JTA: The Global News Service of the Jewish People

09/18/09 03:56 PM

Nonsense. The Goldstone report upholds the rule of law, not the law of the jungle. Israel would best take the next 6 months to conduct a serious investigation of the claims that numerous organizations, NGOs, journalists, witnesses, and victims reported—and to figure out how to prevent the IDF from screwing up so badly the next time. Of course, perhaps the best thing would be to get out of the OCCUPATION business altogether. Israel’s choice. But if Israel does nothing, I hope to see the charges placed on a docket at the Hague and war criminals held accountable.

09/18/09 03:57 PM

Thank you, Richard Sideman. Having Goldstone author the report is as cynical as having a Jewish judge preside over the Rosenberg case in the 1950s. The judge turned out to be more biased toward the Rosenbergs and more concerned about being perceived as evenhanded that he prejudiced the case. It’s the same thing all over again.

09/18/09 04:00 PM

goldstone applied international law to the facts, as determined by his investigation. his charge was not to offer moral judgment, and contrary to sideman’s letter, he did not.

if he had investigated democracy and terrorism, he would have found that hamas is a democratically elected government, while israel, which uses racial to determine citizenship and therefore votes, is a colonial apartheid state, not a democracy; and that the vast majority of terrorism in this theater is israeli terrorism against palestinians.

if he had investigated the “eight years of relentless rocket attacks” and Israel’s “remarkable restraint,” he would have discovered that these are fantasies concocted by zionists to justify their terrorism.

he would have discovered all this, despite his pro-israel leanings, because he is honest enough to apply widely-accepted standards to a reasonable approximation to the facts. and not, as sideman would have him do, invent new standards in order to absolve israel for its atrocities.

09/18/09 04:20 PM

Thank you Judge Goldstone.  I love Israel, and want it to be a better nation among nations. Israel did bad things in the war, and this must be addressed. Hamas in its current form is a terrorist organization responsible for many atrocities, and this also cannot be ignored. In this New Year, let us hope and pray that a just, lasting peace comes to the Palestinian and Israeli people, who want and need this conflict to end.

09/18/09 06:02 PM

I can’t figure out who among the above is a fool and who is a knave. Just like Goldstone ("Have an eggroll, Mr. Goldstone..), these articulate individuals - either naive or malevolent - refuse to deal with motivations and Israel’s years long restraint in the face of intollerable assault of its citizenry by a gand of terrorists (Its not a yikhes that they were elected by overwhelming numbers of their fellow-terrorism lovers. Let us not forget that democracy was used to bring Hitler to power, and too many Germans voted for him in a free election. Exercise of the franchise is no guarantee of moral results.)
For those of us concerned with the security of Israel and the abhorent treatment it receives at the hands of the “international community,” let us resolve on this Rosh Hashana 5770 to shun those who will do us harm or those among our own people who encourage our enemies by their support of “justice” for everyone but the Jewish state.
Shana Tova, y’all

09/18/09 08:03 PM

Mr. Sideman’s attempted rebuttal is simply an exercise in shooting the messenger. He doesn’t even attempt to rebutt a single substantive charge in Goldstone’s report.

Worse, Sideman trots out a StrawMan logical fallacy by implying that Goldman asserted a perfectly 50/50 equivilency between the actions of Hamas and of Israel, which of course the report doesn’t do.

It’s highly ironic that in challenging the objectivity of the UN commission Mr. Sideman demonstrates that his own objectivity is questionable.

09/18/09 08:13 PM

The usual Pali marionettes post their lies and slander, and demand the indictment, conviction and execution of the Jewish State of Israel - and all of this on Erev Rosh Hashanah.
Cowardly JINO traitors!

09/18/09 10:58 PM

Ira,
Hamas was democratically elected to some power, then brutally stole the rest.  How many hundreds of Fatahs did they kill?
However, since you consider them the democratically elected government of Gaza, you must hold all the people of Gaza responsible for Hamas’ decisions.  Just like the people of Japan suffered because their leader approved the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, the Gazans will bear the brunt of their stupidity in electing terrorists to power.  As in any war, people don’t declare it; their leaders do.  The people then suffer.  We’ve been lucky in the U.S. because our civilian population is geographically protected from every war we’ve fought since the War of 1812.  But the Europeans know, as do Africans and Asians.
Finally, what kind of jerk statement is “fantasies concocted by Zionists?” Are you challenging the fact of thousands of terror missiles fired from Gaza, each one meant to murder civilians?  Or do you deny Israel exercised restraint?  How do you think the U.S. would respond if Mexico fired thousands of missiles at, say, Houston?  How would you respond if you lived in Sderot during that period?  Maybe you like the comfiness of a bomb shelter; most people don’t.  Enough with the trendy Israel bashing.  Become an activist for people who really deserve it, like those in Darfur, Tibet or Myanmar.  At least they didn’t elect terrorists to run their government.

09/19/09 12:44 AM

My kibbutz lies less than 2 miles from the border with Gaza. We did indeed receive many hundreds of kassam rockets in our area over the preceding eight years and eight landed within the kibbutz living area; but there is not one of us who doubts the truth of Mr.Goldstone’s report, any of it.
From the highest point in the Kibbutz we watched immense clouds of black smoke drift Eastward during the bombings of Gaza. Mr Goldstone was given a brief by the United Nations to study what happened during the short and bitter “Cast Lead” fighting; Prime Minister Netenyahu’s government refused to cooperate with the Goldstone Committee and until now, has refused to set up and independent Israeli committee to investigate the reputed war crimes committed by the IDF. Mr. Goldstone was able to hear only testimony from the viewpoint of the Palestinian side.
Anyone who has ever served in the Israel Defense Forces has heard orders given by the high command and local commanders, which if interpreted by young men in stressful military situations, could easily lead to actions which the IDF would seek to later deny; those who seek to deny it are at best lying to themselves, and those in government and the Army who deny it, are lying to to anyone naive enough to believe it. The same situation occurs in every war at any time in any place; believe it or not, Israeli soldiers are not Super Jews , they occasionally do things which cannot be forgiven.
In the case of Cast Lead, the current Israeli government itself gave commands to the IDF to use tactics which could lead , if implemented, to the lose of civilian lives in Gaza.  That they did so to save the lives of Israeli soldiers may be forgiven by any number of Israeli mothers, fathers, children, wives and other relatives. However, viewed objectively by Mr. Golstone’s committee, the actions of the IDF open questions which must be answered. That Bibi’s government refuses to open an independent investigation into the allegations of improper Israeli actions speaks for itself.
The question whether the firing of thousands of kassam rockets from Gaza into Israel justifies the magnitude of the Israeli response is, and must be, seen separately from the investigations into the details of the response, itself.
Mr. Goldstone is not a “self hating Jew”; he is simply a Jew who believes that Jews should live according to Jewish law, Jewish tradition, Jewish morals and Jewish ethics. If that had been the case during Cast Lead, Israel would not now be in danger of being hauled up before the international court in The Hague, and losing the support of too many one time Jewish and non-Jewish supporters.

09/19/09 03:05 AM

From March 2001 to April 2008, a total of 13 Israelis have been killed by Qassam rockets since the attacks started in 2001.1 For every Israeli killed by Qassam rockets, Israel has killed about 100 Palestinians through various means in Gaza....To justify the Zionist terror they call the people whose land they took terrorists, while the whole of Israel is made with terror. Begin and Sharon were killers supreme whose later consorts terrorized Palestinians from 1948 up to today.