Judge Richard Goldstone has done great harm to Israel. The Goldstone Report, as many writers on this website have documented in the past few years, has been used by Israel haters around the world as the main weapon in the campaign to delegitimize Israel. This past April, Goldstone ran an op-ed in the Washington Post that he had submitted to the New York Times but which the paper’s editors turned down. In that piece, Goldstone re-evaluated some of the conclusions he had signed onto when the 2009 report was issued. Readers of that April op-ed could easily see its tentative nature and its rather half-hearted repudiation of the original damage the judge had done.
But this morning, readers of the New York Times were stunned to find a new op-ed by Goldstone, which not only is a personal mea culpa of the most dramatic sort, but one that blasts one of the major arguments regularly engaged in by the hate-Israel Left, especially the reprehensible Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and former President Jimmy Carter. Titled “Israel and the Apartheid Slander,” the judge, in effect, also answers the approach regularly taken by the editors of the paper in which his article appears.
Goldstone begins with noting that “it is important to separate legitimate criticism of Israel from assaults that aim to isolate, demonize and delegitimize it.” In effect, the judge is referring to his own previous report and those of its many leftist and anti-Semitic defenders. Most surprisingly, the judge, who grew up in South Africa and knows apartheid well, refers to the “particularly pernicious and enduring canard that is surfacing again,” which “is that Israel pursues ‘apartheid’ policies.” In writing this, he is trying to head off in advance the mock trial taking place next week in Cape Town, held by the ’60s leftover of the far Left, the so-called Russell Tribunal, convened decades ago by the late Bertrand Russell as a mechanism to condemn the United States in the Vietnam War era. As Goldstone writes, “It is not a ‘tribunal.’ The ‘evidence’ is going to be one-sided and the members of the ‘jury’ are critics whose harsh views of Israel are well known.”
Most importantly, Goldstone calls the charge that Israel is an apartheid state an “unfair and inaccurate slander against Israel.” First, he tells his readers what apartheid really was in South Africa, and then concludes with the following:
In Israel, there is no apartheid. Nothing there comes close to the definition of apartheid under the 1998 Rome Statute: “Inhumane acts … 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.” Israeli Arabs — 20 percent of Israel’s population — vote, have political parties and representatives in the Knesset and occupy positions of acclaim, including on its Supreme Court. Arab patients lie alongside Jewish patients in Israeli hospitals, receiving identical treatment.
Turning to the West Bank, Goldstone notes that there, too, “there is no intent to maintain ‘an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group.’” While South Africa’s apartheid was meant to enforce racial separation to benefit the white minority, 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.”
I referred to one of your and Allis Radosh’s arguments here: http://clarespark.com/2009/07/11/multiculturalists-and-wilsonians-cant-diagnose-the-new-antisemitism/. Let’s hope that the Goldstone about face is the beginning of a more historically minded and factual history of the Arab-Israeli conflict, and its vying partisans for eithe side.
Two books you might want to consider if you haven’t already read them:
1) Where Judaism Differed by Abba Hillel Silver. Published by Macmillan Pub. Co. copyright 1956, LCCCN: 56-9652. This book may be out of print.
2) Jews, God and History by Max I. Dimont 2nd Edition, copyright renewed 1994. This book can still be bought. I met Max in 1985 and have most of his books. He missed or seemed to miss the ultimate plans of Islam to conquer the world. However, I found this to be one of the better history books for the secular public.
One can always hope, but I don’t see it coming. Things will only get worse and the years ahead will be increasingly rough for Israel on all fronts. We need to find ways to survive them. That’s the #1 priority.
Thank you Ron for publishing this article from Goldstone, but doubt if Jew haters will bother reading or responding positively to it. Thank you as well CL for your clarity on history.
Agreed. The Israel-haters will continue to cite the original Goldstone Report without even mentioning Goldstone’s apparent change of heart. If Goldstone’s newest editorial _is_ cited, they will hint that he’s been pressured into it by a relentless Jewish lobby or perhaps that he is entering senility and is no longer thinking clearly.
Hallelujah!
Amen Professor truth is finally coming out there are also no stoning of women due to dress nor hanging of male prostitutes. but the world still attacks GOD’s people until the Messiah returns and very very soon.
hard to know what to make of this. His column does not undo the harm that he has done to Israel, but his column severely reduces his chances of winning the Nobel Peace Prize, which he would have shared with Ahmadinejad, probably in 2012 or 2013. It certainly seems self destructive, and Goldstone would have been better off not seeking fame at the UN
I didn’t read it as a mea culpa, ROn.
I read his terrific defense of Israel as something of a testament of faith. This is what he believes. He is and has always been a supporter of Israel. The Gaza report was an aberration. He erred and he recanted that error. That more than most judges would have had the guts to do.
He is an honorable man.
One can not help but be reminded of Saul who was blinded on the road to Damascus as the Lord called out “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” And he went from being the biggest persecutor of the early Christians to their biggest defender and missionary. Perhaps Judge Goldstone had a “Damascus moment.”
Too late Kapo Goldstone, the damage is done. You’ve helped give a pretext to a sick Nazi world to throw 6 million more Jews in ovens – this time a nuclear one.
Not that the Gaza report will save you Kapo Goldstone; the Islamonazis will come after you too and butcher you.
Eric R – A little strong, but hard to disagree.
You’re absolutely correct. The damage has been done and Goldstone’s report has entered into the lexicon of Palestinian mythology and this from a Jew yet. His retraction is not part of the Palis program.
A man does such damage, please forgive me if I don’t faint at his feet when he APPEARS to have a “come to Moses” moment with himself…and that despicable, loathsome rag, that originally turned down information that would begin to reverse the horrific injustice done upon Israel and its people.
My understanding of atoning for one’s misdeeds…is not to apologize for what other people did with my sins to make them worse and more hurtful. It is to sincerely review and seek forgiveness for my own culpability.
Going around apologizing for the “sins of others” is a coward’s errand and a charlatan’s ploy.
I have had just about enough of leftists running around “apologizing” for Israel and America…and their “past”. Goldstone wants to atone for the needle and the damage done, let him stand up like a man and admit his report was a complete fraud, a horrific slander, a despicable act and absent an ounce of honor, integrity or basis.
THEN…he can seek forgiveness for his own actions. Until then, as an apology… this is pretty thin gruel.
Goldstone can go F^^K himself.
How big of him to now retract the crap he wrote earlier; after all the damage that he caused.
Reminds me of those big shot bankers and business moguls who all supported Obama only to see themselves get screwed over. Well, they deserve the screwing over for being so incredibly stupid.
Would serve Goldstone right if he were kidnapped by Hamas and held hostage. With luck, no one would buy his freedom.
Who would free Goldstone? Israel! Only last week Ilan Grapel, a professional anarchist detained be the Egyptians, who in Israel worked at protests against the West Bank security barrier, the so called “apartheid wall”, was exchanged for 25 Egyptian criminals, most of them drug dealers. I guess that after his op-ed, Goldstone would come at a higher price.
One thing is abundantly clear. Israel has a life of it’s own and her destiny was predetermined long ago. This premise I’m convinced of simply because of her history.
What can be glean from this?
I don’t know, however if I were betting on it, it would be that she strengthens her place among nations.
I wrote a little about the Russel Tribunal and the surrounding rhetoric last year:
“Although muslim rhetoric emanating from the middle east regarding the Palestinian question is almost entirely one of blame against Israel the Palestinian’s themselves as well as their allies must come to recognize that what has happened to Palestinian Arabs has been their own fault as much as anyone’s. No one forced the Arabs in Mandatory Palestine to answer Jewish immigration with violence. Talk of Israeli depredations, apartheid, occupation, aggression, expansionism and oppression in a manner which specifically puts the entire onus onto Israel serves no purpose whatsoever other than to harden Israeli resolve and put off the day when Palestinian Arabs can walk in the sun.
In fact, hardline muslim rhetoric by supporters of the Palestinian Arabs does more harm than it does good. Israel is well aware of the hatred with which they are contending in the middle east and the one sided and, from their point of view, eminently unfair nature of the accompanying rhetoric. Such rhetoric suggests and invites futher intransigence which in turn invites violent acts which in turn only provide Israel with motivation and an excuse to respond in kind and to further tighten their grip. What is left is only smug, feel good proclamations by Arab commentators about the essentially evil and aggressive nature of Israel and it’s Western supporters and in the end absolutely nothing is achieved but Arab failure.
The purposeful and childish nature of the obfuscation and disinformation spread about by writers such as the examples I cite in Al-Ahram Weekly are maddening to read and the 2009-10 Russell Tribunal On Palestine, for example, only echoes such rhetoric in a manner that paints a picture of the fault laying entirely with Israel which is portrayed as an occupying and oppressive colonialist power. Certainly it is true that only Israel itself can physically halt or reverse policies hurtful to Palestinian Arabs but why should it do so in a climate where all blame is placed on them.
Threatening yet toothless denunciations of Israeli violations of international law are not only worthless but harmful; what international law does the firing of rockets into Israel violate? Who in this world really expects Israel to accommodate international law in the face of such provocations? Academics is one thing and that is all proclamations of international law amounts to that ignores violent and terroristic provocations.”
Palestinian Arabs can walk in the sun when their Arab brothers let them.
From the beginning they had no say as it was all the Arab states that made policy including the 3 No’s of Khartoum.
To which may be added that the Palestinian Authority DOES have a racist law, as does Jordan, where no Jew can be a citizen. The false “Israeli apartheid” argument is therefore, as we would say in Israel, “Hafukh al hafukh”, that is, upside down twice over again.
If one wants a racist law, and an Apartheid one at that, one need only look at the Balata refugee camp in Nablus where the inmates have none of the rights enjoyed by the residents of Nablus.
The refugees like the blacks in South Africa are discriminated against by the ruling party (Palestinian Authority) and Tutu says not a word.
These refugees were the ones who fled places in what is now Israel, like the blacks who left their tribal areas for the white cities, and are incarcerated in a fenced off camp like the black townships in Apartheid South Africa.
Goldstone’s mea culpa? The Goldstone Report dealt with the fighting in Gaza, not questions of apartheid, and Goldstone has not totally repudiated its findings.
So Goldstone has had an “epiphany” and he now sees the truth, and so what?
While I am pleased (happy? grateful? Not sure of the right word) that Goldstone wrote the op-ed and that the Times actually published it, I can’t believe he actually wrote the following:
Is there no sense of irony? Self-awareness? The exact charge he is leveling against the Russell Tribunal he himself did the same thing with the infamous eponymous report. I would hope that this could be used as a starting point for his redemption, especially as it is so close to Yom Kippur as Ron noticed. Let’s pray that there will be more forthcoming op-eds that will fully repudiate, not half-heartedly as this spring, what he put into play just a year or two ago.
The good judge sounds unbalanced and in need of psychiatric treatment. His previous lunacy did not cause so much damage because what he had to say would only have been taken seriously by the mentally feeble and lifelong anti-Semites. Folks with any perspective laughed him off. Israel should concern itself less with its image and concentrate more on eradicating its enemies when they attack.
Was he lying then or is he lying now?
Too little too late.
Words of apology are no use to those damaged by his words.
He must effectively reverse the damage he has done to Israel.
This apology is but one ripple against the maelstrom of condemnation he has enabled.
Undo the damage you have done, Justice Goldstone.
Yes, this message is rather drowned out today with the Israeli decision to speed up settlement expansion and testing a new Jericho 3 ballistic missile.
And lost is the latest revelation about Hasaka. How forthright was Bush with what America knew about Syria and the AQ Khan network? Advanced Russian mobile jammers are slated for deliver to Iran. Who interdicts Iranian flights over Iraq?
Very complex game and F-35s and F-22s are not likely to play any role soon.
The damage by Goldstone is rather hard to correct at this point, but it does contribute as does the IAEA vindication. And in the end, new Intel on Iran won’t do much if they are too far along to stop. What does Assad have available for mayhem? Is this a bad moment not to have much foot print in the region? Already hardware and weapons from Libya are showing up in Gaza.
Let me put it this way; would Americans feel differently now about Iraq if it turns our Hasaka was where Saddam exported his nuclear materials and equipment with Russian help before Bush attacked? Would Gaddafi have revealed his AQ Khan supplied nuclear plans if Saddam hadn’t been found in a dirt hole?
PERCEPTIONS
HAVE
CONSEQUENCES
M
Hashem may forgive Goldstone and I am happy for his conversion to Israel advocacy by saying the truth, but I will never forgive him for what he has done to Israel.
The damage is done and cannot be undone by his too little and too late words.
Didn’t matter anyway, Abbas I heard just told the world that the palestinians will never recognize Israel.
Seventy three year old Richard Joesph Goldstone must be either a terminally-ill man, an extremely-befuddled man, or both. Seriously sick people tend to try to make amends before they meet their Maker; confused people often mistake fantasy for reality.
Goldstone, a former and eminent South African judge, made his mark on the bench by undermining South Africa’s apartheid laws with his rulings advancing the rights of that nation’s majority blacks, thereby leading to the end of discrimination by minority whites. He subsequently served as chief prosecutor for the U.N.’s trials of war criminals in Yugoslavia and Rwanda.
He is evidently an avid proponent of majority rule as well as a sincere advocate for the oppressed. Sometimes.
His advocacy came under fire from the world’s Jewish community and especially from Israel when Goldstone, a non-religious Jew, personally investigated the 3-week Israeli Gaza war of 2008-2009 and the United Nations issued the Goldstone Report, officially titled, “Human Rights in Palestine and Other Occupied Arab Territories: Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict.”
The final version of that scathing report, issued in April 2009, charged Israel’s IDF with a systematic, official policy of inflicting undue punishment on civilians in Gaza and violating international humanitarian and human rights law. It also deleted most references to Hamas atrocities and focused on the disproportionality of Israel’s retaliation.
The investigation and report had been commisioned by the U.N. Human Rights Council, a fact that made it suspect from the outset. The U.N. is notorious for its anti-Semitism and the UNHRC includes China, Cuba, and Pakistan among its 47 members but, still, Goldstone was a Jew and his religion added a significant credibility factor.
Not unexpectedly, he was reviled in Israel and elsewhere by Israel supporters as a wayward jurist suffering from a “moral inversion” who “preserved his judicial reputation while perpetrating a blood libel against Israel” and with worse epithets, all because he had dared expose Israeli war crimes against humanity, in Gaza just as he had exposed comparable crimes in Yugoslavia and Rwanda and the evil of apartheid in South Africa.
In effect, Goldstone was characterized as a Jew-hating Jew.
Fast forward to April of this year when the jurist had an epiphany, a religious attack, a re-examination of conscience, a re-evaluation of perceptions. Call it what you will, Goldstone retracted and contradicted much of what he had witnessed on his fact-finding mission to Gaza just two years earlier.
See his retraction, . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=5942.)