JTA: The Global News Service of the Jewish People

10/19/09 05:56 PM

I’m really not interested anymore in Judge Goldstones motivations. He new very
well what has been expected from him, when he accepted the job from the corrupt,
anti-Israeli organization and he delivered exactly what they expected. To whine
know , he “didn’t mean it”, is too little, to late.

10/19/09 06:03 PM

I agree with what Goldstone says here. All of it.

10/19/09 10:55 PM

Why should Israel have provided Goldstone with excuse that we spoke with representatives of Israel when publishing his “fair” report?  It has been reported that when Israeli individuals met with Goldstone and his cohorts, they were treated discourteously and one woman who testified about the situation in Sderot, reported that Goldstone could not stay awake during her testimony.  Goldstone should be treated as the pariah he is.

10/20/09 02:26 AM

Simple: Israel tried the “I’ll just ignore you and you will go away” approach to the UN and to European nations from 1948 to only a few short years ago.

How did it work? Grrrreat! Israel allowed itself to be painted as a hideous monster who - though indescribably small - somehow dominated all of the world’s affairs in a very negative way.

Israel had its critics for decades who considered Israel as having the worst PR in the world: none! Ironically, a hefty number of major PR firms were Jewish run during this whole period and many wanted to do something to help.

So, after being kicked in the teeth for some 55+ years, Israel invented PR! Speakers at the UN not only took the Arab states to task, but blasted the European governments for their unyielding Anti-Semitism and gross bias against Israel. Israel pulled foreign ambassadors into private offices for scolding after scolding.

PR plastered positive views of Israel all over the Western World: her technical accomplishments, plurality, mecca of tourism. Movies went worldwide. Technology in computers and medicine gained international fame.

The result? Israel rose remarkably the past few years with governments in Eastern and Western Europe building holocaust memorials, honoring their living Jewish citizens, reviving synagogues, making holocaust denial a jailable crime, and on and on. Even the Ukraine and Lithuania - two hell-holes of virulent Anti-Semitism - have passed and enforced laws against fomenting hatred and bias. Yes, incidents are there, but the government leaders have taken very strong stances. Eastern Europe is now far ahead of the rest of the world in supporting Israel, with Poland leading the way.

Even Russia - the long-standing pariah to Israel - has stopped weapons shipments to Iran and Syria under pressure from --- ISRAEL. And for the first time since the Soviet Union came and went, Russia is purchasing weapons from outside. Who and what? ISRAEL for their drones. China and India have defense inter-relationships worth billions to Israel. Foreign company subsidiaries have spurted up all over Israel, totally ignoring the Arab boycott. There is a great deal more.

So what happens when Goldstone came a-knocking? Israel pulled a feint and reverted to the Israel of old. Gads! Sure the report would have been twisted by the Muslim countries. But Israel does not need their approval for anything. Dollar-wise and militarily the Muslim nations offer Israel zilch.

By telling the Israeli side in detail - using recording equipment during interviews and insisting on a review of the report before its release (Goldstone assured Israel of the latter from the get-go) the points would have been made with Europe, China, Russia, Brazil (an important partner for Israel), many countries in Africa and South America, and non-Muslim Southeast Asia.

We on this board should be urging Israel to stay engaged! A lie always becomes a truth when the victim refuses to answer it. Israeli leaders just never seem to learn from history. A few more Goldstones and much of what Israel has accomplished can be reversed for the worse. Israel can not afford any slippage.

10/20/09 04:12 PM

Israel’s failure to engage with the Goldstone mission was a calamitous failure. Israel chose neither to respond to contestable claims of its own alleged abuses, not to fully document abuses against its own population and legitimate sovereign concerns. Nor did it adequately challenge the mission, or the world’s human rights community, to consider the dilemmas posed by a democratic state engaged in asymmetric warfare, in which its adversaries act from within population centers in an obvious effort to elicit Israeli military responses that can then be used in public relations and propaganda efforts. Israel missed what is probably the best opportunity it will have to get its own story out and considered.

Most of the Israeli responses to the Goldstone Report have been attacks on Judge Goldstone’s character and the biases of the world community, often designed to obscure the findings of the report itself. Surely some of the report’s findings are contestable on the merits; some information has begun to emerge on some of the particulars. But Israel is now well along toward forfeiting its second opportunity for a fair hearing among those potentially willing to listen, by blaming the messenger and ignoring the message.

Israel can and must do (much) better if it is to counter the increasingly successful efforts to delegitimate the state on the world stage. An independent, comprehensive investigation of the findings of the Goldstone mission would constitute an important first step. Showing further contempt for the world community--at least some of which is potentially open to a fact-based examination of difficult issues and behaviors on both sides (even if all, clearly, are not), does Israel no favor and no benefit.

--The Wise Bard

10/21/09 06:18 AM

Despite what Judge Goldstone says, in fact there were all sorts of materials and evidence available to him, some of it directly presented to him, which gave a counter-argument to the Palestinians and often Hamas-sourced materials he chiefly used.  He ignored all of that evidence, or if possible tried to use it to confirm Palestinian claims instead.  These materials included the Israeli government’s own report on its own investigations on most of the incidents discussed in Goldstone’s report; this is freely available on the internet at http://www.mfa.gov.il/GazaFacts/Goldstone/israel-gaza-faq-goldstone-mission-7.htm

Also note the IDF report on alleged abuses published on April 22, at
http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Terrorism-+Obstacle+to+Peace/Hamas+war+against+Israel/IDF_Conclusion_of_investigations_Operation_Cast_Lead_Part1_22-Apr-2009.htm.htm

Also see the contributions of Lt. Col. (res.) Jonathan Halevi, “Blocking the Truth of the Gaza War,” still available at http://jcpa.org

Of independent accounts presented to him refuting Hamas claims, possibly the best and most detailed were by the blogger called “Elder of Ziyon.” See http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/search/label/Goldstone Report

10/21/09 06:34 AM

As the material I cited in my previous post shows, the claims of some of the bloggers just before that Israel failed to refute various Hamas allegations and so is responsible for the failings of the Goldstone Report, are false, and based either on the ignorance of those bloggers, or, in the case of Goldstone himself, “disingenuousness.” Goldstone simply failed to exercise the impartial and unbiased care required in all judicial examinations of evidence.  There were resources available to him, and methods of inquiry, which he refused to make use of; he also presented dubious and incomplete testimonials by partisan sources, openly affiliated with Hamas in some chief cases, as being completely reliable and therefore needing no “other side.” He knew that his Gazan informants would remain in Gaza following his investigation, and that if they testified in defense of the IDF their life expectancy would be very short.  He also knew that Israel, on the other hand, is an open democracy with plenty of self-criticism, including professional standards and self-criticism within the IDF itself as well as criticism if it seemed warranted from the general media and public outside it.  But according to him nothing from Israel in defense of the IDF or in refutation of Hamas was credible, whether governmental or not, and so he just dismissed it all.  On his entirely inadequate methodology and open bias, see the “Elder of Ziyon” blog already mentioned.

10/21/09 06:50 AM

I just had a look at the complete article in the Jerusalem Post in which Goldstone tries to paint himself as a martyr to truth, unjustly vilified by other chauvinist Jews, and very briefly glanced at one of the brief responses by bloggers, drawn by the name of one blogger I know, Richard Landes, a serious scholar of contemporary Middle Eastern affairs.  His entry is worth reproducing here as a further comment on Goldstone’s self-eulogy. 

“61. dishonesty again and again
if Judge Goldstone thinks there’s no detailed critique of his report, he sould spend some time at Understanding the Goldstone Report (http://www.goldstonereport.org); and for those who want a detailed analysis of this arrticle, please see: “Goldstone spins to the uninformed in the JPost” (http://www.theaugeanstables.com/2009/10/19/goldstone-spins-to-the-uninformed-in-the-jpost/).
Richard Landes - Israel (10/19/2009 14:48)”