Goldstone recants: too little, too late
The news that Judge Richard Goldstone of South Africa has recanted on the issue of Israel and war crimes is stunning. He now absolves the country, in contrast to his accusations in the so-called Goldstone Report, issued in 2009.
Not that Israel’s enemies will know or care to read what he has to say now; his original report was influential and has served their purposes quite nicely already.
[NOTE: Interesting question: did the NY Times really refuse to publish his new op-ed? Or not?
This reminds me of a bad joke:
“Did you hear about Charles Manson? He said he’s sorry.”
You can insert the name of any monstrous criminal for Charlie. The (unfunny) punchline comes in the understated “taking back” of something egregious that can’t be taken back. The damage and the evil are done and irretreivable.
The actions of people like Goldstone not only did damage to Israel- the only true democracy in the region, and the only country to offer security and real civil and political rights to its people (including minorities). It also damages the ideal of “human rights” that, unfortunately, after many previous Goldstones weilding leftists with bad intent, has already been tarnished. I guess the only thing to be in this world is a cynic. Whenever I hear anything bad about Israel coming from these quarters, cloaked in the language of “human rights,” I end up thinking that the exact opposite must be true. Long live Israel.
I have only one question for Goldstone:
What does he propose to do now?
If he had the courage of his convictions, he’d go back to Israel and to Gaza, on his own dime, and ask the right questions this time — and try to be at least as skeptical of the Palestinians, who have a vested interest in lying and a history of doing so, as he obviously is already of the Israelis.
In short, he’d try to correct the record — in as high-profile a way as his initial report was.
(Granted, a pro-Israel report won’t get anything like the press that an anti-Israel report would. But he should man up and try.)
There has never in history been a more ethical fighting force than the IDF — and Operation Cast Lead was over the top, even for them! (In response to intelligence that human shields were being used on a massive scale, Israel developed and deployed a system to warn the targets with direct telephone calls, in Arabic — nearly a million automatic phone calls! This, of course, had the effect of warning the terrorists too, which was considered less important than saving the lives of noncombatants. Who else would take the trouble to do this? Who else would develop an automated system for the sole purpose of doing this?)
Standing against this highly ethical fighting force was Hamas — a group whose savagery, against their own people, was shocking even to other Palestinian terror groups. This is the group that fires rockets at kindergartens, and schedules them to maximize casualties. This is the group that pulls its own people out of their homes in the middle of the night, accuses them of being “collaborators”, and throws them off rooftops — or, as a ‘warning’, merely kneecaps them.
For Goldstone to accuse the former of atrocities — based on hearsay! — while giving the latter a free pass, and then to follow up with nothing more than a polite “oops”… this is beyond despicable.
It is not known how many terrorists were emboldened by the Goldstone Report, and how much innocent blood Goldstone therefore bears upon his hands. If he’s any sort of a man, he’ll do everything he possibly can to undo the harm he’s done.
I don’t think he will. I would love to be proven wrong.
DiB
Question:
Is Goldstone just now figuring out he was hosed?
Or is Goldstone just now figuring out everybody knows he tried to hose the rest of us?
Daniel in Brookline,
Your points are just the ones that ought to raise one’s hackles about Goldstone’s former accusation. About present-day international laws in general, in fact–at least those pertaining to warfare. Warfare in a day of widespread Islamic manipulation must not be held hostage to pie-in-the-sky norms that fail to take it into account.
Until there is a new set of international laws of warfare, carefully updated and Muslim-proofed in order not to hand the Islamic imperialists victory on a silver platter, all this rotten system must be completely disregarded by any nation-state that values its survival. “War crimes” charges filed against nation-states that are in confrontation with the Islamic way of no-holds-barred, end-justifies-every-mean warfare are inherently unjust and must be declared null and void.
Melanie Philips has a good take on this.
This is the comment I left on her blog:
Who was it who said propaganda allows you to believe what you want to believe. Nobody who did not want to be fooled by the Goldstone Report was, while those looking to hate Israel where just given an additional pack of lies to go with those they already collected.
BTW here are my rules for lying, I believe it sums up the Goldstone Report:
1)find someone who wants or needs to to believe the lie.
2)Make sure the person does not know the truth or is willing to forsake the truth.
3) keep the lie as close to the truth as possible. This will lead to confusion.
4)Repeat the lie as often as possible.
5) Deliver the lie in supportive terms, i.e. “I’m saying this as an objective observer concerned about innocent life”, or “I’m saying this because I’m concerned about the welfare of everyone concerned”, “I’m really your best friend”, etc, etc.
here is Melanie Philips article:
http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/6836830/richard-goldstone-recants-what-price-the-israel-witchhunt-now.thtml
Channels in nicely with recent discussions regarding intellectuals /anti intellectuals. It’s not that intellectuals shouldn’t be taken seriously. It’s just that really bad ones with a long history of being wrong should be ignored.
Sadly it seems to be the opposite as any glance at the NYT editorial and economics pages can illustrate.
DiB – well said, and I agree. You noted that no one would listen, because the media would not trumpet, a new “corrected” study. This reminded me of the instance in which a study was “corrected,” namely the one about the purported massacre in Jenin. That was nearly as damaging as the Goldstone Report, and you still hear the anti-Israel crowd bleating about the massacre-that-wasn’t.
The issue of Israel was a deal-breaker for me and the left. Whatever bad stuff conservatives stood for, I thought in my “second thoughts” phase, none of it was as bad as the left’s determination to destroy Israel and lionize monsters like Yasser Arafat. The right would never lionize a figure like that, so, I concluded, something must be fundamentally sound about conservatism. The left would and did and does lionize such figures; thus, something was fundamentally unsound about leftism.
And the evil contained in the Goldstone travesty reminds me of why my stomach turned at the left before my mind turned to the right.
Soon to follow: Muslims killing UN workers or something.
“Jenin Massacre”
“Al Dura fraud”
“Goldstone Report”
Hmmm. There must be some reason why I hate the UN and the MSM. May the people involved rot forever in hell.
Funny that J.L. should bring up Manson who admired black muslims and feared them. Does anyone remember the now forgotten Zebra murders, which were to be a harbinger of the race war.
But it didn’t happen. America’s greatness rests on Scripture from the Bible, not the Koran. The Bible states the rights of all men to liberty and life. The Koran preaches the exact opposite and many black men have figured that out. And that’s what has saved this country from a race war.
And we should remind those who are thinking of embracing the Koran of its inherent racism and how unseemly and hypocritical it is for those who have been the victims of racism to embrace it while at the same time remembering that there is a consequence which we are bearing and shall bear for the humiliations and agonies blacks suffered. I believe it will take another generation, perhaps two, until real healing takes place, but it will happen.
So we must not give up. We can and will pay the price, and as long as our institutions and culture spring from Truth, we will not be defeated. Some day, there can and will be trust between blacks and whites.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zebra_murders
Langston huges and others regret the early days, and regret that that is what they are remembered for, not their later reversal…
Curtis,
I remember once having a conversation with a friend of mine who had been in the military and had travelled to many places, including the middle east. We were both strong supporters of Israel, and were discussing the seemingly disfunctional and belligerent nature of the Arab world. He said that he could explain the root of that disfunction in one word, and proceeded to write it on a piece of paper. I immediately guessed, correctly, what the word was: “Koran.”
When I look at the history of Islam, I must admit that it did something impressive in uniting a group of desert tribed into a conquering empire. But, the belligerent nature of what the Koran prescribes keeps it locked into a 7th century mindset . . . and the 7th century of warring desert tribes no less.
Whenever people attack Christianity, and its precursor Judaism, they do so because it has been so benevolent that they feel free to do so. (Although, admittedly, Christians and Jews havent always acted perfectly either.) This is what makes such an outrage the fact that people bend over backwards to not offend Islam: they do so less out of principle and more due to the fear of what some muslims may do to them. (Ironically, some of the biggest criticisms of Christianity, or of any religion, – – – i.e. being allegedly paternalistic, being dogmatic, etc etc.— apply a hundred times over more to Islam than to any other faith.)
J.L.,
The whole system of Islam could be considered, IMO, “living tissue over metal endoskeleton.” Aside from liking those movies (the first two, anyhow), it’s such an apt metaphor.
The living tissue grown for the cyborgs (the T-800 units) looked real and was nearly so. Blood, hair, skin, teeth, bad breath–Kyle Reese said it was all indistinguishable from what a human had. The only difference was that the blood had to be circulated differently, since a machine had no circulatory system. But that couldn’t be seen on the surface, and even when touching the T-800’s face the 10-year-old John Connor could affirm that it was “really real.”
Of course, it was all for infiltration purposes. The living tissue was real, but the pitiless, remorseless, fearless machine underneath was equally real, and if the post-apocalyptic humans didn’t heed the warning of their dogs (who would bark when the machine got near) they paid for that with their lives.
Back to Islam. Some people say it isn’t a religion at all, but merely a political ideology. I say it’s both, in the same way there is real living tissue and a real machine underneath. There is a deity and a way to worship that deity in Islam, as there is in most religions (in fact, it’s more problematic to call Buddhism a religion than Islam). Much of it is ripped off of the Jewish and Christian sources Mohammed got to know in his day, but still, it’s real. Islam is really a religion.
However, it’s also a political ideology. Along with the duty of praying five times a day and performing the pilgrimage to Mecca comes the political duty of jihad, of bringing the entire world under Islamic rule. Islam being a political ideology is as real as its being a religion, and those who fail to pay heed to that fact are destined to pay for it, if not with their lives then with their liberties. They call the dogs that bark in warning of the danger “Islamophobes” and other derogatory names, but that changes nothing in reality. Islam as a religion alone would be just another competitor in the court of truth; but Islam as a political movement, and one that forbids anyone who is inside to get outside, is, as Mark Steyn wrote in America Alone, a threat to the freedom of every non-Muslim on the planet.
It’s out there, it can’t be bargained with, it can’t be reasoned with… and it absolutely will not stop, ever, until the whole world is under its tyrannical grip.
Ziontruth,
Fascinating description regarding Islam. It really got me thinking. In fact it reminded me of something which I had heard about before, and which I immediately googled.
It reminded me of the phrase “Clockwork Orange.” There is, of course, a book and a movie with that name, but people often fail to grasp the meaning of the phrase “clockwork orange.”
The word “clockwork” as used here is an adjective, modifying the noun “orange.” The picture you should get is that of a seemingly organic object which is really composed of mechanical components. The Wikipedia article on the novel describes the idea as follows:
Reading this, and comparing it to your posting, got me thinking about this “application of Pavlovian or mechanical laws [by the Koran and Islam] to an organism [Muslims and Islamic societies] which, like a fruit, was capable of colour and sweetness.” And the effect of this “Pavlovian conditioning” on Muslims, who seem to salivate at the opportunity to kill the infidel: “the [Muslim] protagonist’s positively conditioned responses to feelings of evil which prevent the exercise of his free will.”
Anyway, checking out the movie may elucidate this idea better.
J.L.,
I haven’t seen the movie. Perhaps now I should, though I’ve heard it described as something simply awful (not awfully done, just horrifying).
In synchronicity, one of the latest articles on Gates of Vienna, God Does Not Speak Arabic! — Part 1, has this interesting bit:
I always wondered how converts to Islam just never, ever get into the “moderate” version we’re constantly told about, instead all becoming terror-supporting “extremists.” That might be a piece in that puzzle.
Ziontruth,
C.O., the movie, is pretty graphic. So, use your judgment as to whether to see it. Many have found it quite aborbing in its depiction of psychology as well. The producer was Stanley Kubric, who was behind 2001: A Space Odyssey.
I’ll check out Gates of Vienna. I must admit that I’ve always been intrigues by certain aspects of Islam. For example, reading the Koran in English, I’ve always found it to be rather dry and disjointed, and that it lacked that sense of the cosmic that would make a faith compelling. Yet, I’ve heard that its quite hypnotic in the original Arabic, and it obviously compels people.
Uh, I think everyone’s getting off the track here. Palestine was carved up 60 odd years ago and the Palestinian’s, not long before over 80% of it’s inhabitants, never got a piece of the pie. That’s why they’re fighting. ..And for every Palestinian demanding the Jews be driven into the sea, there’s a Jewish fruitcake hellbent on resurrecting Eretz (biblical) Israel (taking back the whole west bank and Jordan). This zealous, expansionist streak in the Zionist body-politic scared the hell out of many Jews long before Israel was founded. They should scare you too. Jews like Max Warburg were clever enough, even then, to see the violence these Jewish zealots would sow, not to mention the scorn it would bring on Jews worldwide (like they didn’t have enough already). It wasn’t only Arabs who were against a Jewish State, there were many, many Jews against it as well. And now we know why.
“Palestine was carved up 60 odd years ago and the Palestinian’s, not long before over 80% of it’s inhabitants, never got a piece of the pie.”
The original plan for the partition of British Palestine was for there to be an Arab and a Jewish state, with the Arab state the larger and the Jewish state not including Jerusalem. This plan did not occur because the Palestinian’s Arab brethren attacked Israel in 1948, just after independence, planning to destroy it in its infancy. Arab armied from several Arab armies attacked the small Jewish state. They thought beating Israel and “throwing the Jews to the sea” was going to be easy, but the Arab armies were utterly and completely defeated.
Even after their defeat, the Arabs still held the West Bank and the Gaza strip, the area now sought for a Palestinian state. They held this from 1948 until the 1967 war. Yet the Arabs refused to make a Palestinian state out of the lands they controlled, and instead continued policies of rehection and aggression against Israel. They continued to insist on a Palstinian state in all of what is now Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza strip.
In 1967 the Arabs lost the West Bank and Gaza strip in a war with Israel. Israel offered to trade back these territories for peace. The Arabs again refused. They again continued to insist on a Palestinian state in all of what is now Israel.
In the 1990s, after years of efforts to make peace, Israel granted the Palestinians limited autonomy in certain areas. Again, this was followed not by peace but by repeated aggression and terrorism against israel and its citizens.
This is why the Palestinians “never got a piece of the pie.”
“That’s why they’re fighting. ..And for every Palestinian demanding the Jews be driven into the sea, there’s a Jewish fruitcake hellbent on resurrecting Eretz (biblical) Israel (taking back the whole west bank and Jordan).”
Nonsense, as any truthful look at the realities of the middle east would show. It was the policy of the PLO to wipe out Israel from the map. It was the policy of Israel to make peace with the Arabs, as it has repeatedly tried to do. And, between the two of them, it is the Palestinians that are more imbued with an ideology of war and agression.
To J.L.: The original plan for the partition of British Palestine was the 1919 Faisal-Weizmann Agreement, where Israel’s approximate, present day borders were proposed (see map submitted at Versailles). Then Arabs had no problem with an Israeli State. After British betrayal of Arab aspirations with the secret Sykes-Picot Agreement with France, that changed dramatically.
As for the “larger Arab state”, I suppose you are referring to the 1936 Peel Commission proposals. The Arabs did reject that, but so did the 20th Zionist Congress and the British Government itself. One should not also forget that in 1936 the Arabs weren’t interested in their Occupiers discussing an Israeli State when they had been denied one, and lied to for almost 20 years. Still Jews were welcomed to live freely in an Arab State, but that wasn’t good enough for Zionist zealots, who not only scared Arabs, but many Jews as well.
And fighting didn’t start after 1948, it had already been going on for decades. The proposed Palestinian State you refer to was quickly gobbled up by the minority King of Jordan, never interested in the majority Palestinian cause.
And if the Palestinian’s seem more “war like”, it’s no wonder. 80% of the population not so long ago, they didn’t get a piece of pie, are pushed around, oppressed, and slaughtered. You tell me, what did they get?
Dumpster, you are certainly aptly named.
“Palestine was carved up 60 odd years ago and the Palestinian’s,…”
The Jews are the one and only true Palestinian nation. Falsely-called “Palestinians” are in fact Arab settlers who are stealing land from the indigenous Palestinian nation, the Jews.
The Arab settlers in Palestine have never been a nation in its own right; their illicit taking of the name “Palestinian” for themselves is a recent design, from after Israel’s birth, a propaganda ruse meant to turn the truth of the Jewish David and Arab Goliath on its head.
“The original plan for the partition of British Palestine was the 1919 Faisal-Weizmann Agreement,…”
Which was made independently by Faisal, and was not accepted by any other Arab leaders, or the Arab street. As a British official commented, the agreement was not worth the paper it was written on.
“Then Arabs had no problem with an Israeli State.”
Absolutely false. Islamic anti-Zionism started already in c. 1890, before Arab nationalism had reawakened (it would do so only after WWI, in response to Western colonial rule), let alone the faux-Palestinian “nation” invented. Islamic anti-Zionism was and still is rooted in the Islamic doctrine that no land once under Islamic rule could be allowed to return to non-Muslim rule, and that all Jews (and Christians) must live as second-class citizens in the apartheid system of Islam called dhimmitude. Zionism is opposed because it runs counter to both tenets.
“One should not also forget that in 1936 the Arabs weren’t interested in their Occupiers discussing an Israeli State when they had been denied one,…”
The Arab nation in 1936 already had a huge mass of land well beyond what the Arab nation deserves, its indigenous territory of the Arabian Peninsula. Arab opposition to Zionism, if thought of as a nationalistic dispute, is rank chutzpah on the Arabs’ part, who have plenty and in fact too much but wish to rob the Jewish nation of the little it has and is entitled to have.
“…are pushed around, oppressed, and slaughtered.”
They raise their children to be suicide-murderers, they dismantle their sewage pipes to make rockets which they fire deliberately on Jewish civilians, and when Israel finally retaliates they inmix their combatants with their civilians in order to reap propaganda points when Israeli inevitably hurts them. They are cynical, manipulative, barbaric savages who wouldn’t deserve a state even if they were a real nation (which they aren’t).
For the sake of a just and viable peace, all the Arab settlers will have to be expelled from the entire indigenous territory of the indigenous Palestinian nation, the Jewish nation. The injustice of anti-Zionism must be put to an end.