Lots of attention has deservedly been paid to Judge Richard Goldstone's "aha moment," when he realized that he hadn't quite got his damning UN report on Gaza right.
Of course, the damage to Israel's good name had already been done many times over, so the jurist's words in the Washington Post, however welcome, were far too late to put the anti-Israel genie back in the bottle.
But Goldstone shouldn't be the only one looking at himself in the mirror and asking how he managed to get it so wrong and at such cost.
Take the upheaval in the Arab world. Many so-called experts didn't begin to see it coming, not even close.
Why? For many, like Goldstone, they were looking in the wrong direction. What should have been quite obvious -- namely, the societal conditions breeding growing discontent over many years -- was anything but.
Yet, unlike Goldstone, they haven't even attempted an apology, at least so far. To the contrary, they continue to appear on the talk shows, at the lecterns, in the editorial and op-ed pages, and throughout the blogosphere with their "expert" views, though they were totally blindsided by the dramatic developments.
Their single-minded obsession has been Israel and all its alleged transgressions. They've woven a tale that attributes all the region's woes to the Jewish state. Were it not for Israel, they've suggested, paradise lost would have become paradise found. But those Israelis and their purported militarism, colonialism, expansionism, and whatever other "ism" could be concocted were the one-size-fits-all explanation for every problem in the Middle East. Nothing else really mattered. Nothing else even counted.
So, those of us who dared to suggest there were other ways of looking at the region were simply dismissed as pro-Israel stooges and apologists. That we might have done so out of a genuine belief that only a hard-headed assessment could help move things in the right direction -- i.e., lifting the Middle East out of its stasis and into a new era of peace and prosperity -- was viewed as nothing more than a diversionary ruse by that, you know, "lobby."
Look at the issue of Jewish refugees from Arab countries.
Over a span of two decades, hundreds of thousands of Jews were compelled to leave their ancestral lands because of violence and discrimination, yet there was hardly a peep from the international community.
The UN kept silent. Most governments looked the other way. Editorial writers and news reporters wasted little time on the subject. And few scholars rushed to their usual intellectual outlets to speak out.
But it should have been clear that this mass exodus was not just about the Jews. In fact, it was about the intolerance of societies that rejected basic notions of pluralism and respect for minorities.
Well, no one said anything and then what happened? Without Jews to target, those very same societies began to focus on other communities, especially Christians, but also minority Muslim sects.
But again, the very same universe that looked the other way when it came to the Jews didn't acquit itself any better when it came to Copts in Egypt or Chaldeans in Iraq.
After all, if it couldn't be pinned on Israel, why bother?
Or look at the annual UN Arab Human Development Report. It unblinkingly identifies the three overarching deficits -- freedom, gender, and knowledge -- that plague the Arab world. The facts and figures tell a depressing story of a region falling farther and farther behind the rest of the developing world on just about every key index.
But those of us who've pointed to the report as a key diagnostic tool to understand what's going on were pooh-poohed.
The same with the annual Freedom House survey of the world's countries, divided into three categories -- free, partially free, and not free. That, too, tells a powerful tale of an Arab world where "free" countries don't exist.
No, instead of seeing the problems as they are, this community of "experts" chose to focus all their considerable energy on Israel as the core of the Middle East problem.
That's why the UN member states could set up an elaborate permanent apparatus to scrutinize and pillory Israel, while doing no such thing for any other country in the region -- or beyond.
And that's why the UN Human Rights Council created a separate and permanent agenda item to assail Israel, while voting into its ranks such human-rights stalwarts as Libya and Saudi Arabia. Indeed, Gaddafi's Libya served as Chair of the Council for a year, while also presiding over the UN General Assembly for a year.
That's why the global media set up shop in Israel, knowing Israel's democracy would protect it, while microscopically examining every alleged Israeli misdeed, yet largely ignored or just plain missed the unfolding stories in the Arab world that culminated with the current upheaval.
And that's why an important segment of the academic community brought itself no honor by allowing its study of the Middle East to become so politicized, so obsessed with Israel, that it, too, offered no hint of coming attractions in the region, when Tunisians, Egyptians, Syrians, Libyans, Yemenis, and others took to the streets not to denounce Israel, but their own repressive, retrograde governments.
Here are just a few samples of the kind of "wisdom" I'm talking about.
Turkish foreign minister, Ali Babacan, said in 2007, in what's been a rather typical formulation: "The Palestinian question is at the epicenter of all problems in the Middle East."
Really?
You see, it's not about the freedom deficit, gender deficit, or knowledge deficit, as the UN Arab Human Development Report revealed. It's not about cronyism and corruption. It's not about intolerance of minorities. It's not about the absence of jobs and investments. It's not about those who turn faith into fanaticism. No, it's not about any of those things. There's only one problem in the Middle East, said the Turkish official, in a view echoed by his prime minister, and that's the "Palestinian question," which, of course, means Israel.
In a similar vein, the former U.S. national security adviser, James Jones, asserted that:
"I'm of the belief that had God appeared in front of President Obama in 2009 and said if he could do one thing on the face of the planet, and one thing only, to make the world a better place and give people more hope and opportunity for the future, I would venture that it would have something to do with finding the two-state solution to the Middle East."
Could he be serious? Heaven knows that many of us would love to see a two-state solution to a conflict that has gone on too long and proved so costly. But to suggest that this is the world's central problem and the greatest barrier to "hope and opportunity" simply beggars belief and reveals the myopic mindset we're dealing with.
It's as if the Iran nuclear problem doesn't exist, nor al-Qaeda's ambitions, nor nuclear-armed Pakistan's precarious future, nor the despotic dynasties in the Middle East that deny human freedom and human rights, nor the aspirations of those who wish to restore the caliphate - not to mention problems of a more global scale from poverty to disease. No, once again, it's all back to Israel.
Not to be outdone, the financier George Soros wrote earlier this year, in the Washington Post, that the "main stumbling block" to advancing freedom in Egypt and beyond is -- you guessed it -- Israel. It's not, you see, damaged political cultures and ossified economies, but rather, of course, the long tentacles of Israel.
And the beleaguered Yemeni president conspiratorially chimed in that all the protests in the Arab world, for which many have already given their lives, including in his battered country, were actually orchestrated by "an operations room in Tel Aviv with the aim of destabilizing the Arab world" and aided, naturally, by Israel's erstwhile ally, the United States.
Well, no one expected Judge Goldstone to acknowledge that he made some pretty grievous mistakes in his assessment of the Gaza war, the nature of Hamas, the Israel army's efforts to avoid targeting civilians, and the body count. But eventually he did.
I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for all those who've made a cottage industry out of blaming the Middle East's ills on Israel to start recanting, even in the face of pretty obvious facts from Misurata to Latakia, from the Arab Human Development Report to Freedom House.
But I do hope the editors at the Washington Post will make room for any of them that do.
For more information, visit www.ajc.org.
"Iran and Egypt's new government signaled Monday they were moving quickly to thaw decades of frosty relations, worrying the U.S., Israel and Saudi Arabia that the overtures could upset the Mideast's fragile balance of power. Iran said it appointed an ambassador to Egypt for the first time since the two sides froze diplomatic relations more than three decades ago, the website of the Iranian government's official English-language channel, Press TV, reported late Monday. Also Monday, officials at Egypt's Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed that new foreign minister Nabil Elaraby is considering a visit to the Gaza Strip—an area controlled by Hamas, a militant Palestinian Islamist group backed by Tehran and until now shunned by Cairo."
http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424052748704004004576271130945207142-lMyQjAxMTAxMDEwOTExNDkyWj.html
Im sure the Z|0n|$t entity and it's (Daddy formerly mistaken as) Uncle $am really misse Moobarak when they hear such news....
Though they do not mention Goldstone by name, they shoot down several of the main contentions in his article and imply that he has bowed to intense political pressure. They write that they cannot leave "aspersions cast on the findings of the [Goldstone] report unchallenged", adding that those aspersions have "misrepresented facts in an attempt to delegitimise the findings and to cast doubts on its credibility". In their most stinging criticism, the three joint authors say that "calls to reconsider or even retract the report, as well as attempts at misrepresenting its nature and purpose, disregard the rights of victims, Palestinians and Israeli, to truth and justice". They point to the "personal attacks and the extraordinary pressure placed on members of the fact-finding mission", adding that "had we given in to pressures from any quarter to sanitise our conclusions, we would be doing a serious injustice to the hundreds of innocent civilians killed during the Gaza conflict, the thousands injured, and the hundreds of thousands whose lives continue to be deeply affected by the conflict and the blockade".
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/14/un-gaza-report-authors-goldstone
"Three members of the UN fact-finding mission on the Gaza war of 2008-09 have turned on the fourth member and chair of the group, Richard Goldstone, accusing him in all but name of misrepresenting facts in order to cast doubt on the credibility of their joint report. In a statement to the Guardian, the three experts in international law are strongly critical of Goldstone's dramatic change of heart expressed in a Washington Post commentary earlier this month. Goldstone wrote that he regretted aspects of the report that bears his name, especially the suggestion that Israel had potentially committed war crimes by targeting civilian Palestinians in the three-week conflict. The three members – the Pakistani human rights lawyer Hina Jilani; Christine Chinkin, professor of international law at the London School of Economics; and former Irish peace-keeper Desmond Travers – have until this moment kept their silence over Goldstone's bombshell remarks. But their response now is devastating.
The Syrian government has reportedly killed as many as 1000 unarmed civilians in the last 2 weeks.
Yet there is no call for any UN security Council session. There is no meeting of the UNHRC to form an investigation into the mass slaughter of civilians for simply protesting.
Where is the new Goldstone commission to investigate Syria?
Probably because the US is supporting the resistance and is blocking such an investigation.
You're wrong.
And Goldstone didn't retract a single finding from his report.
If Goldstone was reatracting any part fo the report, he would have discussed this with the UN and the other commissioners. Not only has he not done that, but he stated here are no gounds to retract the report.
http://holyfalafel.com/tourism/gaza-palestine-travel-guide/
are at risk of "starving", in much greater numbers than those in gaza...and these americans do NOT receive "worldwide aid" that the palz do.
in 2009 in USA, 43.6 millio people were in poverty, that is 14.3 % of pop.
50.2 million lived in *food insecure households...33 mill adults, and 17.2 mill. children.
In all due respect, if you search out starvation, on no website, will uFind palz listed
in a top ten....or even top twenty...on here will one read that....
in theComent section....for politicalPurposes.
"Earlier this week, it was reported that the military advocate general is going to close the investigation into the killing of Palestinians carrying white flags who were ordered out of the house in which they had taken shelter in the al-Zaytoun neighborhood during the Gaza war. Among those killed in the incident were several members of the Hajji family, including a three-year-old, another of the so-called “uninvolved.”
According to the reports, the investigation is going to be closed because no evidence was found that the soldiers acted against orders. Surely there is no need to elaborate on the associations generated by the “only following orders” defense."
it means *Sweet/Happy Passover*......5 attempts and u won't post??????
Poor poor Israel being picked on. Either treat the Palestinians equally and end the occupation however it wont happen because Palestinians must be completely wiped off the map.
the rest is also pure malarky.
Israel indeed is responsible for things they do, both good and bad. But they are not responsible for all the ills of the rest of the Middle East as often is claimed by Israel's detractors.
Yes, the issue is one of responsibility: The other countries in the ME are responsible for their own troubles, and blaming all their problems on Israel--as many are wont to do--merely is an attempt to avoid taking responsibility for themselves.
Israel blamed the activists for fighting back while being in international waters during the flotilla massacre. None of the activists personal items havent been returned yet to them.
The other Middle East countries are beginning to take responsibility for themselves and beginning to gain control of their destinies if the West will let them.
"no evidence" that Hamas fighters "engaged in combat in civilian dress," "no evidence" that "Palestinian combatants mingled with the civilian population"
As soon as anyone reads that they would know how much of a cruel joke the report is.
Such bare faced tripe offered as part of a legal report says more about the UNHRC than it does about Israel.
There are literally hundreds if not thousands of videos of Hamas doing exactly what the report denies.
The report itself is a crime against all standards of modern juris prudence.
*blushes*
Cottage industry? More like a full-fledged multi-national complete with the arrogance and pig-headedness typical of large bureaucracies everywhere.