Israel Matzav

No thanks to Goldstone

Ron Radosh thanks Richard Goldstone for publishing his Saturday piece in the Washington Post (Hat Tip: Memeorandum).

One suspects that Judge Goldstone might have read Peter Berkowitz’s recently published article, “The Goldstone Mess,” that appears in the latest Policy Review. Reviewing a new book on the report published by The Nation magazine (of course) and edited by three vociferous pro-Hamas and anti-Israeli American Jews, Berkowitz begins by quoting from the introduction written by Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town Desmond Tutu, who wrote that Israel’s “misconduct” was an example of “reckless, even deliberate, destruction of life and property” — the very charges most people got out of the report, and which now Goldstone argues was not his or the report’s intention or actual conclusion.

As Berkowitz correctly writes, “even a cursory glance gives reason to believe that the Goldstone Report is more interested in taking sides than discovering the truth.”

...

So whatever Judge Goldstone’s current obfuscations, and his intent to pass off his report’s failures as the fault of Israel’s non-cooperation rather than his own weaknesses and lack of impartiality, his current re-evaluation is more than welcome. Despite its limitations, Goldstone’s article today helps minimize the damage attempted by those like Adam Horowitz, Lizzy Ratner and Philip Weiss — the left-wing enemies of Israel who compiled the volume that Berkowitz reviews.

So I, for one, thank Judge Richard Goldstone for his going public to help minimize the damage to Israel that he and his report have already produced. From this point on, his article will do a great deal to help people referring to the report as a document to be considered seriously.

No. If it were Berkowitz that brought about Goldstone's change of heart, he wouldn't still be trying to defend his commission's wrongful conclusions as being Israel's fault. Had he wanted to, Goldstone could have prevented the Horowitz, Ratner and Weiss book from seeing the light of day by disowning his report a long time ago. He didn't.

No, as usual, Goldstone's sudden change of heart is all about Goldstone and protecting his chances to become Secretary General of the United Nations - which he wants more than anything else in the World. Goldstone's article in the Washington Post can be directly attributed to the new UN Report on Operation Cast Lead that was published by a committee headed by former New York judge Mary McGowan Davis (which Goldstone mentions in his Washington Post article), which found that while Israel has opened more than 400 investigations into Operation Cast Lead, Hamas has opened none. Goldstone sees what's coming down the pike: Those Israeli investigations are going to prove that his original report was a pack of lies. And he knows it.

Labels: Goldstone Report, Mary McGowan Davis, Richard Goldstone

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 4:07 AM