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 Israel Should Pay Attention to a Man of JusticePosted on Sep 30, 2009
By Robert Fisk This article was originally published in The Independent. I met Judge Richard Goldstone at The Hague at the height of the Bosnian war, a small, dapper man whose belief in the righteousness of justice shone through his every word. As head of the War Crimes Tribunal for ex-Yugoslavia, he pursued the blood-drenched gangsters of the Balkans – Croat Catholic, Bosnian Muslim, Serb Orthodox – with Nuremberg-like persistence. He believed that one day even Slobodan Milosevic would be brought to book. I doubted this. But he was right, as they say, and I was wrong. He was Jewish – and not afraid to talk of his hatred of apartheid in his native South Africa – and I thought he was a fine man. So would he be pissed on by the Israelis when he investigated the crimes of the winter war in Gaza? Or would Israel – just this once – desist from its usual venom for all critics if this great jurist produced a report that blamed Israel as well as Hamas for crimes against humanity? Not because he was Jewish. Not because he drew the sword of justice on behalf of the UN. But because he was a patently decent and fair man. “I accepted with hesitation my United Nations mandate,” he wrote last week, “because I believe deeply in the rule of law and the laws of war, and the principle that in armed conflict civilians should to the greatest extent possible be protected from harm.” Not a hope, of course. Israeli investigations of the Gaza war, its government officials announced, were “a thousand times” fairer than the Goldstone investigation – a preposterous claim, given Israel’s constant inability to conduct fair inquiries of its own – and that his mission “gave legitimacy to the Hamas terrorist organisation”. The Israeli human rights group B’Tselem found that 1,387 Palestinians were killed in the Gaza war, more than 770 of them civilians. Thirteen Israelis were killed, four by their own troops, three of the others Israeli Arabs. Goldstone bitterly condemned Hamas for firing at civilians – from civilians areas of Gaza – but Chapter 11 of his report, for example, found that Israel shelled a house in which Palestinian civilians had been forced to gather, intentionally bombed a hospital with white phosphorous shells, shot civilians who were waving white flags and refused to allow wounded to be evacuated. Advertisement This nonsense is unworthy of a grown-up nation. For not long before the Gaza war, Gadi Eisenkot, the Israeli army northern commander, defined his doctrine very carefully. “We will wield disproportionate power against every village from which shots are fired on Israel, and cause immense damage and destruction… This isn’t a suggestion. This is a plan that has already been authorised.” No wonder the world watches, amazed, at Israel’s response to Goldstone’s conclusions. And the United States – which, of course, once defined Hiroshima as “a military base” – was either silent or took Israel’s side. Barack Obama’s UN ambassador, Susan Rice, condemned the Goldstone investigation with the pathetic (and, again, typical) remark that “our view is that we have to remain focused on the future”. But these things come by the bucketful. Take the Toronto Film Festival that ended this week. A group of eight actresses, actors and activists objected to the festival for embracing a city-to-city spotlight with Tel Aviv just a few months after the Gaza slaughter, accusing the Canadian organisers of helping to wash Israel’s image after the bloodbath. They weren’t trying to boycott the Israeli films at the festival – and by the way, I urge readers to watch the Israeli film Lebanon, filmed almost entirely inside a tank, when it comes your way – and five of the eight letter-signers were Jewish, one an Israeli. It mattered not, of course. They were accused of trying to organise a racist boycott, abused as hypocrites, censors and – since slanders are now part of the grammar of Israel’s so-called supporters – anti-Semites. Naomi Klein, one of the most brilliant of North America’s journalists, was abused in Canada’s National Post (“the strange, enduring rage of Naomi Klein”), thus cementing the paper’s role as Canada’s version of the Jerusalem Post. But there was just one little hiccup for the protesters and their letter. I noticed Jane Fonda’s name among them. Fonda? Remember little Jane when she outraged her friends by visiting North Vietnam during America’s own disproportionate war in South-east Asia? Tough little Jane, we thought then. But I went back to my files (paper, of course) and discovered that doughty Jane turned up in Lebanon in 1982 when Israel was besieging Beirut – with plenty of white phosphorous shells falling among civilians, of course – to entertain the Israeli soldiers whose war was to claim 17,000 lives. According to Yediot Ahronot (4 July 1982, if readers want to check it out), she “expressed her identification with Israel’s struggle against Palestinian terror…”, later announcing her “unqualified support for Israel”, attributing protests at the invasion to “anti-Semitism”. (Please read Al-Hamishmar of 5 December 1982.) Years later, she turned up in Egypt to marvel at the temples of Luxor, but refused to take questions from me on her enthusiasm for the 1982 Israeli invaders. But then, bingo, up she pops in Toronto. Until last week, when she said she’d signed the letter “without reading it carefully enough… some of the words in the protest letter did not come from my heart… Many (Israeli) citizens now suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder…” The letter did not “hear the narratives of both sides” and could be “inflammatory”. Ye gods! With Jane as a friend, you don’t need enemies. But given her previous behaviour and now this grovelling backtrack, you have to admit that the Toronto protesters must have some right on their side. Like Judge Richard Goldstone. Elsewhere: . CommentsAre you a Truthdig member yet? Login now, or register with Truthdig. Add Your Comment
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Obama’s Job Approval Slips Below 50 Percent
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By Night-Gaunt, October 2 at 2:54 pm #
In many ways the USA and Israel are similar in many aspects. Both believe they have a Holy Mandate to take the land and extirpate any who lived there. Whatever they do it is God’s work and will and it doesn’t matter who pays for that. They are absolved from the sins they commit, the horrors they inflict to get what they want. No regrets and their false persona must be maintained in order to continue what they are doing. No matter if it violates the laws of God and Man.
Worse they help each other in what they do and use each other in order to get what they want and to not give to the other what is craved for in the mean time. Violence and cruelty to those they deem less than human. Sounds familiar?
It is a known psychological fact that if someone is abused as a child they will tend to repeat that abuse on the next generation if they get no therapy. I say that it can happen to a mass of people as well. The abuse of the Germans, and others, was terrible and too many of the Jews who survived and their offspring are now doing it to others. They need mass therapy to stop it. We need some too.
The cycle must be disrupted or it will only get worse and compound itself. None of the others who also went to the camps-Romany, homosexuals, socialists, communists and many others* aren’t in such a place as Israel so the affects on them may just be too diffuse to know.
*Numbers vary between 11 million and 12 million in all killed by the Henry Ford version of serial killing on a gov’t level. Himmler‘s baby.
Report thisBy Ouroborus, October 1 at 9:43 pm #
seektruth, October 1 at 12:01 pm #
Report thisHence, Goldstone’s brave report is a threat—not to
Israel or its survival, but to Israelis’ self-image and
psychological comfort.
============================================
And there lies the key and thus my previous comment
about Israels’ psychotic behavior.
By Jean Gerard, October 1 at 5:57 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Davide’s question has occurred to me, also, and perhaps to many others. It is pretty much a known fact that training men and women to kill other men, women and children is not an easy process. People must be trained and propagandizied and forced into killing others, and even after long training, many in battle never fire their weapons. There is something in human beings called “conscience” that makes them human. But—if individuals suffer enough frustration, anger, fear, resentment, self-pity, and “loss of face,” and “run out of” alternatives, they will kill themselves to escape what they see as a “dead end” that appears “better than” their present situation. As we look at the “dead end” results of recent wars of conquest—no win, no lose—dragging on and on, Davide’s question about “national suicide”— the Samson “option” which is no option—is a propos. We really have to kick the habit of killing as the “final solution” to getting what we want or think we should have. Nuclear weapons make it all the more urgent.
Report thisBy seektruth, October 1 at 12:01 pm #
The entire Gaza tragedy is yet another legacy of Israel’s favorite butcher, Ariel Sharon. If Sharon had had the decency to negotiate his Gaza withdrawal with Mahmoud Abbas, thereby giving the PA a huge boost, the entire conflict would have developed quite differently. The PA could have claimed a huge success that was accomplished through negotiations, PA institutions would have moved into Gaza, and Hamas most likely would have lost subsequent elections. As it was, by refusing to negotiate with the PA over Gaza, Israel granted Hamas a tremendous victory, for the Islamic fundamentalist group was able to (quite credibly) claim that they had done what the PA was unable to do—drive Israel off of Palestinian land.
Why did Sharon screw up so royally? Several reasons: 1) He was a racist, like Netanyahu, who does not even believe the Palestinians have a right to be in the Jews’ Holy Land. Would George Wallace have negotiated civil rights with Martin Luther King? Of course not. 2) Sharon and his many supporters believe that in order to maintain its image as a regional superpower, Israel must never, ever, under any circumstances, be seen as making concessions to a sub-human race. Remember, Sharon voted AGAINST the Israel-Egypt peace treaty negotiated between Sadat and Begin. 3) Similarly, just as school yard bullies must always be tough and ruthless in order to maintain their aura of invincibility, so Israel must act unilaterally, brutally and without any compassion for the other side. Bullies don’t negotiate; they fight.
Sadly, Israelis who work to reject this mind-set are now in a small minority. The fact is, for the majority of Israelis, the policy of brutality and inhumanity against the Palestinians has worked: terrorism inside the Green Line is nonexistent, the beaches and cafes of Tel Aviv are packed, money from aborad is flowing in—life is good. These Israelis have put their conscience in storage, because to get it out and reflect on their (and the Palestinains’) situation would risk disrupting their lives.
Hence, Goldstone’s brave report is a threat—not to Israel or its survival, but to Israelis’ self-image and psychological comfort.
Report thisBy Virginia777, October 1 at 10:59 am #
You got that right, Ed Harges
Report thisBy Robert, October 1 at 10:51 am #
Netanyahu’s UN Speech
The Pathology of Evil
By Gilad Atzmon
“Sept 29, 2009 “Information Clearing House”—Israeli PM Netanyahu’s speech at the UN is a major insight into the Israeli’s mentality, psyche and logic. In his speech Netanyahu, a prolific and charismatic speaker, gives air to his genocidal inclinations, he brings to light the Israeli supremacy but he also allows us to detect some shaky and vulnerable spots at the heart of the Jewish national narrative. Reading Netanyahu’s speech makes it very clear that both the Zionist Shoa and the ‘promised land’ narratives are on the verge of collapse. It seems as if the ‘discredited’ Iranian president Ahmadinejad has managed to succeed after all.
Don’t You Mess With Our Shoa
Israelis love their Shoa, for the Shoa is no doubt their best selling Hasbara (propaganda) product. It somehow allows them to kill en masse and to do it indistinguishably while insisting that it is they who happen to be the victims.
“I went to a villa in a suburb of Berlin called Wannsee.” Said Netanyahu. “There, on January 20,1942, after a hearty meal, senior Nazi officials met and decided how to exterminate the Jewish people.”
PM Netanyahu, if you are genuinely interested in ‘extermination plans’ you do not have to travel to Wannsee, Berlin. All you have to do is visit your IDF’s headquarters in Tel Aviv. Your chief commanders will guide you through their IDF ‘solutions’ for the Palestinians. At the end of the day, it is your army that surrounds Palestinians with barbed-wire, it is you who keep civilian populations in a siege with inadequate food supplies and medicine. It is your army that poured WMD over the most densely populated neighbourhoods on this planet. While the real meaning of the ‘Nazi Final Solution’ (Die Endlösung) is still discussed by historians who fail to agree between themselves what it really meant, the true reality of the Israeli murderous solution has been seen by us all.
However, it is almost amusing to see PM Netanyahu rushing to defend the Zionist holocaust narrative. Looking at Netanyahu presenting the protocol of the Wannsee conference to the UN assembly gives a clear impression that the Israeli PM believes that the Shoa needs an urgent pump of credibility. For the first time, the Shoa is on the defence.
“Here is a copy of the plans for Auschwitz-Birkenau, where one million Jews were murdered. Is this too a lie?” asks the Israeli PM.
PM Netanyahu, may I suggest to you that not a single humanist cares about the exact numbers: whether it was one or four millions Jews who died in Auschwitz, no one doubts that the camp was a horrible place. Yet, two questions must be answered once and for all: how is it that the Jews, who suffered so much during that war, managed to get themselves involved in a colossal racist crime against the Palestinians (1948 Nakba) just three years after the liberation of Auschwitz? How is it that the Israeli leadership, that happens to be so sensitive to Jewish suffering, manages to neglect the pain they inflict on millions of Palestinians?
Supremacy and Beyond
As a National movement, Zionism fails to respect other national and popular movements. Seemingly Netanyahu fails to respect the Iranian people and their regime. “Wherever they can, they impose a backward regimented society where women, minorities, gays or anyone not deemed to be a true believer is brutally subjugated.” Netanyahu, must know that the Judaic law is not very different from Islam on these matters. He must also remember that it is in his country that gays were murdered in the street just a month ago. It is almost amusing that Netanyahu chooses to equate Iran with Barbarism and the Middle Ages for its treatment of minorities. As far as minorities are concerned, the Jewish state is actually the darkest place on this planet.”
Report thishttp://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article23584.htm
By bogi666, October 1 at 10:15 am #
I suspect Jane is pro Israel so as not to offend the many Israeli supporters in the movie industry. I other words kiss their asses as any good employee has to do with their own bosses.
Report thisBy Robert, October 1 at 10:06 am #
Israel Keeps Shooting the Messenger
By Haroon Siddiqui
“September 29, 2009 “Information Clearing House”—In trying to discredit Richard Goldstone’s UN report on the Israeli attack on Gaza, Israel and its supporters are shooting the messenger, says another high-profile Jewish public intellectual critical of Israeli policies on Palestinians.
Richard Falk, professor emeritus in international law at Princeton University and prolific author, is the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
Last December, he was expelled from Israel after characterizing the crippling Israeli economic blockade of Gaza (in effect since 2007) as collective punishment, amounting to “a crime against humanity.”
Falk is to speak in Toronto today on the Arab-Israeli conflict (2 p.m., U of T’s Health Sciences Building, 155 College St., Room 610).
A four-person panel led by Judge Goldstone of South Africa, the former chief prosecutor of the war crimes tribunals for Yugoslavia and Rwanda, has accused Israel of war crimes in Gaza, including deliberately targeting civilians.
Falk said in a phone interview Thursday that the panel “confirms the prior allegations that Israel has been acting unlawfully, indeed criminally, but it (the panel) does so more comprehensively and with a very credible group led by Goldstone, who’s known for his sympathy for Zionism and Israel.
“I’ve known him well. He has deep emotional and intellectual links to Israel but he also has a professional attachment to the rule of law. If he can be attacked as biased against Israel, then anyone on the planet is susceptible to that attack.
“Israel’s tactic – I’ve also experienced this myself – is that rather than discuss the message, they talk about the messenger and try to discredit the auspices or the person who’s bringing critical assessments of their behaviour.
“They don’t make any effort to engage in the substantive debate because they really can’t do that with any degree of effectiveness.”
Goldstone also characterized the Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel as war crimes. But Falk said that, contrary to popular belief, the rocket attacks “did not precipitate the Israeli attack. They had basically stopped during the temporary ceasefire. It was Israel, not Hamas, that broke the ceasefire Nov. 4 by launching a big attack inside Gaza.”
The Israeli Gaza operation and the Goldstone report represent a turning point. Both have had “a very strong political impact on the Palestinian solidarity movement around the world, which is essentially a successor to the (South African) anti-apartheid campaign that was also waged globally.”
The Arab-Israeli conflict is thus “reaching a new phase that’ll be shaped less by the military and the violent dimensions of it but more by the symbolic and the normative dimensions of law and morality.”
Therefore, overwhelming Israeli military superiority may no longer do. Israel will face increasing calls for an economic boycott, disinvestments and economic pressure.”
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article23589.htm
Report thisBy davide, October 1 at 9:50 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
Israel is in the fast embrace of a profound death wish. Will the rest of us follow?
Report thisBy Ouroborus, October 1 at 9:26 am #
Paul_GA, October 1 at 8:32 am #
Report thisNot that I favor Hamas, mind you; I just want the
madness to stop.
==========================================
Me too.
By Ouroborus, October 1 at 9:23 am #
Sepharad, October 1 at 1:20 am #
I’ve read a few articles and they give Richard
Report thisGoldstone a very high integrity rating. His daughter
even said he is a Zionist; so his findings are
astounding IMO. And it seems to lend validity to his
findings. The evidence seems pretty damning; I say
seems because I’d like to see a court take this to it’s
conclusion.
By Paul_GA, October 1 at 8:32 am #
Mmadden, it could be argued that, because every Israeli man (and quite a few women) of military age is a reservist on leave 11 of the 12 months in a year, Israel has also “embedded” its fighters among its civil population, and therefore, attacks on Israeli civilians are justified attacks on military targets. I’m quite sure Hamas would say this. Not that I favor Hamas, mind you; I just want the madness to stop.
Report thisBy mmadden, October 1 at 8:26 am #
When the enemy embeds itself with the civilian population and using them as shields you can hardly be surprised when some civilians get killed. That is called collateral damage and is an unfortunate side effect of war.
Report thisBy David Levin, October 1 at 5:45 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
Hamas cynically uses kids hospitals and white flags
as shields as they shoot at soldiers and civilians
(from both sides),
Israel used phone-calls load-speakers and leaflets to
warn people to evacuate there homes during there
attack on Hamas.
How is a country supposed to defend its civilians?
Israel has innocent men woman and children constantly
Report thisfearing terror,
how many terror attempts does Israel thwart daily?
By S. King, October 1 at 2:59 am #
If you don’t know the facts, then you can’t possibly know if the Goldstone report is biased or not. Yes, Israel’s goal was to give a strong blow - to the Hamas terrorists. Knowing that the Hamas terrorists entwine themselves in the local Arab population, the Israel Defense Forces went to great lengths to warn the civilians of every upcoming attack, dropping thousands of leaflets for the local Arab population. Israel does not attack civilians. In the few cases where civilians were hurt, Israel was open and honest enough to examine the facts - Israel being an open and democratic society, a far cry from the Hamas rule of Gaza where Arabs kill each other for not belonging to the “right” party.
Report thisBy Sepharad, October 1 at 1:20 am #
Honest Reporting said that the Israeli human rights NGO B’tselem director Jessica Montell stated to the BBC that the Goldstone report was biased and inaccurate regarding some of the most serious accusations re Israel’s actions during the Gaza war. Her comments were not reported. This does not prove everything in the report was false, but B’tselem is very diligent in monitoring human rights violationz and their accusation should be looked into by a non-interested third party outside of both Israel and the UN. Perhaps the European Parliament could appoint a neutral commission.
HR also stated that a Gaza policemen whose testimony was heavily relied on by Goldstone—Ismal Salam (spelling?)—was the same individual who earlier had accused Israeli sources of giving immoral chewing gum that increased sexual desire to a Palestinian dealer in Gaza who sold it to young men. (If true, it was foolish of the Israeli source, considering their concern a higher Palestinian birth rate demographically overwhelming the Jewish majority state. This is especially true as Israel has accepted into the country a huge number of refugees from Darfur, Moslem and Christian alike.)
Also, an Israeli female gynecologist in Ashkelon who treats many Palestinian women, including those from Gaza, reported a rocket fired from Gaza struck her hospital, injuring herself and 100 patients (including some from Gaza). This woman had been asked to tell her story to Goldstone but it was not included except for her name in brackets in a technical reference.
An independent investigation is definitely needed. If Israelis are going to rally to rein in their government’s abuses, the accusations of misconduct must be true. Even a few major made-up allegations have the opposite effect, e.g. the Durban syndrome.
Report thisBy Jean Gerard, October 1 at 12:19 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
The question being; Why doesn’t Israel pay attention to criticism from its own people? Suggestion: For the same reason U.S. doesn’t pay attention to criticism from its own people. Possible answer? The government has divorced itself from the people because it prefers to use military force to get its way, even though it can see that it is losing both moral and strategic ground. In addition to that, corporations make money off war. And in addition to that, media have routinely made protesters appear like lunatics, which naturally discourages protest. Next, governments, afraid of protesters, turn police loose to lock them up. Ergo: Governments paint themselves into corners, squelch their best friends, and eventually create disasters. What else is new?
Remedy? Keep speaking truth to power. What else is there?
Report thisBy Ouroborus, September 30 at 10:51 pm #
Ed Harges, September 30 at 8:35 pm #
Report thisJudge Richard Goldstone is a self avowd Zionist. The
Israeli government will demonize anybody, ANYBODY, who
dares to speak the truth about their crimes. Israel is
psychotic in it’s denial. How could they possibly admit
behaving like their persecutors of WWII? A good deal of
the world is bat-shit crazy.
By radson, September 30 at 9:15 pm #
The global perfectionist’s have more than their share of blood on their hands ,yet they prophesize the purity of their acts with impunity.Whether one considers the destruction of Hiroshima ,the bombing
Report thisof Dresden ,the nonchalance towards the Warsaw Rising ,the refusal to believe that Auschwitz was really happening-even after a Polish man risked his life and afterwards reported to Washington- and the befriending of Djugashvili ,leaves one to seriously reevaluate their credibility.Yet again the
world is witness to the irrational rational of their stooges- the so called Pundits-the promoters of cheap tricks through their MSM channels to spread the lies of mass disinformation .Nevertheless there exists
a real hope for change and a swing of direction towards reason ,being conducted by Israeli people throughout the world that do not agree with the right wing fanatics that supposedly represent them regardless
of their nationality,for the policy makers are not necessarily of Israeli background.The danger of placing the Israeli’s in such a precarious situation that is now brewing in the Middle East has a lot of Israeli Citizens
concerned for the future of the Levant and are beginning to reconsider the logic of such a dangerous Foreign Policy being blatantly dictated to them.
By Ed Harges, September 30 at 8:35 pm #
I’m a little sick of how we’re all supposed to defer to Jewish (and especially Jewish
Israeli) critics of Israel, because non-Jewish critics can be branded as anti-
Semites.
Well, you know, we’ve all been waiting for the Jewish or Jewish Israeli critics to
turn the tide, to make the difference. And it’s true that there are some really great
ones, moral beacons to all humankind and all that.
La-dee-da. Whoop-dee-doo.
But you know what? It seems at length that there are never going to be enough of
Report thisthese ethnically approved critics. We Americans are never going to be able to
extricate ourselves from this accursed “special relationship” with Israel that is
sending us rapidly to hell in a handbasket, unless we are willing to hear the ugly
truth about what Israel really is, regardless of the ethnicity of the source.