this
“And the deep disputes, claims and counterclaims are only hardened when the offensive analogy of “apartheid” is invoked. ”
“Israel is not a colonial power and does not function as such.
Colonial powers form an equilibrium with the indigenous peoples whose land they occupy. They have a parasitic nature that knows their survival is based on cooperation with and even helping the indigenous peoples, albeit on a very minimum level. We have seen this with the colonization of India by the British, Algeria and Morocco by the French, and South Africa by Afrikana apartheid.
Israel’s function is more that of a CANCER that consumes its host resources until there is nothing left, consequently destroying itself as a result. As Farid Esack, a South African scholar, writer and political activist, known for his opposition to apartheid, says in his open letter to the Palestinian people, “Israel is not an apartheid, it’s worse.”
link to gilad.co.uk
Israel is worse than apartheid IMO because they have co-opted the Jewish religion.
This is Rabbi Donniel Hartman. He’s big into Jewish morality.
link to hartman.org.il
“While I don’t know, I wonder whether a policy of targeted assassinations of leadership would not move the status quo slightly in our favor”
“The nature of asymmetrical war and a conflict not merely with a terrorist organization but also with a population which embraces terrorism is that one’s options are profoundly limited. Neither political overtures nor concessions, or conversely, sanctions will transform the population of Gaza from foe to friend. They have fed themselves a steady diet of evil ideology from which only they can free themselves.”
It is instructive to compare with Islam
link to guardian.co.uk
“Perhaps he should remind himself of a well-established code of ethics that the prophet of Islam preached and practised throughout his life. This prohibits attacks on a wounded person, ensures the safety of prisoners of war and gives unequivocal instruction about not killing captives”
Empires rise and fall but what’s going to be left of Judaism when Zionism collapses?
“Goldstone has just published a new Op-Ed on the New York Times website titled “Israel and the Apartheid Slander”"
Poor Goldstone. He is like an English Catholic who renounced the faith under duress in the 1500s and then became a Protestant torturer. They really have him by the nuts.
Again, anyone who has followed Goldstone knows that this has been his view since the beginning.
Which just makes him look like a confused fool. He’s trying to justify the atrocities he himself was compelled to report upon.
Hophmi
when zionism collapses will you regroup online ?
There is a danger of reducing this to an argument about words. Since the beginning of civilisation there has existed a concept of justice. It is irrelevant whether different regimes, individuals or groups adhered to it or to what degree. Nor has it anything to do with Laws which do not form the concept but arise from the it. It is about Right and Wrong and it shouldn’t be necessary to rummage through the Geneva Convention or reference human rights legislation to know that driving people from their land, torturing and humiliating them is just plain Wrong.
Interesting that Goldstone makes the important distinction between Israel and the OPT, and concedes that conditions in the OPT are “more complicated”, but does not make the asssertion that the OPT is apartheid free.
This is the get-out clause Israel deploys. When it suits its arguments, the OPT are magically somewhere else, even though all the Jewish people who live there, live in Israel, but the Palestinians do not. It is a wholly artificial distinction, which allows Israel to pretend that the citizens there who are not Jewish have no civil liberties or human rights. Israel has annexed the OPT and if it is apartheid there, which it is, then Israel is apartheid. Making meaningless distinctions in order to wriggle out of the truth is an Israeli pastime.
Present-day Israel is a theocracy, run by racist bigoted Orthodox rabbis who do not believe that non-Jews are persons.
“Present-day Israel is a theocracy, run by racist bigoted Orthodox rabbis who do not believe that non-Jews are persons.”
Right. Bibi Netanyahu, Tzipi Livni, Avigdor Lieberman, Ehud Barak – they’re all rabbis.
Iran – that’s a theocracy. Saudi Arabia – theocracy. Learn what a theocracy is before you make a fool of yourself.
Steady on, hops. You know who rounds up the votes in the Knesset and calls the shots in Israel. Haven’t you heard? Israel is a “Jewish State”.
“Theocracy” defined: “…a form of organization in which the official policy is to be governed by immediate divine guidance or by officials who are regarded as divinely guided, or simply pursuant to the doctrine of a particular religious sect or religion.”
But do the politicians you mention actually run Israel? Can they buck the influence of the rabbis? Can Barak, for example, order the IDF to fire the military rabbis and reintegrate women? Can the Education Ministry make the yeshivas that they subsidize teach a modern curriculum? Could the Interior Ministry, which IS controlled by a rabbi through the medium of its minister, institute civil marriage?
Or is it the case that the politicians only run Israel the way the rabbis allow them?
Ovadia Yosef isn’t Interior Minister – he doesn’t want the work. But his boy Yishai knows where to get his orders. (Funny that you left him off your list.)
“But do the politicians you mention actually run Israel?”
Yes, of course. It’s certainly true that the rabbis have some power in civil matters, but that is a far cry from a theocracy.
As far the military, it is civilian-controlled; the Chief of Staff reports to the Defense Minister and the Prime Minister. Therefore, I see no reason why the Defense Minister can’t fire a military rabbi.
“But his boy Yishai knows where to get his orders. (Funny that you left him off your list.)”
It wasn’t intentional. We have politicians here who are beholden to the Evangelicals because of where they come from. Sen. James Inhofe gets up and quotes the Bible all the time. People advertise themselves as good Christians in political ads. That doesn’t make us a theocracy.
“Steady on, hops. You know who rounds up the votes in the Knesset and calls the shots in Israel. Haven’t you heard? Israel is a “Jewish State”.”
Eh? Talking points is not an argument. We could call America a Christian state. It still wouldn’t make us a theocracy. Theocracy is a form of government, not a slogan.
““Theocracy” defined: “…a form of organization in which the official policy is to be governed by immediate divine guidance or by officials who are regarded as divinely guided, or simply pursuant to the doctrine of a particular religious sect or religion.””
Yes. None of this describes Israel, which is a parliamentary republic in which power comes from the people, who vote for their leaders through elections. I can assure you with great confidence that no one thinks Bibi Netanyahu, or anyone who has been Prime Minister in Israel over the past 63 years, has been divinely guided.
“Yes, of course. It’s certainly true that the rabbis have some power in civil matters, but that is a far cry from a theocracy.”
“Some power in civil matter,” Hops. They have enormous power. Who on earth do you think is driving the settlement building? Israel is not a “far cry” from a theocracy, it is one, and a very dangerous one.
“Who on earth do you think is driving the settlement building?
Most of the settlers are not religious settlers.
Again, you’ve not made the case for theocracy. There are many places where clergy are powerful. That does not make them theocracies.
Worry more about Saudi Arabia, which exports its theocracy to educational institutions abroad, and Iran, which threatens the region and the world.
“Most of the settlers are not religious settlers.”
Really, and I suppose their rabbis aren’t religious either.
I looked it up; you are correct, though it is in the last ten years I think that they became the majority. Regardless, it does not make the case that Israel is a theocracy. It may make the case that religious fervor drives settlement building, but again, this is not the definition of a theocracy.
Hop, you’re clutching at straws.
Orthodox rabbis rule in Israel: in the Knesset, in the Cabinet, in the Army, and in the settlements. What you’ve got is a theocracy.
link to unicef.org
From the UNICEF Website. IS that the next UN agency the US will defund?
—————–
In July 2011, residents from the nearby Kfar Adumim settlement petitioned the Israeli High Court to prevent the school from opening for the new school term and to have the demolition order carried out. The Court declined to close the school, but it did request a follow-up from Israeli authorities about its demolition plans.
At risk of displacement
Twenty other Bedouin communities in Area C face the same threat of demolition and displacement; over two-thirds of the residents in these areas are children.
Like Khan Al Ahmar, these communities are not connected to the electric grid and only half have access to water services. Yet demolition poses an even worse fate for these villagers: If their communities are scattered, children may lose not only their homes and schools, but also their culture.
“I do not want my school to be destroyed because it’s beautiful, and I need it,” said Iman. “All I ask is to be able to study and live here in Khan Al Ahmar because this is my only home.”
I think the failing of the Mondoweiss analysis of Goldstone (and more importantly the commentators), is that I believe that following Cast Lead, Goldstone attempted to do his job, independent of his personal views, and that his job was largely as facilitator, organizer, and figurehead, not as author so much.
In contrast, the Mondoweiss implication of Goldstone, their use of his name and his work, was to expropriate him, to declare that he had “picked sides”, and that in this war of ideas he “picked ours”.
I think that was a gross over-extension, an effort to use the man rather than to report, rather than to explain, certainly rather than to respect.
And, now that his views have been clarified, he is a turncoat, disloyal, betrayer. Adam nor Phil have used that language.
Their authorship is only in the choice of headlines, and choice of material to present.
I agree somewhat with Dick Witty on this point.
However, you make it seem as if Goldstone received new evidence to fuel his ‘recantation’.
He didn’t. No new evidence was presented.
In between the publishing of the report and that ‘recantation’ – he was assaulted by the Jewish community in the States, in Europe, and in Israel.
He was called a ‘kapo’ (I think) or something else along those lines by mainstream Zionist hacks.
His OP-ED in the Times is SHORT.
It lacks EVIDENCE and reasoned substantiation.
In fact, does he say anything we haven’t already dealt with before?? NO!
He is like other Zionists when he says ‘it’s complicated’.
“It’s complicated” – a line that liars or the intellectually dishonest (for WHATEVER reason, emotional, religious, political, etc.) people use to hide their spurious nonsense.
John Dugard is on the Russell Tribunal. He is an expert on IHL and a South African.
Goldstone slanders him in the OP-ED when he says the people of the Tribunal are ‘known’ for their harsh views. Wasn’t Goldstone’s conclusions HARSH as well?
We need to link that story when the Israeli Army Radio interviewed Goldstone’s DAUGHTER.
Goldstone was not the Goldstone report. He had a whole team working on it and remember it was based on REALITY. Reality as in the victims, their testimonies, the physical evidence. ETC ETC ETC
If Goldstone, the individual, wants to claim the world is flat because the flat-earth society calls him a kapo, it changes nothing about the evidence of his earlier report.
What WILL happen is Zionist mental midgets (hophmi is a PERFECT example) will latch on to the SUPERFICIALITY of this story, and the ‘recantation’ and use it to ‘point-score’ (as per the World Union of Jewish Students, Hasbara Handbook).
“What WILL happen is Zionist mental midgets (hophmi is a PERFECT example) will latch on to the SUPERFICIALITY of this story, and the ‘recantation’ and use it to ‘point-score’ (as per the World Union of Jewish Students, Hasbara Handbook).”
I’ve done nothing of the sort. Unlike people like Cliff, I’ve been consistent in my analysis of Goldstone, which is that he’s always been a harsh critic of the settlement project, and he has always been a Zionist. When all of you turned him into a saint, I reminded you that his report was about Gaza, not a condemnation of Israel. When he wrote his first op-ed, I pointed out that you people would pillorize him and that hard-right Zionists would say it was a recantation when, in fact, neither was true. Now that he has taken on the apartheid analogy and indicated essentially that Israel’s position in the territories is ad-hoc, and not a highly organized program of racial separation like it was in South Africa, and that inside of the Green Line, there is discrimination, but nothing rising to the level of apartheid, you’ve further pillorized him, and I’ve again pointed out that nothing he’s stated is inconsistent with what he’s said in the past.
I have credibility on Goldstone because I’ve always looked at what he did in context of who he is, what his history is, and what he was trying to accomplish. Therefore, I’ve been able to maintain a consistent point of view throughout.
As a political actor, Goldstone is essentially a guy who has always favored working within a bad system to obtain better results (judge in apartheid South Africa), a guy who has always tried to place himself at the center of history (ICTY prosecutor), a guy who approaches his work as an investigative prosecutor, not as a politician (background as judge and prosecutor), and a guy who does not always understand the ramifications of his actions in the real world (failure to anticipate the fallout from his report and the way in which both sides would distort it, failure to understand the political problems that can result from the application of the universal jurisdiction he has long favored).
Therefore, he’s always open to being criticized as a tool of less-than-savory political bodies, an egomaniac who thinks that he can stand above it all, a naive jurist who believes in the power of law to solve political conflict, and an overzealous investigator who finds facts without always supporting them fully or placing them in their proper context.
Anyone who ever had any interaction with Goldstone on the I-P conflict or has seen his public record on the issue knows the guy is a liberal Zionist who hates the settlement project. I knew that from actually talking to him about it (albeit briefly), but you can look him up on youtube and learn the same thing.
You have no credibility on this issue because Goldstone was just another political tool for you, to be opportunistically used, and discarded whenever he became less useful and more complex. You’ll agree with him as long as he supports your worldview, and you’ll condemn him as soon as he deviates from your orthodoxy.
Go ahead, you sorry excuse for an activist, keep up the name-calling. It does not affect me, and it make you look dumb.
1. No one turned him into a saint. Stop repeating this lie to support your inanely idiotic verbiage.
2. The report does not condemn Israel. No one said it did. The reports conclusions ‘speak for themselves’ and that is sufficient basis to condemn Israel. Israel is a colonial-settler State that continually ethnically cleanses, wages war and steals from the Palestinians. This is not a symmetrical conflict. This is not a war on radical Islam, or terrorism. It is a colonial conflict between the racist, apartheid State of Israel and the subjugated, colonized Palestinian people.
3. Richard Goldstone did in fact ‘take on’ the apartheid analogy. And of course his argument was shallow and weak. He wrote an OP-ED, not a substantiated counter-argument against the analogy.
4. List the dates when ‘we’ (a majority of MW anti-Zionist commentators, i.e. an agreeable consensus) supposedly lionized Goldstone. Then list some OP-ED of his where he states his views on the apartheid analogy PRIOR to our praise.
When did Richard Goldstone talk about the war of narratives concerning Israel, prior to the report?
5. You are summarizing his views in the same exact, shallow, unconvincing assortment of one-liners. It doesn’t take much for you to agree with Goldstone.
When have you EVER produced any kind of reasonable argument against the analogy? When has Goldstone? The opposite is true of people like John Dugard and the HSRC.
You have no credibility. You are a sophist tool who refers to Palestinians as Nazis and whitewashes blatant Zionist racism – literally. You bash the UN with typical OUTDATED Zionist memes (Richard Falk already dealt with the issue of inordinate amount of reports, etc. ‘against’ Israel). You slander the Goldstone report, no doubt without reading it, as part of a larger UN conspiracy against Israel.
What was Goldstone trying to ‘accomplish’?
You DISMISSIVELY referred to Goldstone as ‘some other lawyer’ prior to his ‘recantation’.
link to mondoweiss.net
You changed your tone considerably. COMPLETELY. After he wrote his OP-ED.
You, like Israel, cannot explain systematic destruction of Palestinian civilian infrastructure and civilian deaths.
Your arguments are lazy: “Israel is not much concerned with the opinions of a United Nations that offers no apparent understanding or concern for the reality that Israel faces.”
Oh yea? What reality is that? That Israel is colonizing another peoples land and they aren’t happy about it? That Israel has been carrying out a military occupation and colonizing Palestinian land for almost 50 years?
Like virtually every other Zionist in existence, your only rebuttal is “it’s complicated.” Just like I said.
Now, predictably, you are echoing Goldstone’s shallow comments (“it’s complicated”) about the apartheid analogy.
“1. No one turned him into a saint. Stop repeating this lie to support your inanely idiotic verbiage.”
LOL. You can go back and read what you guys were writing in 2010. I haven’t the patience and I don’t have the desire to die laughing yet.
“2. The report does not condemn Israel. No one said it did. The reports conclusions ‘speak for themselves’ and that is sufficient basis to condemn Israel.”
The report’s conclusions are about Gaza and the blockade, not about the basis of Israel as a state.
“Israel is a colonial-settler State that continually ethnically cleanses, wages war and steals from the Palestinians.”
The report didn’t say that either. You did.
“This is not a symmetrical conflict.”
Many conflict aren’t. Symmetry is not required for conflict.
“This is not a war on radical Islam, or terrorism. It is a colonial conflict between the racist, apartheid State of Israel and the subjugated, colonized Palestinian people.”
Did that feel good? It is in part a war on radical Islam and terrorism and in part a land conflict. Again, the world is not black and white.
“3. Richard Goldstone did in fact ‘take on’ the apartheid analogy. And of course his argument was shallow and weak. He wrote an OP-ED, not a substantiated counter-argument against the analogy. ”
Goldstone understands apartheid’s actual definition. You don’t. Apartheid is a de jure formalized legal system. It is not the same as societal discrimination or ad-hoc policy making, and it is certainly in no way an accurate description of Israel within the Green Line. In the West Bank, Dugard’s argument is that there is de facto apartheid, particularly in the West Bank. I would argue that this de facto situation is recent, and is the result of ad-hoc responses to a sustained terrorist campaign.
“When have you EVER produced any kind of reasonable argument against the analogy? When has Goldstone?”
When you ever produced any kind of reasonable argument in favor of it?
“You have no credibility. You are a sophist tool who refers to Palestinians as Nazis and whitewashes blatant Zionist racism – literally. ”
You are lying broken record who repeats the same nonsensical blather over and over again.
I wrote: “No country is going to abandon that responsibility because the International Court of Justice or Richard Goldstone or some other lawyer has an opinion about it.”
You characterized this as me referring to Goldstone as some other lawyer. Once again, Cliffy, I’ll explain it in simple terms. The quote you found is a discussion about Israel’s reaction to the Goldstone Report. I didn’t dismiss Goldstone’s findings. I dismissed the lack of context that characterized the report’s findings as part of a broader argument about the role of international law in influencing the policy of a country under sustained terrorist attack. To the Israelis, who search for a way to respond in an organized manner to a sustain terrorist campaign of rocket attacks (and they are terrorist attacks, prohibited under customary international law), the Goldstone Report is not going to cause them to stop protecting their civilians.
I’m not dismissing Goldstone at all, and I can assure you, neither are the Israelis. But as I’ve said before, international law as applied to urban conflict does not always reflect the realities on the ground, and international law as applied to Israel is not applied in an apolitical way.
“You changed your tone considerably. COMPLETELY. After he wrote his OP-ED. ”
Not at all. I was militantly against the personal way in which many Jewish organizations went after Goldstone. My feeling is no different. The Goldstone Report has the problems of similar endeavors. Its sources are people living in an unfree society, its incidents are often shorn of their context, and the investigating party originated from a body with no track record of fairness with regard to this conflict. Nevertheless, I also knew Goldstone’s record well enough to understand that Goldstone’s criticisms were limited to Gaza, and that he was a Zionist, and I understood what he doing as being a well-intentioned attempt to get Israel out of the territories.
‘Your arguments are lazy: “Israel is not much concerned with the opinions of a United Nations that offers no apparent understanding or concern for the reality that Israel faces.””
It’s not an argument. It’s an observation. If the United States faced the scrutiny Israel does about its conduct in Iraq or Afghanistan, there is little question in my mind the reports would be similar, and the United States reaction would be identical.
“Oh yea? What reality is that?”
The reality of living with constant terror attacks on your people.
“Like virtually every other Zionist in existence, your only rebuttal is “it’s complicated.” Just like I said.”
It is pretty complicated. Sorry it’s not a Dick and Jane storybook, Cliff, like you’re used to. But there’s much more to my argument than that.
“Now, predictably, you are echoing Goldstone’s shallow comments (“it’s complicated”) about the apartheid analogy.
I don’t recall where I said “it’s complicated.” I may have said it isn’t black and white. But essentially Goldstone is simply correct. Apartheid is a de jure system of comprehensive institutionalized racial discrimination. There is discrimination in Israel, but it is not racial, institutionalized, comprehensive or de jure.
Exactly. No one lionized Goldstone as the savior of the Palestinian people and all the rest.
He was complimented for his impartiality in spite of being a Zionist. That is all.
If I’m arguing about a specific issue within this conflict I cite mainstream reports from established NGOs and the UN.
Your only counter-argument thus far is that the UN is corrupt and biased and singles out Israel.
You cited some statistic of reports against Israel in 2010. Richard Falk in, The Record of the Paper: How the New York Times Misreports US Foreign Policy, deals with this hasbara meme specifically.
Just like the LIE that people here worshipped Goldstone previously, you continue to lie about the disproportionate number of reports/resolutions/etc. against Israel. In any scenario it would not matter either way. Israel is subjected to this kind of attention because it regularly violates IHL. The only thing you can do, predictably, is WHINE.
You can’t cite many (if ANY) mainstream institution. You rely on ‘wahh, poor Israel is surrounded by enemies and it’s a tough neighborhood’.
You did dismiss the findings. It’s UNSURPRISING that you continue to LIE in spite of MW having a search function. Pathetic.
You characterized the Goldstone’s involvement in the fact-finding mission and the UN as the following:
You have said nothing about the methodology of the report. That is where the context really is.
Goldstone answered this in the previous block of quotes I cited from his interview with Bill Moyers.
You have not, and will not (and cannot), provide any kind of coherent substantiated rebuttal. You just go on and on with your spurious nonsense that, as I have said repeatedly is yet another version of:
“It’s complicated.”
I’ve never lied and everything I say makes perfect sense to rational, sane people. Only a desperate racist putz thinks a snake colored as the Palestinian flag is not representative of (*drumroll*) Palestinian national identity.
After I asked you to explain your disgusting comments on Palestinians:
1. original comment: link to mondoweiss.net
2. Your pathetic LIE that you meant the Palestinian ‘leadership’ (as if that would even be relevant given the FACT that none of that leadership was representative of the will of the Palestinian people at that time, and they sure as hell weren’t collectively HITLER SUPPORTERS): link to mondoweiss.net
Etc. etc.
There is nothing ‘nonsensical’ about quoting a racist idiot like you at length, and watching you shrink away from the issue. You did it before, and you’ll do it again because you can’t justify the STUPID thing you said. Instead, you’ll just say I’m beating a dead horse.
I actually agree. You are a racist, Zionist clown. It’s an established fact. So no need to keep quoting your past hateful comments (you’ll surely give us more gems of wisdom soon enough).
Goldstone believed them. Moyers asked him whether Hamas presented all the available interviewees. He said no.
Clearly, you don’t trust Palestinians to tell the truth. It has nothing to do with Hamas ruling Gaza.
The end. Once again, you can’t provide a reasonable rebuttal. Just a string of worthless one-liners.
Goldstone wrote a small OP-ED without addressing several issues, many of which are glaringly obvious and Phil has already made another post about them here:
link to mondoweiss.net
You reflexively agree with him simply because of his conclusion.
His argument is unconvincing and SHORT. Short because he is slandering the analogy. If Goldstone really means what he’s saying in the OP-ED, he will go into greater detail. I doubt he can though.
The HRSC has on the other hand. And you and Goldstone whom you reflexively agree with (today, who knows tomorrow), have said nothing to counter their claims and other more substantiated ones.
I reminded you that his report was about Gaza, not a condemnation of Israel.
Riiiight, there’s no criticism of Israel, its laws, its prisons, or the situation in the West Bank here:
206. Despite prohibitions under international humanitarian law (IHL),54 Israel has applied its domestic laws throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory since 1967. Notably, existing planning and construction laws were annulled and replaced with military orders, and related civil powers transferred from local authorities to Israeli institutions, with ultimate discretion resting with military commanders. The application of Israeli domestic laws has resulted in institutionalized discrimination against Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territory to the benefit of Jewish settlers, both Israeli citizens and others. Exclusive benefits reserved for Jews derive from the two-tiered civil status under Israel’s domestic legal regime based on a “Jewish nationality,” which entitles “persons of Jewish race or descendency” to superior rights and privileges, particularly in land use, housing, development, immigration and access to natural resources, as affirmed in key legislation. Administrative procedures qualify indigenous inhabitants of the Occupied Palestinian Territory as “alien persons” and, thus, prohibited from building on, or renting, large portions of land designated by the Government of Israel as “State land”.
207. The two-tiered civil status under Israeli law, favouring “Jewish nationals” (le’om yehudi) over persons holding Israeli citizenship (ezrahut), has been a subject of concern under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, particularly those forms of discrimination carried out through Israel’s parastatal agencies (World Zionist Organization/Jewish Agency, Jewish National Fund and their affiliates), which dominate land use, housing and development. The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights also has recognized that Israel’s application of a “Jewish nationality” distinct from Israeli citizenship institutionalizes discrimination that disadvantages all Palestinians, in particular, refugees.
208. In 2007, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination highlighted another discriminatory policy imposed by the Israeli authorities on Palestinian residents of the Occupied Palestinian Territory as well as those who are Israeli citizens (but denied a legal “nationality” status). The “Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law (Temporary Order)” of 31 May 2003 bars the possibility of granting Israeli citizenship and residence permits in Israel, including through family reunification, to residents of the Occupied Palestinian Territory. The Committee noted that such measures have a disproportionate impact on Arab Israeli citizens who marry Palestinians from the Occupied Palestinian Territory and wish to live together with their families in Israel. While noting the State party’s legitimate objective of guaranteeing the safety of its citizens, the Committee expressed concern about the fact that these “temporary” measures have systematically been renewed and have been expanded to citizens of “enemy States”.
209. Since 1967, about 750,000 Palestinians have been detained at some point by the Government of Israel, according to Palestinian human rights organizations. Currently, there are approximately 8,100 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons and detention centres, roughly 550 of whom are administrative detainees.
I will not defend Goldstone but seek to understand him: “The situation in the West Bank is more complex. But here too there is no intent to maintain “an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group.” This is a critical distinction, even if Israel acts oppressively toward Palestinians there.”
I think Goldstone wants to say that the rules and practices which embody the oppression are not legislated according to a system of statutes or regulations which state a purpose of discrimination and oppression. Or perehaps he means that neither “Jews” nor “Palestinians” nor “Arabs” are “races, so there cannot be “racial discrimination”, even if there may be other discrimination.
If this is what he means — that the lack of a statement of purpose to discriminate and oppress is all that (in his view) makes the Israeli regime in OPTs fail to constitute apartheid — then he should say so more clearly.
In my view and Dugard’s (I believe), the appropriate rule is not to look for explicit statements of malign purpose but, rather, to apply the “looks like a duck, sounds like a duck, walks like a duck” rule for identifying ducks.
Goldstone is a broken man, now being used as a tool of the AIPAC crowd and NYT. Treat him with kindness.
“I will not defend Goldstone but seek to understand him: “The situation in the West Bank is more complex. But here too there is no intent to maintain “an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group.” This is a critical distinction, even if Israel acts oppressively toward Palestinians there.”
Yes it is a critical distinction….it’s genocide, not apartheid. Unless there is some other name for denying the natives their own water resources and taking their farming livelihood for Israeli settler’s use. So mo genocide but genocide all the same.
Goldstone isn’t hard to understand–he junked all personal and professional ethics and morality in favor of the tribe with his recant. A jurist of his standing doesn’t put out a report that he then ‘has to go back’ and “qualify”. I think the verdict on Goldstone was in when every other member of the group denounced his re-do.
Legend has it that two Black clerks in a London Tesco supermarket started the BDS campaign against South Africa’s apartheid system. 18 years later that system fell apart.
We are now 5 years into the BDS campaign against Israel’s system of apartheid. What more can we do here at MW to hasten the success of the Palestinians’ BDS campaign?
The Goldstone piece is worthless. Little wonder the Times ran it. How little they must think of their readers that they’ll feed them garbage like this…
“The situation in the West Bank is more complex. But here too there is no intent to maintain “an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group.” This is a critical distinction, even if Israel acts oppressively toward Palestinians there. South Africa’s enforced racial separation was intended to permanently benefit the white minority, to the detriment of other races. By contrast, Israel has agreed in concept to the existence of a Palestinian state in Gaza and almost all of the West Bank, and is calling for the Palestinians to negotiate the parameters.”
Richard Goldstone:
Does Justice Goldstone deny that such a regime currently exists in the OPT, or does he merely assert that Israel lacks “intent to maintain” it? If it is the apparent lack of permanence that distinguishes Israeli policy in the OPT from the South African policy of racial segregation, how many more years must Israel pursue its policies of discrimination and segregation before its “intent to permanently benefit” the Jewish population is deduced?
Successive Israeli governments may indeed have “agreed in concept to the existence of a Palestinian state in Gaza and almost all of the West Bank” (although the Netanyahu government’s position is less than clear on this matter), but have acted to perpetuate discrimination and segregation through the construction or approval of construction throughout the West Bank, that cannot be described as anything but permanent.
With regard to measures taken for “security” purposes, many of the oppressive policies of the South African government were also rooted in or excused by security concerns. As far as the wall constructed in occupied Palestinian territory is concerned, the ICJ has already expressed its opinion on the aspects of the wall that can and cannot be justified by security concerns.
>> The situation in the West Bank is more complex. But here too there is no intent to maintain “an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group.” This is a critical distinction, even if Israel acts oppressively toward Palestinians there.
Ah, so, rape isn’t rape when there is no intent to maintain “a regime of sexual violence and physical domination of the female by the male.” This is a critical distinction, even if the rapist is currently sexually abusing and physically oppressing the victim.
Cool.
Ah, so, rape isn’t rape when there is no intent to maintain “a regime of sexual violence and physical domination of the female by the male.”
Eljay,
The definition of the crime of apartheid (as opposed to other crimes that Goldstone admits Israel regularly commits in the OPT) requires an “institutionalised regime” and the intent of “maintaining domination”. In that sense, Goldstone addresses the right points when he attempts to demonstrate that Israeli crimes in the OPT – as awful as they may be – do not amount to apartheid. The question is how he can ignore all of the evidence that points to the existence of such a regime and the clear intent of all Israeli governments to maintain Jewish domination in those territories (with or without ineffectual hand-wringing) for the foreseeable future.
>> Shmuel November 1, 2011 at 1:56 pm
My point – which, evidently, was poorly made :-) – was that:
- An institutionalized regime of systematic oppression by Israel exists and Israel’s ON-GOING actions indicate an intent to maintain it.
*BUT*
- Israel hasn’t actually declared its intent to maintain its institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and, so, Goldstone fraudulently uses this lack of declared intent to conclude that the institutionalized regime of systematic oppression (“apartheid”) doesn’t exist.
Goldstone is being dishonest. He’s playing games.
Israel hasn’t actually declared its intent to maintain its institutionalized regime of systematic oppression
The Goldstone report went into considerable detail about abuses that it described as systematic discrimination amounting to persecution. It’s legal analysis included a discussion regarding the applicable law on self-determination (page 71, para 269) and the ICJ ruling which found both the wall and the associated administrative regime illegal. It also addressed the fact that the both the government and the Israeli High Court of Justice had deliberately ignored that finding (page 48, para 185). So, he laid the necessary ground work which established a pattern and practice that demonstrates an intent to maintain the illegal regime of domination.
Goldstone has left the fact finding building.
I’d like to note I had my doubts about Richard Goldstone from the very beginning and not only have those concerns been vindicated, he’s proven to be even worse than I imagined.
I guess like Witty, I have severe criticisms of how Mr. Weiss and Mr. Horowitz treated Goldstone, but unlike Witty, my complaint is it was foolish for them to lionize him at the start of this whole fiasco.
There four people who compiled that report — at the start of this process, all of them should have had equal credibility. Goldstone was nominated as the de facto “leader” of the report, solely because he was Jewish.
And now the man has proven to have even less credibility than the other three contributors to the report, but the other three have been silenced by mass media because Goldstone was groomed to be the last word, even when he was actively trying to undermine the UN report this whole time.
You know what the net effect is, to the rest of the world? We will be forever questioning any Jew who is given authority to administer over affairs regarding Palestinians, because we will be (rightly) questioning whether they will choose the easy path of giving in to Zionist circles of society and power over any moral commitment to the truth and to social justice. And yes that’s not fair, and yes that’s bigotry, but you know what? That’s better than risking putting a knife in the hands of a zealot who will stab Palestinians in the back when you’re not looking. Because lives are at stake, here.
Goldstone has proven that no Zionist can ever be trusted, ever.
Clearly Goldstone was pressured. He did come out and say that the findings stood
“Clearly Goldstone was pressured.”
Please indicate evidence that you have that he was pressured. There is nothing about what he wrote that is inconsistent with his report.
Yes there is! In his first op ed, he basically said, “Well, Israel told me what I said in my report was wrong, so my report was wrong.” And then when the whole damn international community was filling up his voice mail with “WTFs?” he turned around and said, “Oh, um…. actually I stand by report. Never mind.” And now he — a WHITE EUROPEAN GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL from South Africa is insisting that Israel isn’t apartheid, when we have people that his government persecuted under apartheid, who know what apartheid REALLY is, saying that Palestine is living under something that is at least as bad as apartheid?
At this point Goldstone has about as much credibility as you do, hophmi.
“Goldstone was nominated as the de facto “leader” of the report, solely because he was Jewish”
I think a lot of us, including me, originally gave Goldstone extra credit because he ‘was’ a Jew who appeared to be “objective” and above the tribalism surrounding the Jewish state. Only to discover he had feet of clay.
Let him sink into ignominy.
Instead of the sober robe of a senior judge, Goldstone has donned the garish garb of the Court Jester.
“Goldstone has proven that no Zionist can ever be trusted, ever.”
I hope the Jews can learn that lesson.
“But in practice there is little difference.”
One of the big differences between the apartheid situations in South Africa and the OCT is the persistent resistance to justice by the US congress in regard to the Palestinians situation.
The US congress is in support of apartheid in the OPT
“Israeli occupation is ‘apartheid’: Finnish foreign minister
26 October 2011, 16:18 CET
(HELSINKI) – Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories is tantamount to apartheid, Finnish Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja said Wednesday, warning time was running out for a two-state solution.
“If you are occupying areas inhabited by… Palestinians who do not have the same rights as the Israelis in Israel, that is apartheid and that is not sustainable,” he told reporters.
“I think that the majority in Israel has also realised this but they have been unable to provide a leadership that (can) move forward on the two-state solution,” he added.
Tuomioja also warned that time was “running out for the two-state solution.”
“There is growing frustration among the Palestinians that a two-state solution is not going to come,” he said, adding: “the outlook is not very positive.”
link to normanfinkelstein.com
It is fun watching all of you discredit yourselves by smashing a guy you lionized because he has now said something you disagree with (even though that something is completely reconcilable with what he said before.)
Everything is black and white; everyone is either a hero or a villain; everyone is a hero until he breaks with the Stalinist orthodoxy, and then he’s a villain.
You guys, of course, are always pure as the driven snow.
Wrong try, hophmi. The Goldstone report was based on facts (actually, it was even called after that “fact finding mission”).
Today, as already three posts here at Mondoweiss are pointing out, he is just stringing hasbara words together. Unfounded claims.
“The Goldstone report was based on facts (actually, it was even called after that “fact finding mission”).”
It was. Those of us who criticized it generally criticized for failing to place those facts in any kind of reasonable context.
The case that Israel is not an apartheid regime is likewise based on facts; there is no institutionalized system of discrimination in Israel, certainly nothing like South Africa. The checkpoints John Dugard discusses were erected after years of suicide bombing. It is an ad-hoc situation.
You guys are the ones without credibility, because it’s clear to everyone outside of your own little extreme community that you use Goldstone as a convenient political tool, to be condemned as soon as he deviates from the party line of Arabs good, Jews bad.
Explain to me in what context it’s OK to summarily execute hundreds of children and attack marked UN facilities in which you know there are dozens, possibly hundreds of refugees taking shelter. I do believe you failed to clarify that in the past.
summarily execute hundreds of children? can your propaganda get anymore disgusting?
Not as disgusting as the IDF practice of summarily executing hundreds of children.
Not the smarted tools in the shed, huh America?
I think they meant that lying about the IDF ‘summarily executing’ hundred of children is a lie used for propaganda.
you mean like when they bombed the schoolyard.
you mean the one missiles were being fired from? Do you know what summarily executed means? It was what happened to Qaddafi. the fogel family was a summary execution.
the fogel family was a summary execution.
how much land did israel justify stealing as a result of that? and who was it who was buried in that palestinian town near the murder? the famous gravesite the settlers covet? joseph? i can’t recall. i always find it strange when heinous crimes end up being advantageous for some entity. like Vic and Juliano being murdered. they all happened around the same time. very strange indeed.
It would be is it was a lie.
No, it was a murder.
you mean the one missiles were being fired from?
You mean the one the IDF said missiles were being fired from?
The Fogel family were trespassers. Israeli law doesn’t rightly have jurisdiction on the West Bank. And anyway, I don’t believe that Palestinians killed those children. It isn’t even remotely realistic that a couple of Palestinian teenagers snuck over a fence topped with razor wire and security cameras past the IDF, and confessions extracted by torture are meaningless. You’d think the grandson of Jewish Holocaust survivors would care about that, but apparently, you don’t.
Tell your “interfaith group” that you think it’s OK to drop missiles on schools. Correction — that you think it’s OK to drop missiles on schools where there are no Jewish children anyway, I’ll do you the credit of not assuming that you would (intentionally) justify an Islamic Jihad rocket attack in your zeal to see Arab children dead.
If Israel occupies the West Bank they have jurisdiction over it mensa man.
Everyone has seen the youtube videos of militants firing from the UN school, using kids as shields, using UN/Red Crescent ambulances to haul armed militants, it is all documented pretty well on youtube.
The Fogel killers weren’t teenagers, they were adults, quit trying to make them sounds all innocent. As for it being a foreign worker, like you said somewhere else, that is a joke. It was a lie propagated by Maan News so you sheeple could have an excuse to whitewash yet another Palestinian terror attack.
sure dude, they arrested hundreds of people and held the town on lockdown until miraculously they got some confessions. i’m like so sure if it was the palestinians with this much authority over jewish towns you would so believe what they told you/not.
If Israel occupies the West Bank they have responsbility to provide for the needs of the occupied population and their huaman rights Hasbara man.
True, but you’re the first to describe IDF as militants.
Are you referring to the same “YouTube video” that was shown to be from the 2006 invasion of Lebanon, and in which the “militants” were actually loading propane tanks onto a truck, a common practice for a propane tank distributor?
To which “that” video are you referring?
Was the video released by the Israeli Ministry of Truth?
Very sporting of you to admit that hypocrisy and mendacity are the basis for everything you say, Hophmi. And that you have contempt for anything else.
“Very sporting of you to admit that hypocrisy and mendacity are the basis for everything you say, Hophmi. ”
Very idiotic of you to, as usual, respond with a non-sequitor that only reiterates that you are here to be a joke.
Oh, he’s foaming at the mouth now, we’ve exhausted what little there is to be palatable in hophmi’s nightly four-course feast of tripe for the day.
poor hops, he just can’t get much sympathy around here.
Not really.
You on the other hand, are apparently an American who never misses an opportunity to USE American accomplishments and faults, to play UP or down, ISRAEL’S accomplishments and faults.
You never miss an opportunity to disassemble whatever disgusting thing a member of your larger Zionist community does or what the Israeli government/army does.
This is a polarizing conflict. So I agree people will tend to indulge in hyperbole.
But you are a documented racist and liar and your clarifications on your racist lies, are pathetic.
We have a search function here. So no doubt, I’m sure you will find anti-Zionists here excited that Goldstone authored the report on the Gaza massacre. Similarly, they will find your idiotic defense of racist propaganda cartoons, AMONG other laughable acts of desperation.
“You on the other hand, are apparently an American who never misses an opportunity to USE American accomplishments and faults, to play UP or down, ISRAEL’S accomplishments and faults.”
I have pointed out that, yes, when the US faces urban warfare situations like Israel faces in Gaza, it seems like way more people get killed, and that yes, the founding of the US entailed the forced removal and slaughter of way more people. I do also point out that the oasis that is today’s Europe was forged by hundreds of year of vile and horrible war, including interethnic and interreligious conflict, colonialist mercantilism, and so on, and that today’s Islamic world is a place with little freedom, little security, and little patience for minorities.
I point this out not to belittle other countries or societies, but merely to point out the hypocrisy of the campaign of those who focus with such intensity on Israel.
“You never miss an opportunity to disassemble whatever disgusting thing a member of your larger Zionist community does or what the Israeli government/army does. ”
What utter nonsense. My record of criticizing people in my own community, particularly on the right, is long, both here and elsewhere. Only a person who keeps his mouth open and his ears shut would say otherwise. Unfortunately, that describes most people here.
“But you are a documented racist and liar and your clarifications on your racist lies, are pathetic.”
You are a documented self-righteous, chicken little, blowhard, who delights in calling others racist. You have no credibility to do so.
“Similarly, they will find your idiotic defense of racist propaganda cartoons”
They will find your repeated distortion of what I say discrediting and what I did indicative of my ability not only to get the facts from the source (as I did by checking with the author before making an unsourced claim) but to do what none of you are capable of; admitting that I am wrong when I am actually wrong. I didn’t see the symbolism. And that’s all I was wrong about. Calling it racist is simply a ridiculous, self-serving transparent lie.
The comic book used a snake with the colors of the Palestinian flag to represent THE BDS MOVEMENT. Exactly how this is racist, no one seems to be able to explain. BDS is a POLITICAL movement. It is Palestinian-led. Its goal is to hurt Israel. Therefore, a partisan representation of it as a snake may be harsh for the huggy-bear kissy-face community, but there’s nothing racist about it unless you believe that BDS represents one race of people.
Anti-BDS is not the same thing as anti-Muslim, anti-Palestinian (assuming the Palestinians were all one race, which they are not), or Islamophobia.
I point this out not to belittle other countries or societies, but merely to point out the hypocrisy of the campaign of those who focus with such intensity on Israel.
You appear to say those things in a futile attempt to gloss over the progressive developments in international law, and to distract attention away from the fact that Israel is one of the international community’s rogue states.
Stalinist orthodoxy? You want to flesh that out a bit?
Sure. You guys have an orthodoxy. That orthodoxy is that people must accept certain premises:
1. Israel is a colonialist, apartheid state.
2. Zionism is racism.
3. Israel should never be cast in a positive light.
4. Palestinians should not be cast in a negative light.
Any deviation from this formula will earn condemnation here. Goldstone criticized Israel and criticized it harshly. You lionized him. Now that he’s said something positive, you’ve condemned him, even though it in no way negates the critical things he said.
Anyone who praises Israel’s democracy, no matter how critical they are otherwise, will be accused here of engaging in “hasbara.”
Anyone who criticizes Hamas will be accused of the same.
And so on and so on.
I’d appreciate it if you were going to plagarize me, you’d give me credit. How many more times are you going to use the word “lionize” without linking back to my original post?
Stalinist orthodoxy? . . . Sure. . . .That orthodoxy is that people must accept certain premises: 1. Israel is a colonialist, apartheid state.
*Joesph Stalin was the first leader of any country to extend de jure recognition to the State of Israel in 1948.
*Several wholly-owned subsidiaries of the Zionist Colonial Trust company became public state institutions of Israel on an ipso jure basis.
*It is a matter of public record that the government of Israel pursued a policy of land expropriation and established inland Jewish settlements in order to break-up the territorial contiguity of large Palestinian and Israeli-Arab population centers. The same officials stated that the establishment of Bantustans was the best solution. See the interviews of Ariel Sharon in “The Colonization of the West Bank Territories by Israel” @ the Library of Congress and 3. The strategy of “Bantustanization” in the report of the Special Rapporteur for the right to food.
*http://www.loc.gov/law/find/hearings/pdf/00139297647.pdf
*http://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/BCFFFF2CC84AE9BC85256E2B00685371
2. Zionism is racism.
Surely. One of the founders and chairman of the Hovevei Zion movement, Leon Pinsker, wrote the proto-Zionist manifesto, Judeophobia, which claimed that anti-semitism is an inherited characteristic:
Herzl decided the Jewish communities had an excessive production of mediocre intellects, who cannot find an outlet. He theorized that since hereditary racism can not be removed, it should be harnessed and employed as the prime mover of the Zionist movement:
3. Israel should never be cast in a positive light. 4. Palestinians should not be cast in a negative light.
Not quite, I’ve cited Israel’s failure to fulfill the minority and religious rights obligations that were a condition for terminating the mandate and granting it sovereignty over territory shared by other inhabitants and its other violations of international law. Commentary magazine has even reported that polls show Israel ranks right down there with Iran and North Korea as “One of World’s Most Unpopular Countries”. I don’t go out of my way to cast any of those countries in a good light. link to commentarymagazine.com
On the other hand, I’ve cited John Dugard’s and Richard Goldstone’s recommendations regarding the desirability of apprehending and prosecuting the Palestinians and Israelis who have attacked civilian areas with no apparent military objective or advantage.
FYI, you ordinarily claim that MW regulars hold a fringe view of Palestine, but the UNESCO vote underscores the fact that it is shared by the majority of states and peoples.
“Judeophobia is a psychic aberration. As a psychic aberration it is hereditary, and as a disease transmitted for two thousand years it is incurable.”
And we are told that everybody has got it except Jews. It is so widespread that the abberation is normal.
“Anti-Semitism … Its remote cause is our loss of the power of assimilation during the Middle Ages;”
Jews could assimilate before the Middle Ages? What prevented it afterwards? Did the Jews give up assimilation because they realized it would lead to intermarriage, which would mean marrying people who were suffering from a hereditary mental disease?
And we are told that everybody has got it except Jews. . . .Did the Jews give up assimilation because they realized it would lead to intermarriage, which would mean marrying people who were suffering from a hereditary mental disease?
No Judeophobia is not a sexually transmitted disease and doesn’t appear to be triggered by monogamous relations with a gentile;-) For example, Max Nordau, a leader in the early days of the Zionist Organization, was married to a shiksa. Herzl on the other hand was a self-hating fellow who suffered from a disease he contracted in the brothels. That sort of Zionist “conquest” is obviously not a proper “outlet” for those Jews suffering from the terrible “power of the purse” or a “mediocre intellect”. link to books.google.com
whats your evidence of herzl syphilis?
whats your evidence of herzl syphilis?
I provided a link with one of many accounts of a letter that Herzl wrote to one of his friends, Heinrich Kana. From the details he provided, he appears to have contracted gonorrhea. Here is a link to another source: link to books.google.com
“No Judeophobia is not a sexually transmitted disease and doesn’t appear to be triggered by monogamous relations with a gentile;-)”
So the spouse is O.K., but what about the children? Won’t somebody please think of the children?
And what was this ” loss of the power of assimilation during the Middle Ages”?
O.K. I just followed your link.
The information you post here about Zionism and general Jewishness is really enlightening. For me, an outsider, it has the effect of making a box of frogs look like the very paradigm of sanity.
For me, an outsider, it has the effect of making a box of frogs look like the very paradigm of sanity.
I could just as easily write about immense Jewish contributions in the fields of religion, the law, the arts, the sciences, & etc. I usually get stuck responding to someone here who is being overly pretentious about all of that and is either unfamiliar with these other aspects of Judaism and Zionism or deliberately chooses to avoid the subjects.
In this particular instance I selected Loewenberg’s “psychohistory of Herzl” purely in jest, since we were discussing 19th century thinking about incurable diseases like assimilation and Judeophobia. 20th century psycho-babble didn’t offer too many advances.
they were really interesting links and thanks for them. the freudian language/theories.. a little outdated. for example the idea of the feminine as being ‘passive’ instead of qualities of the receptive which is not really the same as passive and facilitates creative.there were some choice ‘capture quotes’ but i do not recall them now.
“I could just as easily write about immense Jewish contributions in the fields of religion, the law, the arts, the sciences, & etc. ”
Relgion aside, I can’t see anything particularly Jewish about those contributions. (Or Christian/Islamic/Australian, either.) It is the specifically Jewish stuff that is … interesting.
This is not to say, of course, that I have noticed much of the light of reason and common sense shining from the Catholic Church, the KKK, Freudian Psychoanalysis, or Postmodern Theory, to name but a few.
Here’s a good read that I think you will enjoy.
link to amazon.co.uk
So the spouse is O.K., but what about the children? Won’t somebody please think of the children?
If the Talmud makes your head hurt you need to forget that particular subject. Long story short the Orthodox do not accept the Reform Movement’s Resolution on Patrilineal Descent and a gentile cannot inherit his Jewish father.
Here’s a good read that I think you will enjoy.
Looks like it. I grabbed a copy of the Kindle edition and I’ll let ya know.
So Judeophobia is carried on the Y chromosome?
“20th century psycho-babble didn’t offer too many advances.”
Not a lot, no.
People here praise Goldstone when he criticized Israeli war crimes because we think that is praiseworthy behavior. We criticize Goldstone when he denies Israeli war crimes (and settlements are just that) because that isn’t praiseworthy behavior.
I think he was someone who momentarily rose to the occasion back in 2009 and wrote an honest report with three other people. I agree he shouldn’t have been lionized, but he was singled out because a Zionist who criticizes Israel so honestly is a sort of man bites dog story. People naturally either lionized or vilified him. Now he’s fallen back into the usual hasbara behavior, even sinking so low as to write a piece denying Israeli apartheid that doesn’t even grapple with the issue in a serious way. So people still lionize or vilify him, but the sides have changed. He was a man honest enough to brave harsh criticism from his own community to tell truths they didn’t want to hear. Now he’s a banal little man who writes a crappy little piece that could have been put out by one of Netanyahu’s speechwriters. .
i have not vilified him. i feel sorry for him. many posters here have not vilified him and many people in general do not find the need to vilify.this is a convenient talking pt designed to ratchet up the discourse. it is silly.
criticizing someone or making statement about why you think someone caved ( even calling someone’s stance hypocritical, pointing our where they contradicted themselves or lied) this is not vilification.
vilification is what his own community did to him when he crossed their line. i feel sorry for the man but in all honesty if someone threatened my child or something i probably would have done the same thing. for myself i would do my best to stand upward, but if it was for my child i would have recanted.
and i would hope, while calling me a coward my colleagues would at least have the sense i was the same person, tho cowering. so, i will give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he is doing this for more than his own personal comfort within his community.
and i will not villify him it doesn’t matter what he says now anyway. we owe a debt to the man because of his service to the truth at an important juncture. and his report still stands. we have to accept some people are just weaker than others and unfortunately he is a weak man.
“i have not vilified him”
By the standards of Richard and hophmi anyone who criticizes Goldstone for this latest piece is “vilifying” him. I don’t really care if one wants to call it that or not. It’s possible Goldstone is secretly anguished by the garbage he wrote today and feels ashamed of the contrast between now and what he did back in 2009. Or it’s possible he isn’t. It’s not that important–what matters is the substance of what he has written.
By the standards of Richard and hophmi anyone who criticizes Goldstone for this latest piece is “vilifying” him.
exactly. i just see a difference between criticizing (ie calling someone ‘banal little man’) making someone ‘vile’. we’ve done nothing compared to the way they dragged him thru the mud, talk about vilification. and we have never threatened him. so this attempt to equalize one kind of response with the other and relish in it the way hophmi speaks of it is just ridiculous.
“By the standards of Richard and hophmi anyone who criticizes Goldstone for this latest piece is “vilifying” him. ”
C’mon Donald. Read the comments here. People are not just criticizing him.
American: “He blew his entire career and reputation with his recant.”
Dan Crowther: “I almost threw up reading the Goldstone op-ed. I wonder if The Dersh still thinks hes “despicable””
stevieb: “[Goldstone] doesn’t deserve much respect for his pathetic attempt at PR damage control for a fascist regime.”
Eva Smagacz: “When I read Goldstone’s article I was silently counting the entire hasbara phrases in the text . . .This latest article is Goldstone re-educated – Mao China style – and this article accepts him back into the Party. ”
seafoid: “Poor Goldstone. He is like an English Catholic who renounced the faith under duress in the 1500s and then became a Protestant torturer. They really have him by the nuts.”
pabelmont: “Goldstone is a broken man, now being used as a tool of the AIPAC crowd and NYT. Treat him with kindness.”
Kathleen: “Clearly Goldstone was pressured. ”
Bumblebee: “Instead of the sober robe of a senior judge, Goldstone has donned the garish garb of the Court Jester.”
This is not criticism. This is hysterics and wild conjecture.
Hophmi, I agree with most of those comments, except of course none of us can know what Goldstone’s motives are. My own guess is social pressure –he might value his ties with his community and many seem to hate the Goldstone Report. But it doesn’t matter. He wrote an op ed about Israel and apartheid which never mentioned the settlements or the fact that hundreds of thousands of Israeli Jews live in the West Bank while Palestinians are not allowed to move back inside the 67 borders. That’s not roadblocks set up because of suicide bombing–that’s apartheid. His piece was an intellectually dishonest piece of drivel.
None of that is hysterical. Goldstone was subjected to the schizo craziness of the rabid Zionist community (people like you, hophmi).
I’m sure he felt he had to pay lip service to his Zionist cred by pretending he never carried out the report.
Everything he has said has been in light of the backlash. He didn’t say this stuff before. He is saying them NOW, after all the time has passed and people have lashed out at him.
A reasonable person would think that is logical that he is under pressure from ‘his’ community.
And imbecile like you hophmi cannot be trusted to read between the lines in this conflict. You are corrupt and a liar. It’s like listening to a Zionist talk about the OWS movement. You want to hijack it for your own ideology.
C’mon Donald. Read the comments here.
C’mon Hophmi read Judge Goldstone’s comments about the litany of crimes against humanity employed as collective punishment against the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza and his conclusion about the likelihood that the crime of persecution had been committed. If you charge Israel with the crime of persecution on the basis of race or nationality, then how on Earth can you claim that a charge of apartheid constitutes “slander”?
Apartheid is simply a form of persecution based upon racial, national, ethnic, or cultural grounds. Here is the definition of the crime of persecution from the Rome Statute. It includes additional crimes based upon political, gender, & religious grounds:
Goldstone reported a number of crimes committed on the basis of race or nationality in the report. For example, he mentioned violations of the right to freedom of movement and residency and the use of deadly force against demonstrators on the basis of race or nationality. FYI, those are examples of apartheid (ipso jure) in accordance with Article 2 of the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid (ICSPCA).
Goldstone cited a specific example of Palestinian’s living in isolated enclaves created by the “separation wall” (“apartheid” from Dutch apart, “separate,” and -heid, “-hood) who had formed grassroots organizations and protested peacefully against the “apartheid wall of separation”. Goldstone reported that 19 demonstrators, including six children, had been killed by the IDF.
*Murder is a “similar crime against humanity” enumerated in Article 7 of the Rome Statute which can be considered an instance of the crime of apartheid.
*The use of lethal force against demonstrators is also an example of “Persecution of organizations and persons, by depriving them of fundamental rights and freedoms, because they oppose apartheid.” in accordance with Article 2 of the ICSPCA.
Here are some other specific examples:
BTW, Goldstone is vilifying the treaty body panel of experts and ICJ justices that he cited repeatedly in his own fact finding report to substantiate claims that the “separation wall” and its associated “administrative regime” were both illegal because they systematically violate a) a plethora of basic human rights – including the right to freedom of movement and residence; b) the ability of Palestinians to participate in the economic and social life of their own country; and c) access the land and natural resources of their country. He repeatedly stated that situation and administrative regime imposed a form of “institutionalized discrimination”, “persecution”, and “collective punishment” against the Palestinian people on the basis of race or nationality. Worse still, he stated that the illegal situation had come about as a direct result of adopting the two-tiered civil status entrenched in key Israeli legislation, favoring “Jewish nationals” (le’om yehudi) over persons holding Israeli citizenship (ezrahut), which had been cited by the CERD as an Article 3 ICERD (apartheid) concern.
“Hysterics and wild conjecture” was cretins like you threatening to ruin Goldstone’s family bar mitvahs into perpetuity, hophmi.
hysterics and wild conjecture.
haha, who sounds like a fool now hops!
>> Donald November 1, 2011 at 12:17 pm
Nicely put.
The main difference is that the apartheid regime was more honest. The law of apartheid was openly legislated in Parliament and was clear for all to see, whereas the law governing Palestinians in the OPT is largely contained in obscure military decrees and inherited emergency regulations that are virtually inaccessible.
thank you John Dugard, i will not be forgetting this.
we’re so lucky to have a full essay by someone such as yourself on the front page here. it blows my mind. thanks for all the incredible work you’ve done in this world.
I echo annie’s sentiments, John Dugard. Thanks for letting MW republish this piece.
It’s not apartheid apartheid but it’s close enough. The names, faces, locales have changed. Nits for Zionists to pick.
Great to have someone of Professor Dugard’s distinction among us! This is a humane rather than a legal essay – there’s no formal definition of ‘apartheid’, just a set of reminders and comparisons. I think that Israel is not based, like the old SA, on an idea of separate development but on an idea of unique right: ‘only Jewish people have a birthright in Palestine’.
As I remember, Goldstone all along called himself a Zionist, so he must have regarded the structure of river-to-sea Jewish minority rule as essentially defensible – despite regrettable excesses!! – by the fact that the Palestinian minority in one section is enfranchised and by the supposed fact that in the other section the situation is meant to be merely temporary. Ho hum.
Speaking of Israeli apartheid and illegal settlements, here are the first 3 paras of “Funding illegal Israeli settlements? Priceless.” by Bernard Keane
“Visa, Mastercard and PayPal all enable donations to be made to US-registered groups funding illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank in defiance of international law.
It appears at least one of the major credit cards also enables donations to an extremist Jewish group that has placed a bounty on the lives of Palestinians.
All three have in the last week ceased enabling donations to WikiLeaks. Neither Mastercard nor Visa have explained the basis for their decision to do so. PayPal has backed away from its initial claim that the US State Department told PayPal WikiLeaks had broken the law after the claim was discredited. This is the third occasion on which PayPal has suspended payment services for WikiLeaks.”
link to crikey.com.au
I’m sorry to say that I was not impressed by the Palestine Center presentation.
Of particular note is the last phrase, “it may well be that the Arab League inquiry may well be the only independent inquiry”.
That says too much. First, the impression that the Arab League inquiry would be non-biased, even subtley, and certainly would have much much more difficulty collecting complete evidence, or even trying to, even less than the Goldstone report was able.
In his comments he did not address any questioning even of what might constitute admissable scope of war engagement, only relying on the prejudice of only the limited scope being admissable, only direct Hamas targets considered potentially admissable.
First, the impression that the Arab League inquiry would be non-biased, even subtley, and certainly would have much much more difficulty collecting complete evidence, or even trying to, even less than the Goldstone report was able.
Richard the Arab League commissioned a group of experts from the Institute of International Law that didn’t include any Arabs. Their on-scene investigation in Gaza was conducted months before the Goldstone mission arrived and they used the same open sources as the UN Fact Finding Mission for the portion of the report on Israel.
I’m amazed to that you believe anyone gives a damn.
Are youxomwe kind of idiot Witty? Goldstone’s so called “retraction” was based entirely on evidence he had not seen, but was told existed by the Israeli internal inquiry. You were perfectly happy to be imrpessed by that at the time.
Thank you for this incredible post Mr Dugard,
Your argument is extremely well thought out and superbly reasoned.