Israel's complicity in apartheid crimes undermines its attack on Goldstone

[grassfed]

On 5 January 2009 the Israeli army rounded up around 65 Palestinians (including 11 women and 11 children under the age of 14) in Gaza, several of whom were waving white flags. After handcuffing the men and stripping them to their underwear, the soldiers marched their captives 2km north to al-Atatra and ordered them to climb into three pits, each three metres high and surrounded by barbed wire. The prisoners were forced to sit in stress positions, leaning forward with their heads down, and prohibited from talking to one another. On their first day they were denied food and water. On the second and third, each was given a sip of water and a single olive. On the fourth day the women and children were released and the men were transferred to military barracks.

It was just one of the stories to emerge from the UN fact-finding mission on the Gaza conflict conducted by the South African jurist Richard Goldstone. The report accused Israel and Hamas of committing war crimes and "possibly" crimes against humanity. But in a conflict that saw 10 Israeli soldiers and three civilians killed compared with about 1,400 Gazans, Goldstone was particularly scathing about Israel's "deliberately disproportionate attack designed to punish, humiliate and terrorise a civilian population" – which he said amounted to "collective punishment".

The Israeli government and the pro-Israel lobbies concentrated their displeasure not on the substance of Goldstone's report but the essence of his identity. Branded a "self-hating Jew", he was effectively barred from his grandson's bar mitzvah after the South African Zionist Federation threatened to picket it. The prominent US constitutional lawyer Alan Dershowitz has described Goldstone as a "despicable human being", "an evil, evil man", "a traitor to the Jewish people" and the UN's "token court Jew".

Then this month came "revelations" from an Israeli newspaper that, as a judge under the apartheid regime, Goldstone sentenced black people to death. This, according to Israel's government, discredits not only Goldstone but everything he discovered about Gaza and, by association, international criticism of the occupation. "Such a person should not be allowed to lecture a democratic state defending itself against terrorists, who are not subject to the criteria of international moral norms," argued the Knesset Speaker, Reuven Rivlin.

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Having lost control of the message, Israel is now trying to shoot the messenger. That Israel would try to do so on the backs of black South Africans is a laughable indication of its desperation. For if Goldstone was complicit in apartheid's crimes, then Israel was far more so. Israel was South Africa's principal and most dependable arms dealer. As we learn elsewhere in the Guardian today, it even offered to sell the South African regime nuclear weapons.

"Throughout the 70s and 80s Israel had a deep, intimate and lucrative relationship with South Africa," explains Sasha Polakow-Suransky, author of The Unspoken Alliance: Israel's Secret Relationship With Apartheid South Africa. "Israel's arms supplies helped to prolong the apartheid regime's rule and to survive international sanctions." No criticism of Goldstone's complicity from representatives of the Israeli state can be taken seriously that does not acknowledge and condemn Israel's even greater support of the self-same system.

[damntexdem]

1. Victimization does not make the victims holy. All too often they learn to be victimizers.

And the IDF has learned all too well -- as has Hamas.

[aranthus]

2. Bull.

The refrain, from Goldstone on down, that there was no substantive critique of the Goldstone report is just the latest in the series of lies that we've heard about it. Do some reading and you can't miss the substantive critiques.

[LeftishBrit]

3. Unfortunately, some of the critics themselves have undermined this...

by choosing to focus on ad hominem attacks on Goldstone, rather than on substantive critiques. Not saying there aren't any, just that they are often swamped by the personal attacks. Just as people on the other side often let personal attacks on individuals, especially Dershowitz, swamp their substantive critiques.

Unfortunately, as I said in another post, it often ends up 'Goldstone eats babies!' vs 'Dershowitz eats babies!'

[aranthus]

6. True.

The particular attack on Goldstone for being a judge in South Africa is one of them.

[Tripmann]

4. Cheers for proving the point of the article aranthus

The OP discusses the hypocracy of the 'apartheid SA' attack on goldstone, and what do you do.....

Talk about the goldstone report.

[aranthus]

5. No, you've totally missed the point.

The article assumes that there is no substantive critique of the report, and that the critics are left with nothing but personal attacks on Goldstone. That's not true. Further, there's a huge difference between a state allying with another state, and someone who is a judge working within that state. I happen to think that the attack on Goldstone for being a judge in South Africa is one of the instances that LeftistBrit points to that undercuts the substantive critique, but that doesn't mean that there aren't legitimate arguments against the Goldstone Report.

[Tripmann]

7. Incorrect

You are assuming what the article assumes.

The article deals with israeli hypocracy in relation to goldstone with regard to apartheid south africa i.e. the attack on goldstone the person, not the critique of goldstone the report.

[shira]

8. No substantive critiques of the report....

Funny how the same people who further this lie are the same people least bothered by Goldstone's unrepentant racism.

[Tripmann]

9. What do you mean by 'unrepentant racism'?