Interesting Links

Avi Bell elaborates on how awful the Goldstone Report always was. There was a report, but it was preceded by no investigation.

Newsweek, always a superficial newspaper, now deep into intellectual decline, has a longish puff-story about Mahmoud Abbas. Somewhere along the way a representative of the Obama adminsitration denies most of what Abbas has to say, so this gives us an inkling about how serious or not the man may be if it's a permanent and solid agreement you wish to build on him.

At one point in the Abbas story, he says the Americans deciding what to do about the Egyptian revolution could have chosen between chaos and the Muslim Brotherhood, and got them both. Gideon Rachman reports in the Financial Times that Abbas may be right. It doesn't sound good, though at this stage we should still hope for the best since we can't do much else anyway.

Michael Oren writes about Israel's value to the United States. His article builds on things he knows as a scholar, from the days before he was a diplomat.

The Unforgivable Maliciousness of Goldstone

The New York Times tries to figure out what made him change his mind.(If you've run out of free access to the New York Times for the month, Haaretz summarizes the article here). The thesis seems to be that he thought that by castigating both sides, he'd promote a process of mutual reflection and eventual reconciliation; this bizarre idea stemming from a similar experience he had in South Africa as Apartheid waned.

Yet another example of how different Apartheid always was from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Mostly, however, it's a demonstration of how weirdly ignorant Goldstone may have been (and still is) about the conflict here.

He noted in Sacramento, for example, as in his later essay, that the deaths of about 29 members of one Gazan family grouped together by Israeli soldiers in a building that was subsequently bombed probably resulted from a misreading of a drone photograph. Men carrying firewood might have looked as if they were holding rocket launchers.At a debate last month at Stanford Law School, he did not excuse that Israeli killing but said that originally, “in the absence of any evidence at all, the only conclusion we could come to was that it was intentional.” Now it appeared to have been negligence due to lack of communication and verification, he said. [My emphasis].

Translation to English: we didn't know what we were talking about, since we lacked most of the relevant data, so we had no choice but to assume the worst about Israel and broadcast this assumption to the world as proven fact.

Only after the enemies of the Jews greeted this malicious accusation with the greatest of glee did it occur to the judge that he had been willingly manipulated. In my understanding of repentance, he hasn't even started the process. What he needs to do now is systematically tear down the entire edifice he built; if it take the rest of his life, so be it.

The State Department & J Street Welcome Goldstone's Retraction

In light of my previous post poking fun at the State Department, and my dissatisfaction with J Street, it's only fair to note that both august organizations think Richard Goldstone's recent retraction of parts of his own UN report are to be welcomed. Or in other words, they're not buying into the arguments being offered by the anti-Israeli blogosphere such as Mondoweiss or Andrew Sullivan, about how Goldstone's retraction doesn't mean anything and he got it all wrong. In the case of the State Department, this isn't surprising, since the American position was always that the Goldstone Report was hopelessly biased. J Street, however, had a bit of a problem at the time, when it did or didn't assist in arranging meetings for Goldstone with members of Congress. So it's nice that this time Jeremy Ben Ami seems to be clearly on the correct side of the discussion.

Links Two

Michael Oren suggests how peace between Israelis and Palestinians can be reached, even while insisting Jerusalem can't be divided (which it cant of course).

Peter Berkowitz has what seems a serious discussion of how damaging the Goldstone Report is to the practice of international law. It's been online for awhile already, but I only just stumbled across it.

Critics of the Goldstone Report

Alan Dershowitz and I each respond, from different directions, to Letty Cottin Pogrebin's odd defense of Richard Goldstone, published recently in the Forward (and, not-surprisingly, in Haaretz).

Counting the Dead

According to Kaleej Times, an English-language paper published in the United Arab Emirates,

Hamas interior minister Fathi Hammad told the London-based Arabic newspaper Al-Hayat that between 200 and 300 Hamas fighters were killed during the 22-day onslaught in addition to hundreds of civilians.

“They say the people suffered from this war, but is Hamas not part of the people? On the first day of the war Israel targeted police stations and 250 martyrs were killed, from Hamas and other factions,” he told the paper.

“In addition to them, between 200 and 300 fighters from the Al-Qassam Brigades (Hamas’s armed wing) and another 150 security forces were martyred.”

His numbers roughly match the 709 “terror operatives” the Israeli military said it had killed during the fighting, which included members of the Hamas-run police force that has patrolled Gaza since the group seized power in 2007. 

(h/t Norm).

CAMERA has gone back to read the sections of the Goldstone Report that discussed numbers of casualties. It won't be any surprise to learn that the Report, once again, positioned itself on the counter-factual side of the argument.

This is too old a story to appear in the media; still, those of you who comment on blogs are invited to cite this UEA report whenever the still oft-quoted false numbers of casualties are cited.

Lawfare Wolves Circling

This was inevitable: the Lawfare folks are now calling for a "Gaza style inquiry" on Afghan civilian deaths.

The Goldstone Report was such a smashing success, you see.

Heliborne Revisited

Once upon a time in the winter of 1967-68, we were visited by some aunts and uncles from America. For whatever reason they were staying at the Intercontinental Hotel on the Mount of Olives, in East Jerusalem (these days it's called something else), where we went to visit them. I guess we joined them in the dining room. There must have been issues of kashrut, but I was a kid and don't remember how they were resolved. At one point an uncle asked the waiter to bring him a shrimp fork. The waiter, a respectable looking middle aged man, looked him in the eye and sincerely informed him that during the recent war the Israeli soldiers had stolen all the shrimp forks. The uncle found this amusing, and wondered how come they hadn't stolen any of the other utensils as well; if I'm not mistaken the answer had something to do with shrimp forks being a novelty for Israeli soldiers so they had stolen only them - but I can't swear to that part of the story.

The moral of the story: you don't have to believe everything folks tell you merely because they look you in the eye and seem sincere.

Late last year as I was reading the Goldstone Report I occasionally commented on its more outlandish tall tales. One of these was about the IDF troops who parachuted out of helicopters onto Palestinian roofs, the proof of which was the small parachutes left behind and presented to the Commission by the locals. I wrote about this here, and a few readers commented that contrary to what I thought, they had actually heard that such a technology does exist, even if its application in Gaza seemed far-fetched.

The other day I ran into an acquaintance who should know about such matters. He's in his early 40s, a career infantry officer, which means he has spent 25 years knowing everything possible about his profession. He is now a full colonel. It occurred to me to try the story on him.

His draw dropped. No, he'd never heard of such a thing, nor did he see the sense to it, since helicopters can fly low enough for troops to jump unaided; on the other hand, the idea of using parachutes next to helicopter rotors seemed insane to him.

I told him Goldstone must know better than he.

Links Without Much Comment

If this was what Amnesty International spent most of their time and effort on, as originally intended back when they were founded, they'd be a very important organization.

The NIF seems to be reconsidering some of their policies, and may be a bit more careful about whom they support. Good. The Guardian, meanwhile, has no second thoughts, and continues to spread hatred of Israel with a gusto.

Noah Pollak says it's time for the US to leave the UN Human Rights Council; meanwhile, in a story worth following, the UN notes that Hamas is not cooperating with the followup of the Goldstone Report, while Israel is. Time will tell what this means. Also in the realm of diplomacy,Gal Beckerman says that Michael Oren seems finally to be learning his job. Most jobs take a while to learn. Even journalism.

Finally, over in the reflective corner, pascal Bruckner ruminates about Europe's guilty conscience, and Yoram Hazony describes how this makes the Europeans dislike Israel (there has always been some reason, these past millennia since the Europeans climbed down from their trees).

A Law Professor on the Goldstone Report

Barry Meislin recommends an article by Peter Berkowitz, who's a kind of law professor, on the legal aspects of the Goldstone Report - he doesn't like it. I don't ave the time to comment,but it's an interesting read.

From Goldstone to Wikileaks

Robin Shephard, writing from London, notes that the tools crafted against Israel will soon be used against the UK (and America, Germany, Australia, and anyone else engaged in the currect war in Afghanistan). And the next wars after that, I'd add, wherever they might be, unless we assume Mr. Assange and his ilk are going to but an end to war.

Gaza, Goldstone, Guardian

Israel has published yet another interim report about its investigations into events during the Gaza operation last year. It's 40 pages - not that long - and you can read it here. I only found the time to skim over it, but even what I saw was quite interesting. Parts of it are the usual hyperbole: legalese, diplomatese, the sort of stuff that's inevitable in such documents. A larger part tells about things Israel is learning for future use, the most interesting being the decision to attach a Humanitarian Law officer to every combat brigade. I expect there may be such institutions in other fighting armies, but I've never heard of them.

The bulkiest part of the report tells about specific allegations and how the investigations into them are progressing. In a few cases criminal proceedings have been instigated. In a few the Palestinian witnesses refused to give legally binding testimony, so the investigations have floundered. In quite a few cases, however, the investigations found differing degrees of justification for the actions of the IDF, and even - hard as it may be to believe - that the allegations were simply false.

Elder of Ziyon tells of a case where someone seems to have planted incriminating evidence, Goldstone and the Guardian ran with it, but the investigation refutes the whole story.

If I had time - I don't - it would be interesting to go back to the Goldstone Report and read it case by case, while comparing its allegations with the present findings. Should anyone wish to do so, I'll be happy to host their report.

The purpose of the whole exercise is manifold. First, it teaches the IDF worthy things about what it did, what it needs to do better, and in general how to be more effective and focused.

The second thing it does is demonstrate to the officials who can be demonstrated to, i.e American officials and some European ones, that Israel takes its behavior seriously, tries to learn from its mistakes, and hopes to limit future mistakes. This is irrelevant in the world of Jew-haters and their twins the atavistic Israeli-haters, but it can be quite significant in the halls of real power.

What it doesn't do is to make any impression on the Jew haters. Take the report of the Guardian, for example. Their reporter, Harriet Sherwood, clearly took the time to download the report and scroll through it. Indeed, she tells us reasonably accurately about the lessons Israel is learning for the future, and by implication, the things the IDF did wrong. Then, at about page 16 of 40, she drowsed off, and thus managed to miss the whole part that compares previous allegations with present findings. Sad.

Since I was already at the Guardian's website, I had a glance at their report about the incident this afternoon in which Israel killed at least one (it may have been two) Islamic Jihad fighters in Gaza. According to Haaretz, IDF forces killed two Jihad men and wounded six additional ones. According to the Guardian, however, one Jihad "militant" was killed, 22-year-old Mohammad Al-Kafarneh, and seven undefined others were injured, one of them a 10-year-old girl. I'm willing to accept - should it be proved - that a little girl was wounded: Islamic Jihad fighters like to have civilians and children about them. Then the reporter (Ms. Sherwood) goes on to make the following statement:

Following the three-week war in Gaza in 2008-9, the Israelis established a 300m-wide "buffer zone" on Palestinian land abutting the hi-tech security fence that marks the border. The aim was to prevent militants from firing rockets into Israel or launching attacks on military posts. Palestinians were warned that anyone entering the buffer zone would be shot dead. The zone has swallowed 30% of Gaza's arable agricultural land, and many farmers have been forced to abandon their crops. [My italics]

30%? Thirty Percent? Really? Almost one third of the arable land in Gaza is crammed into the 300 meters along the border? Does Ms. Sherwood have any source for this astonishing allegation? I ask because when I read it I did some really snazzy, highly complex, truly sophisticated high-tech intelligence investigations, based on my many years of reading John le Carre: I used Google Earth. You can do so, too. Actually, I recommend you do so: don't take my word for it, though I will tell you my word for it: Hogwash. Which is a nicer word than "anti-Jewish lies".

Just as an addendum, about the things the media manages not to tell you, here is Khaled Abu Toameh on the parts of the Palestinian story that rarely if ever get mentioned, in the Guardian or anywhere else.

IDF Soldier to be Indicted for Gaza Killing

The IDF investigations into the events of last year's Gaza operation have identified a case where an IDF soldier seems to have killed two Palestinian women in criminal circumstances, i.e beyond what can be justified by the context of war. He will be charged according to the evidence, and tried; should the evidence suffice he'll be convicted. Which is as it should be. We're a democracy and live by the rule of law.

Does this bolster the credibility of the Goldstone Report? Of course not. On the contrary. The biggest lie of the many lies of that document was that Israel engaged in a purposeful policy of killing Palestinian civilians. If anything, this case proves the opposite. Another thesis of that report was that Israel, alone among all democracies, cannot investigate itself. This case seems to say the opposite.

(If you missed it but are interested, my reading of the Goldstone Report is here).

Hanging Judge

The front page of Yediot Achronot, our most popular newspaper, has a story about one Judge Richard Goldstone. Apparently the man was a judge in South Africa's Apartheid regime, and in that capacity he sent dozens of blacks to the gallows, and others to be lashed.

Interesting, isn't it.

Update: There's no link to the Yediot Achronot story, but Silke found a description of at at the Jerusalem Post, here.

2nd update: Asaf found a link to the story in Hebrew, here.

James Traub Reads the Goldstone Report

James Traub at Current Affairs has read the Goldstone report. He deals mostly with the questions of how a democracy defends itself against an enemy accepts no rules, and is even willing - fleetingly - to consider if the rules as they currently stand may not be unreasonable. My reading was far more critical than his, but if his were the accepted wisdom, I could live with it.

Oops! Fixed the link, I hope, and thank you to Silke for noticing.

Goldstone Goes to a Bar Mitzva

Not that this is a particularly important story, but it now appears Richard Goldstone will be able to participate in his grandson's bar mitzva after all - which is certainly the outcome the grandson probably wished for.

The South African Jewish Board of Deputies, which represents most of the country’s synagogues, issued a statement that outlined something like a quid pro quo: a promise of no protests on the bar mitzvah boy’s big day, in exchange for a meeting between the judge and leaders of the South African Zionist Federation and other Jewish organizations.

I'm not privy to any more information about this than anyone else, but it sounds to me that the leaders of South African Jewry took upon themselves to recommend to their community members not to demonstrate against the judge, if in return he'd meet them and listen to their displeasure of him.

Which would seem to indicate that prior to the kerfuffle, he wasn't willing to meet them. Sounds like a jolly fellow and a stalwart of his community.

Even the Greatest of Them

There's been a flurry of condemnation of some South African Jews who disapprove of Richard Goldstone to the extent that he won't be joining the synagogue services of his grandson's bar mitzva. JTA says he has been barred; the Jerusalem Post offers a fudged version of the story, in which some of the protagonists seem to be backing away from the appearance of their decision without changing it. J.J. Goldberg at The Forward notes the story, and many of his readers think it's disgraceful.

The story emphasizes an aspect of the story of the Goldstone report not often directly mentioned: that Jews are a community, and always have been; that the community has its own internal dynamics; and that Richard Goldstone dealt his community a grievous blow by adding his stature to a nasty defamation of it. (I'm not going into the issue of the report here, because I've already done so here, but having read the entire 575 pages of it I have no problem in calling it a nasty defamation).

The tool of nidui (roughly similar to the Greek practice of ostracism) has been one of the most powerful methods of sanction and censure in Jewish communal life. During the millennia in which the Jews had no state power to wield, it was perhaps the most powerful tool in their arsenal, but it predates even those times.

Perhaps the most famous nidui ever was the casting out of rabbi Eliezer in the 2nd century CE. Rabbi Eliezer was one of the greatest of the tanaim, the scholars who created the Mishna; indeed, he is one of fountainheads of the Mishna; he appears thousands of times in the Talmud and his impact was enormous. He also seems to have been a stubborn pedant, unwavering in his puristic interpretations, a fact that eventually led to his clash with the other scholars of his generation. In one of the most fascinating discussions in the history of religion (any religion), R. Eliezer took the side of God against the scholars but lost, and when he refused to accept this he was cast out.

As he lay on his deathbed a group of his disciples came to visit him, among them rabbis Akiva and Yehoshua. First they loitered outside his chamber, as R. Eliezer rebuked his son for putting care of him above preparations for the approaching Shabbat. The disciples then entered, while sitting across the room because of the nidui order.
- R. Eliezer: Why did you come?
- We came to learn.
- Where were you up till now?
- We were busy [they didn't want to pain him by saying they had been respecting the order]
- We'll see how you die
- R. Akiva: What will my death be like?
- Yours will be the worst of them all [R. Akiva was later tortured to death by the Romans, in an emblematic act of martyrdom]

R. Eliezer then crossed his arms across his chest: Oh, what will be lost when I go. I studied much Torah from my teachers, but what I took from them was like a dog lapping at the sea [so great was what I didn't have time to learn]; I taught much Torah to my students, but they didn't take more than a drop from a vessel. I have studied 300 rules about the affliction of leprosy that no-one ever asked me; I've studied 300 rules of the farming of squash that no-one ever asked me except R. Akiva once [These are arcane matters; his passing would mean the loss of such details that are not common knowledge].

The disciples and R. Eliezer got into a detailed discussion of holiness and impurity; to one of the questions he added that a leather item if treated in a particular manner is pure - and on the word Pure he died.
Rabbi Yehoshua stood up and said The nidui is over, the nidui is over [otherwise it could also have affected the burial arrangements].

Richard Goldstone is not an important Jew, not in any Jewish context; ostracizing him may make him feel sorry for himself, but it's no great matter in a Jewish context.

Sanhedrin 68a; the Daf Yomi thread is presented and explained here.

Remember the Goldstone Report?

Professor Richard Landes,who blogs at The Augean Stables, has carefully read the Goldstone Report. The first part of his findings is here, the second here. I've only had the time to skim over it, and recognize that rational discussion of the report hardly has any value in any case, but if you're interested in an intelligent reading of this famous anti-Israeli screed, you'll find Landes' comments valuable.

More on Goldstone

The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA) has had a second look at the Irish member of the Goldstone team, Colonel Desmond Travers. Not surprisingly, it's not pretty. The British government is controlled by the Jews, Hamas wasn't shooting at Israelis, Palestinians have no connection to Hamas, and the IDF chose which Gazan homes to bomb only after using secret weapons which identify civilians, and always preferring the ones where there were lots of them.

Haaretz has the story here, and JCPA has it here.

Responding to Goldstone?

Sometime soon the IDF's response to the Goldstone Report will be made public. At which time I'll read it and comment on it. Together, we'll see who else reads it, and who rejects it unread.