Powered by WebAds

Sunday, May 09, 2010

He was just following orders

Richard Goldstone - the kapo who claims to sit in judgment on Israel's actions during Operation Cast Lead - sent 28 blacks to their deaths in apartheid South Africa in the 1980's. But some of the other sentences Goldstone handed out are nearly as troublesome.
Even when it came to far less serious offenses, Goldstone sided through and through with the racist policies of the Apartheid regime. Among other things, he approved the whipping of four blacks found guilty of violence, while he acquitted four police officers who had broken into a white woman's house on suspicions that she was conducting sexual relations with a black man – something considered then in South Africa as a serious crime.

In another incident, Goldstone sentenced two young black men merely for being in possession of a video tape showing a speech given by one of the senior officials in Nelson Mandela's party.
And Goldstone's response:
In response to sections of the study presented to him, Goldstone said that he has always been opposed to the death penalty, but because was acting within a legal system in which the death penalty exists, his hands were tied. He also claimed that he was obligated to honor the laws of the country, even under Apartheid rule, and could not find enough mitigating evidence to spare the defendants from execution.
That's what the Nazis said at Nuremberg too: We were just following orders.

What a gutless, despicable excuse for a human being. No one forced him to be a judge other than his own blind ambition. And he dares to sit in judgment on the IDF?

UPDATE 10:19 AM

From an email just received from Yisrael M:
[I]ncidentally, a great South African jurist, Issie Maisels, who defended Mandela in the famous Treason Trial and saved him from the death sentence, did not accept a judgeship in South Africa.
That makes Richard Richard look like even more of an opportunist.

UPDATE 5:18 PM

More here (Alan Dershowitz) and here (Jeffrey Goldberg).

3 Comments:

At 6:10 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

technically, this is old news, as it was released around the time that the report was...too bad it never got any traction.

the thing you will not find is goldstone actively speaking out against the apartheid system...while he was a judge.

yes, he is an opportunist...

everything about the goldstone commission and report is a sham

btw, when is that open forum in sa going to happen?

 
At 7:01 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

No one forced him to stay in SA as a judge either. If we was against the regime he could have left the country and fought the injustices of apartheid from overseas ... but he didn't.

I wonder if Albie Sachs and Tutu will be so passionate about defending Herr Obhurstfuhrer Goldman now?

 
At 7:44 AM, Blogger NormanF said...

No one forced him to serve the South African state. He chose to do that of his own free will. Now that's "morality" in Richard Goldstone's world.

 

Post a Comment

<< Home

Google