Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Gold and Goldstone

As a number of readers have noted, Dr. Dore Gold (a former Israeli ambassador to the UN) will debate Richard Goldstone about his (ghastly) report, the day after tomorrow, at Brandeis University. Further details, and eventually also a tape of the debate, can be found here.
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5 comments:

Steve said...

I would ask that Edler of Ziyon send all his detailed dismantling of the Goldstone fiction to Dore Gold and to Bibi so that this piece of poison can be consigned to the trash where it was born and should stay

November 4, 2009 at 1:28 AM
Gavin said...

What is Gold's record & ideological leanings Yaacov? Seems unusual for Goldstone to agree to a debate with a genuine threat, is he stupid or has he chosen his opposition carefully?

Gavin

November 5, 2009 at 8:03 AM
Yaacov said...

Gold wrote a doctorate at Columbia University that eventually became a book about how the Saudi regime supports the Islamists. At the time it was widely quoted, well beyond the academic world and into places such as the mainstream punditry. He was an adviser to Netanyahu before Netanyahu was elected prime minister the first time, in 1996, and when Netanyahu came to power he sent Dore to be Israel's ambassador to the UN. After he came back he wrote a book about how problematic the UN is (its title is "Tower of Babel", so you sort of get the idea). Since then he has written at least two more books, one about Jerusalem and the various claims and claimants to it, and one about how Iran doesn't allow itself to be bothered by the rest of the world on its way to nuclear arms.

In his day-job he's the head of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, a think tank.

He's a serious scholar, and he's center right in both Israeli and American terms. But center right, not paleo-right or anything like that.

Not only does he know what he's talking about, he knows a lot about the multilateral swamp in which Goldstone operates.

Why did Goldstone agree? I don't know. There's the feeling he really feels the heat from most of the Jewish community and he'd like them to understand him. He clearly feels wronged, and wants to convince us that we've misunderstood him. Don't tell anyone, but - having read the report named after him - I'm not certain how bright a bulb he is. Also, Brandeis is an important place. Perhaps it's too important to turn down.

I don't really have many expectations from the meeting, however. They'll talk by one another, in two parallel monologues; the audience will prefer whomever it knew in advance that it would prefer. I don't see a meeting point at which they could meet and one would move slightly in face of the others' fine arguments.

November 5, 2009 at 9:30 AM
Gavin said...

Thanks Yaacov. I followed your reference & had a read thru JCPA, that Jonathan Halevi has written some good stuff too so Gold might have some surprises for the Goldstone camp. Probably won't change anyone's minds but one can still hope common sense & reason will prevail occasionally.

I take your point, although my own thinking was more along the lines of blackmail for past sins. I'm skipping back & forward a bit but I am (painfully) working through the report. It just doesn't make any rational sense. There were two sides shooting at each other in that war, not that one would glean that from the report. It is unsettling to think that a judge with his background wrote it, one has to wonder if the ICC has been just as compromised.

Cheers, Gavin.

November 5, 2009 at 11:22 AM
zionist juice said...

any link for the debate?

November 7, 2009 at 1:11 PM

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