Israel Matzav

Stupid Jews: Why wasn't hanging judge Goldstone exposed sooner?

In Boston's Jewish Advocate, Charles Jacobs criticizes Israel for not bringing to light sooner Richard Goldstone's record as a 'hanging judge' in South Africa (full article available here).

Surely the Israelis must have known this last fall when he issued his holier-than-thou condemnation of the Gaza incursion. Yet the Jews pulled their punches, as they always seem to do. And that's why we're always getting decked in the public arena.

We can spend hours debating about the "context" - whether Goldstone had been a willing tool of the apartheid regime or, as his apologists explain, he actually tried to be a monkey wrench. Doesn't matter. What counts is that he sentenced to death 29 blacks in a court system that was anything but color blind. What counts is that he didn't put the Israeli actions "in context."

The scandal here is not that the UN - after giving us Kurt (former Nazi officer) Waldheim - gave us Richard (the apartheid hanging judge and flogger) Goldstone.

No, the real scandal is Jewish rhetorical ineptitude. Any defense lawyer would know all that was needed to thwart one of the most potentially harmful libels against the Jewish people in recent time was to ask: "Who is this racist murderer that the UN sets up to judge Israel?"

Of course, the Israelis tried not to kill civilians. How in heavens did those charged with defending world Jewry from libel not use this public fact about Goldstone? Are Jews, non compos mentis when it comes to self defense? Do we need a court-appointed non-Jewish defense team?

How have Jews failed to win the only debate that matters in public discussion: Who are the good and the bad guys in the Jewish-Arab/Muslim conflict?

Read the whole thing.

As some of you know, I am part of a group of bloggers that was originally formed to answer the Goldstone Report. Our work may be found here.

When the Goldstone Report came out, we went through it line by line writing blog posts to refute it. The one thing we did not do was attack Goldstone personally. We felt that you only attack the messenger when you have nothing to use in response to the message, and we had plenty to use in response. Perhaps that was the wrong decision. At the time, we felt that attacking Goldstone personally would make people pay less attention to the substantive objections to the report.

The fact that Goldstone had been a hanging judge in the apartheid regime was reported last fall. I posted about it here and here (admittedly, neither of those posts is very direct). Others posted about it as well. But none of us really pushed the point and certainly the Israeli government didn't push the point. After all, we had answers to the message so why attack the messenger? A mistake? Probably. We should have done both at the same time.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 7:22 PM