Judge Richard Goldstone

What are we to make of Richard Goldstone’s partial retraction of the UN report on the Gaza war of 2008-09? There are some very thoughtful reactions that preclude any need for me to comment in my own words. This first one is by Bernard Avishai (the Canadian-American-Israeli political economist, author and blogger–see Tikkun Daily’s Blogroll). Avishai is both insightful and pithy:

Goldstone’s Reconsideration

Bernard Avishai (photo by Amy Thompson)

Richard Goldstone is a good man in need of a good editor. His report would never have attracted so much lightning had it not started off the way it did, trying to chronicle the terrible events of the Gaza operation, along with all the preliminary allegations of war crimes, before getting to context, testimony, caveats, and definitions (see especially pp. 10-26). By the time you got through the first section, you either had to be furious with Israel or with him.

Now Goldstone says in the lead of his Washington Post op-ed piece what everybody will remember, but which he does not really go on to prove, that to have known then what is known now would have meant a materially different report, hence, a different reaction to the Gaza operation.

In effect, he is apologizing for reporting that Israeli soldiers intentionally harmed civilians. …

Hamas missiles, he adds, were of course war crimes. Hamas has not investigated its own actions at all. As to Israel, “our fact-finding mission had no evidence on which to draw any other reasonable conclusion.” You get the idea that Israel was wronged.

… Sadly, what Goldstone does not regret is a report that distracted from the wrongness of Cast Lead in the first place.

Controversy

For the most part, I have been staying clear of controversies. My passion, and where I see my gifts, is for the process of bringing people together across differences more so than in advocating for this or that position. I take a stand for certain principles and for a vision of a world that serves everyone, not for particular opinions, even though I do have my opinions in abundance. This is a conscious and ongoing choice because I want to make myself available to everyone, not only those with whom I happen to agree on any given issue.

Today, however, I am about to walk a complex line on a rather sensitive topic. I am doing this because I have been writing about tests of courage several times in the last several weeks, and I want to acknowledge two men who have taken a stand despite significant costs in order to honor their own values and moral integrity.

A week from Monday, on March 14^th, Tikkun is celebrating its 25^th anniversary, to which the public is invited. Part of the celebration consists of 6 awards given to a number of people, one of whom is Justice Richard Goldstone from South Africa. Goldstone headed a fact-finding commission of the UN to Gaza in 2008-2009, and the report that came from that investigation has been the center of enormous controversy. So much so, that Goldstone agreed not to go to his grandson’s Bar Mitzvah to avoid a mass demonstration that would divert attention away from the family and the focus on the boy.

We are honoring six spiritual progressive leaders at our 25th Anniversary celebration on March 14:

Of these six the most controversial is surely Justice Richard Goldstone.

Richard Goldstone first got involved in politics as a college student in South Africa where he was an outspoken opponent of Apartheid. He became a close associate of Nelson Mandela in the early 1990s and served on South Africa’s Supreme Court. He was then picked by the UN to head their inquiries into human rights violations in Bosnia, Rwanda, and then most recently in Gaza.

Justice Goldstone approached the Gaza assignment with some trepidation. He refused the assignment until the UN had changed its charge to be one that would include human rights violations by Hamas as well. He had been a noted Zionist in South Africa and had been the international chair of the Jewish ORT — organization for rehabilitation and training — and had been chosen to be a member of the Board of the Hebrew University. He had expected that Israel would fully cooperate in this investigation, and when it did not and he had no recourse but to collect the facts as presented to him by the Palestinian victims of the Israeli army’s assault on Gaza, he made clear that he felt that his report only provided a prima facie reason for a fuller investigation by the UN and the World Court.

Mike Godbe, a young American on a free Birthright tour of Israel, continues his diary and photos of the tour, reporting his experiences and the ways the tour staff present the history and politics of the country. Earlier posts from Jerusalem, a kibbutz, and Caesaria can be accessed by clicking the corresponding links.

Sunday, March 14th, 2010
Today we met the six IDF soldiers that will be joining our group for the remaining five days of the program. All of them are between the ages of 19 and 21, half women, half men. When birthright was started around 2000, participants in the program were not allowed to walk through many parts of Jerusalem or go out at night, like we now are, because of the high level of danger during the second intifada. We are told that the IDF “encounters” program was incorporated into birthright to allow participants to meet and interact with Israeli citizens . . . The implication being that the soldiers were here to provide that connection between participants and Israelis, not participants and the Israeli military.

We played some name games and ice breakers in the morning, the soldiers still in full military garb (no guns). We then got ready for a somber day at Yad Vashem and Mt. Herzl Cemetery, the Holocaust museum / memorial and the burying place of nearly every prominent Israeli statesmen and soldier – among many others of lesser fame.