Israel Matzav: JJ whines

Sunday, April 24, 2011

JJ whines

JJ Goldberg tried to give a lesson in what being Jewish is all about, and discovered that not everyone liked it.

One comment sort of took my breath away, I must admit. A faithful reader named Howard informs me that I am “an enemy of G-d, Torah and Judaism.” This comes as a shock. I take the Good Book pretty seriously, as those who know me are aware, and I go to considerable lengths to stay on the right side of the Big Guy. It would be a drag to discover that all my efforts were so unappreciated.

And what brought this acrimony on JJ Goldberg (no relation to Jeffrey Goldberg although he does quote him) is an attempt to defend Richard Goldstone.

Again, for the millionth time, Goldstone is no mystery. He is a devoted Jew and passionate, lifelong Zionist, former world chairman of ORT, no less, and a former honorary life member of the Hebrew University board of governors (until he was kicked off last year) who thought his credentials as a world-renowned human rights jurist would help him to win Israel a better hearing than it would otherwise have gotten. He wasn’t expecting Israel to refuse to cooperate, leaving him only with the other side’s evidence. Having signed up for the job, he signed onto a report that drew the relevant inferences from the available evidence. And its primary recommendation, if you read it, was that Israel and Hamas, both having committed apparent (this was not a judicial verdict) war crimes should conduct investigations. Israel did so. Hamas did not.

And, no, Jeff, he never said he was surprised that Hamas killed people. He’s not that naïve. He was disappointed that Hamas refused to conduct any sort of investigation. Most organizations, even terrorist organizations, make some pretense of concern for the opinions of mankind. So yes, Hamas caught him off guard. Then again, nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition. Not even enemies of the Torah like me.

That's a load of hogwash. Goldstone was warned by just about everybody who had access to him that he was going to be used to skewer Israel. The Israeli government made it quite clear to him from the outset that there was no way it would cooperate with an investigation sponsored by the UN 'Human Rights Council.' And certainly that it would not cooperate with an investigation that only examined Israel's actions and not Hamas'. The man is so obtuse that he still cannot admit that his mandate was never legally changed.

It wasn't the recommendations that ticked people here off. The IDF routinely investigates anyway. It was the repeated claim - that Goldstone sort of repudiated in his Washington Post piece - that Israel deliberately sought to damage civilian infrastructure in Gaza. And it was the aspersion cast on Israel's courts in general and the IDF and the military justice system in particular that they were not capable of conducting impartial investigations.

The evidence in Israel's favor was there. It was presented to him by Israeli NGO's like NGO Monitor and Sderot Media, and much of it was publicly available on the internet (on this blog among many others). Goldstone chose to ignore it because it wasn't officially presented to his high and mighty butt by the Israeli government.

What on earth made Goldstone or anyone else think Hamas would investigate at all, let alone investigate credibly? What 'public opinion' or legal scholar would sway Hamas? The concept is too laughable to deserve a response.

But what JJ doesn't get at the end of the day is that for some of us, the libelous crap written by Goldstone and his cohorts is a matter of life and death. You see, we don't live in Manhattan. We live in Israel, where Hamas is constantly seeking ways to attack us. How much more restricted with the IDF's ability to defend us be the next time as a result of the Goldstone experience? Those who defend Goldstone are endangering their fellow Jews. For that, they are worthy of 'Howard's - and everyone else's - opprobrium.

Labels: civilian casualties, Gaza, Goldstone Report, human shields, IDF, IDF ethics, IDF purity of arms, JJ Goldberg, Richard Goldstone