Israel Matzav

Goldstone gets another free pass

On Wednesday, Richard Goldstone will deliver the George Herbert Walker lecture at Yale University. As has been true of every speaking engagement he has had since Dore Gold chewed him up and spit him out at Brandeis in November, Goldstone will not share the speaker's podium with anyone else. Noah Pollak (better known for his writing in Commentary than for his being a graduate student at Yale) and Adam Yoffie argue that Goldstone shouldn't get a free pass.

It is thus astonishing that Yale would attempt to legitimize Goldstone by awarding him the Walker Lecture — an honor that has been bestowed on George Mitchell, Madeleine Albright and David Lange — and thereby take sides in a bitter controversy. The Goldstone Report is held in such poor esteem that not even the good name of Yale University can rescue it. Instead, Yale’s reputation will be tarnished in its attempt to laud and legitimize such a discredited figure.

We believe that Justice Goldstone should come to Yale. But if he is to make an officially sanctioned appearance on campus, it should be in a forum befitting the man and his work: a debate in which his alleged judicial impartiality can be challenged — not a coronation that seeks to sanitize his work and shield him from much-deserved criticism.

Read the whole thing.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 4:38 PM