on the UN
Copyright 2009
Goldstone Report
URL = http://www.unwatch.org/site/pp.asp?c=bdKKISNqEmG&b=1277549
Davidoff
Thread has been quiet
But a few things to wake us from our slumber
What is with this Goldstone report ? I feel deeply ashamed of our world and UN ? Pure bullying Disgusted ? Teach me why I am wrong on this!
Gary Davis
Aah the United Nations and the South African Judge, Richard Goldstone, who headed the investigation over the Gaza offensive. He criticized on Friday the Human Rights Council?s decision to endorse the report his commission had compiled. Before the vote, Judge Goldstone, commented that the draft resolution saddens him as it includes only allegations against Israel and that there is not a single phrase condemning Hamas as stated in the report. He hoped that the Human Rights Council would modify the text.
What naivete.
The U.N. Human Rights Council released the vote breakdown with respect to the Goldstone Report.
What amazes me is the naivete of Judge Goldstone and the refusal of France and Britain not to vote.
But hark!!
Do the French and British have a Muslim conundrum??????
Yes: Argentina, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, China, Cuba, Djbouti, Egypt, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Mauritius, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, South Africa and Zambia.
No: Holland, Hungary, Italy, Slovakia, Ukraine and the United States.
Abstained: Belgium, Bosnia, Burkina-Faso, Cameron, Gabon, Japan, Mexico, Norway, Slovenia, South Korea and Uruguay.
Madagascar and Kyrgyzstan were not present during the vote.
Britain and France refused to vote.
The vote and the spin does not surprise me. All one has to do is the maths?. Israel can never win a vote in the UN. The UN is a non-entity. All it has accomplished is to occupy some good real estate in New York. What amazes me is the naivete of Judge Goldstone and the refusal of France and Britain not to vote.
A little foot note?Early Saturday morning I was driving past a Temple and I saw some people displaying banners ?Jews Kill?. Unfortunately my little Mini veered through a large puddle that wet the demonstrators. When I returned I was pleased to see that the gathering was being dispersed by the police.
Tevis Shapiro
About Goldstone! Firstly, I think that he is angling for the position of Sec. General of the UN!! If one looks at his history and the little bit of interaction I had with him as a Senior Counsel, Judge in the supreme Court and then Con Court judge, one thing is clear. While he is [or was] a very good jurist, he has a monstrous ego and in the last few years all he has done and taken on appears to be carefully designed to place him in as good a position that he can with the ?Power Brokers? aka The Moslem/Unaligned Countries. They are the people who wield the power in the UN. Depending on ones perspective, the GAZA issue and his commission could never fail/succeed. Could never fail because the framework of the mandate was such that Israel had to, in effect, prove that it had not done the things it was alleged to have done, thus guilty until proven innocent and Hamas were in the clear unless the commission came up with something tangible. 1st black mark against Goldstein on that score. It was not a level playing field. Secondly, the make up of his own team ensured that israel would always be behind the 8 ball with the anti Israeli sentiment embedded in the commision itself He should have known this and if he didn?t it was gross negligence on his part.He then authors the report and expresses his regret that it was approved by the Human Rights Commission [His Bosses] I don?t know if anywhere in the report Goldstone comes out and critisizes the mandate and the findings and possibly distances himself from those findings. Seems like he wants to have his cake and eat it!! The fact of the matter is that the Anti-Israel brigade has their report, it has been approved and they once again have a stick with which to beat Israel.I have no doubt that there were atrocities committed by the IDF as well as human rights violations. This was, after all, a war. I have no problem with that. Shit happens and people die! I also have no problem with Israel becoming more and more intransigent. Why not. It reminds me of a couple of comments that Menachim Begin made at a press conference many many years ago which are just as appropriate today. They were in response to questions put to him by some journalists. He said ? You have this vision of a land of milk and honey and a beautiful world. I have this vision of smoking chimney stacks and as long as I have breath in my lungs, the chimney stacks will remain a vision and not a fact and a dream in the minds of the rest of the world? When asked about the unilateral actions by Israel regarding the annexation of certain areas in the Golan and what the Western World would think about it, his response was ?They will just have to get used to it, just the same as they will have to get used to Israel as a fact, unpalatable as that may be?
Some things never change.
possibly some of the Jewish reaction to Goldstone is that we can see no wrong in ourselves. Yes, atrocities were committed. So what. Admit that we are not as pure as the driven snow and get on with it. The quicker our Moslem neighbiours realise that as hard as they hit us, so harder will we hit them. We are not dealing with a Western moral ethic here. They have a totally different moral outlook and sense of values. They chose the battlefield and the rules so we fight by them.
The quicker the UN finally falls apart and becomes just another Moslem Madrassah, the better. Its own charter creates the basis of its own destruction. [That is a statement from Jan Smuts, who was a signatory to the original UN charter.
Sure this will put a cat among the pigeons!!
Gary Davis
Tevis, nice Goldstone commentary.
I attached 4 links for u to use as condiments in your pigeon pie.
1) Goldstone tells Mayor of Sderot: Probe did not ignore rocket terror
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1118708.html
2) The U.N.?s Anti-Israel Crusade Continues
by Nile Gardiner (The Heritage Foundation)
http://www.heritage.org/Press/Commentary/ed092209a.cfm
3) Goldstone backs away from report: The two faces of an International Poseur
by Alan Dershowitz (Lawyer and author)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-dershowitz/goldstone-backs-away-from_b_320426.html
4) The Moral Inversion of Richard Goldstone
by Melanie Phillips ? British journalist and author (Spectator)
http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/5334541/the-moral-inversion-of-richard-goldstone.thtml
Sam Sharp
Tevis ? very interesting post on Goldstone. I have not read the report but intend to. Was it Dershovitz who said it is pretty tedious reading? Some commentators have said that it was pretty even-handed in that it criticised both sides but that it made the point of the difference in scale of transgression ? which is probably right.
It would also like to see the terms of reference for the investigation. If things were really skewed against Israel from the start then you are right ? Goldstone?s acceptance is a mark against him. Other than that, he was in a difficult position. Accept the assignment and risk the heat he as got. Recuse himself and he is a jurist who cannot judge impartially. It was very strange that he later distanced himself from the report and expressed regret that it was accepted by the UNHRC.
It is hard for me to see the benefit of Israel refusing to cooperate. Apparently she had the opportunity to provde evidence from Siderot but chose not to. Also the reaction to the finding was a bit hysterical given that it was entirely expected. When a suspect refuses to answer questions suspicion simply grows. When a witness refuses to testify on her own behalf, how can one surprised that there is no evidence to support her case. Deluge them with evidence and then yell if it is ignored. No point in yelling when the stuff you didn?t give them wasn?t used.
There should have been an admission of some abuse with promise of full investigation (as there has subsequently been). Mark Regev was interviewed here last week and made it perfectly clear that Israel admits some transgressions and that all guilty parties will be suitably punished. So why not co-operate?
Tevis Shapiro
Want to read all the attachments [over the week end] and then respond. I believe it was a pr disaster by israel in not cooperating with the commission, irrespective of the terms of reference. The israeli silence was deafening and it is too late to now shout foul. There is no doubt there was abuse on both sides. Thats what happens when people try and kill each other. Has always happened and will always happen. Ite the nature of things. Sams point about witnesses refusing to testify is correct. It is the mark of the quality of the presiding officer if he can distance himself from his subjective opinion that the witness, by refusing to testify, has something to hide. Bear in mind, however, that this was a commission and not a trial. What goldstone cannot escape is, as sam outs it, the curious situation where goldstone submits his report [apparently no dissenting view] and then expresses regret that his principals [employers] accept his report.did he expect them to discredit their own commission? Hardly. Will reply further after reading the attachments
Lindsay Leveen
If Gary goes by G.O.D does Gold-stone go by. G.O.L.D. My 2 cents worth five times so you all have a dime is the following. No doubt some trangressions happened and the IDF is not pure as the driven sheleg. The timing was such that Bush was out and BHO was coming in so it was opportune to flex some muscle. Did the muscle flexing accomplish anything? Probably yes and Sedrot gets a break from the barrage of kassams. Did Israel loose friends? No they had few to start with. So what is the end game here? With the population of Gaza growing by 4.6% per year and the UN feeding more than half of the population things have to change. The BBC needs to stop pitying a family of sixteen in one room and start asking why the F are there sixteen people in the family and the West is doling out food for shut up money. Give them independence, let them have an airport let them import arms and let them fire a single rocket and say they won the war. Then let them have Goldstone. Gemstone, Gallstone or any stone as their president. That president should then charge a child tax like the Chinese did and soon there will be one child per family and the place may have a future. Right now it is a bunny hutch with shagging going on like you cannot imagine. Do you guys know what a 4.6% per year birth rate is? The only productive industry in the strip is stupping. The poor folks there have no water, no sewer, no real education only stupping. We are all Fd if the stupping does not stop. It does not matter about right or wrong or who fired what first It is all about numbers, overpopulation, and too much stupping. I may sound crude but it is time to call a spade a spade. If all this stupping happened a hundred years ago and there was no UN to feed the people who do nothing but stup, there would be famine and war and the few that survived would start stupping again and the cycle would restart. World peace comes about when the population is not growing but declining. I hope my ten cents worth causing more threading but knowing you all you will say maybe the Gazans know a thing or to about enjoying themselves and to hell with threading, tzitzit, shamases it is stup time
Eric Stillerman
My 2c on Gaza: 1. A proper inquiry is needed as recommended.
2. Israel must lift the publicly acknowledged but little known siege on Gaza and get on with the peace and development process. This will create an amazing integrated thriving Middle East and stop the shtupping.
How?s that for a religious ou who believes in the vision of the prophets for peace and that we have a mission to be a light of tikun olam for a better world.
Shabbat Shalom. Enjoy the story of Noah and what it means for us in todays world.
Gary Davis
Dear Eric,
U know I love u?but what the f?. are u talking about?A proper inquiry is needed as recommended?.Israel must lift the publicly acknowledged but little known siege on Gaza. I personally think Israel has done too much.
From Me
Eric Stillerman
Ga thanks for the feedback. Honestly speaking we have not done very much for peace and development since Rabin. Too much war.
Gary Davis
I know it is tough, but when u look at the map and see how small Israel is?my heart bleeds and I am honestlly very scared what is going to happen.
Aubrey Ginsberg
Hi all
have been debating wether to anwer after watching everyones thoughts about Goldstone
im not trying to step on anyones toes . if at all possabile i think it would be great if we left politics out of the thread and woried about each other
Its wonderful to be able to sit anywhere in tthe world and critisise or support the deeds of another country.
I honestly believe that that critisism and change can only come from within.(Anael for example)
Why should Israel be different to any other country . ???? ?????? (cant think of the right words in english)why wasnt there any Enquiery when Russia attacked Georgia, or the attrocities in Croatia ,England in Ireland the US in Iraq. etc etc
The Israeli army is know to be the most moral army in the world and is more than critical of itself and prosecutes (not allways justly) soilders on any report recieved. I have a friend whose son, an officer, was accused of killing an unarmed palistinian . The accusation was made by a journalist who got the information from the palistinians family. 400,000 $ later ,the truth came out. The palistinian was about to blow himself up kill 10s of soilders in the area.
I am sure there where mistakes made in thus last ???? in Gaza as there r in any wars . Those that have come to light r investigated
And now to the report itself. Does Mr Goldstone not know that Israel has been attacked by Kassamin for 8 years. How many peple have been killed by suacide bommers etc. The report is compleately political biased and has no connection to reality whatsoever. I think it was Tubby who saud that mr gallbladders main objective was to become the next Secretarey General of The U.N(another great institution) and nothing else mattered to him.
THAT IS ONE OF THE REASONS WHY ISRAEL SHOULD NOT/DID NOT TESTIFY.Even if they would have testified the report would still have blame Israel without even mentionuing Hamas.
The Irony of it all is ,I believe, that the majority of palistinians want peace. Unfortunately they r not prepared to make an effort and to stop the radicals. Reminds me of others in History (1940-1945) who also never made the effort.
Take care all .
Aubrey