The Goldstone report is a barrier to peace

There are many things wrong with the Goldstone report, which accuses Israel of deliberately targeting civilians in order to punish the people of Gaza.

First, its primary conclusions are entirely false as a matter of demonstrable fact. Second, it defames one of the most moral military forces in the world, along with one of the most responsive legal systems and one of the freest nations in the world when it comes to dissent. Third, it destroys the credibility of "international human rights" and proves that this honorable concept has been hijacked for political purposes directed primarily against one nation - Israel.

But fourth, and most important, it has set back prospects of peace by making it far more difficult for Israel to withdraw from the West Bank.

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Goldstone investigation undercuts human rights

Richard Goldstone - the primary author of a one-sided United Nations attack on Israeli actions during the Gaza war - has now become a full-fledged member of the international bash-Israel chorus. His name will forever be linked in infamy with such distorters of history and truth as Noam Chomsky, Norman Finkelstein and Jimmy Carter. The so-called report commissioned by the notorious United Nations Human Rights Council and issued under his name is so filled with lies, distortions and blood libels that it could have been drafted by Hamas extremists. Wait - in effect, it was!

One member of the group is an Hamas lackey who before being appointed as an "objective" judge had already reached the conclusion - without conducting any investigation or hearing any evidence - that Israel's military actions "amount to aggression, not self defense" and that "the manner and scale of its operations in Gaza amount to an act of aggression and is contrary to international law."

So much for objectivity.

Many human rights experts urged her to recuse herself because of her prejudgment, but she was on a mission on behalf of her "client" - Hamas.  And she did a good job as an advocate. But as a judge, she employed an Alice-In-Wonderland conception of justice: verdict first, trial to support the verdict.

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US support for Israel must remain bipartisan

Melanie Phillips has written a critique of me because I remain a Democrat and continue to support President Barack Obama, despite his recent statements regarding expansion of Israeli settlements and other matters relating to the Middle East conflict. Other conservative supporters of Israel have joined her in attacking me as well. See e.g., Jonathan Tobin.  This is how she put it:

But just like the majority of American Jews, getting on for 80 per cent of whom voted for Obama, he is a Democrat supporter who is incapable of acknowledging the truth about this President. For most American Jews, the horror of even entertaining the hypothetical possibility that they might ever in a million years have to vote for a Republican is so great they simply cannot see what is staring them in the face -- that this Democratic President is lethal for both Israel and the free world."

She accuses me of being "blind" and says "he doesn't get it."

Oh, I get it alright. I just fundamentally disagree with her approach, especially when it comes to the United States. 

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The UN kangaroo "investigation" of Israeli "war crimes"

Just as Spain's national Court decided to shelve a phony war crime investigation of a 2002 Israeli air strike in Gaza, a group of lawyers and military experts assigned by the United Nations Human Rights Council continued its phony investigation of "the grave violations of human rights in the occupied Palestinian Territory, particularly due to the recent Israeli military attacks against the occupied Gaza Strip."  

The UN Human Rights Council is a scandal. It's a successor to the defunct UN Human Rights Commission. Both organizations have a long history of singling out Israel for condemnation and of ignoring real human rights abusers by the world's worst offenders, several of which dominate the Human Rights Council and it predecessor.

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Taking a stand against Iran

Irwin Cotler, the former minister of justice and attorney general of Canada, member of Canadian parliament and co-author of this piece, is introducing legislation in Canadian parliament today called the "Iran Accountability Act." While it expressly holds Iran to account - for its genocidal threats, nuclear ambitions and domestic repressions - it can also function to hold any signatory to the Genocide Convention to account. All signatories to the 1948 Genocide Convention (including the United States) have a responsibility to prevent genocide - and to punish incitement to genocide-  that they have largely ignored in the case of the world’s greatest threat. The IAA, while a Canadian initiative, is a template model as to how to fulfill these responsibilities and take a stand against Iranian criminal actions.

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No linkage between Iran and Palestinians

Rahm Emanuel is a good man and a good friend of Israel, but in a highly publicized recent statement he linked American efforts to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons to Israeli efforts toward establishing a Palestinian state. This is a dangerous linkage.

I have long favored the two-state solution, as do most Israelis and American supporters of Israel. I have also long opposed civilian settlements deep into the West Bank. I hope that Israel does make efforts, as it has in the past, to establish a Palestinian state as part of an overall peace between the Jewish state and its Arab and Muslim neighbors.

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The Vatican's continuing Jewish problem

As Pope Benedict makes his historic visit to Israel, several Cardinals, Bishops and priests continue to perpetuate the Church's long history of anti-Semitism. Photographs recently surfaced of Father Angelo Idi wearing a swastika. He belongs to the same group of Fascists that include Bishop Richard Williamson - who persists in denying the Holocaust. But the Church's Jewish problem is not limited to marginal priests or ex-communicated Bishops. At least two of the Church's most influential Cardinals, including one who was in the running for Pope Benedict's job and who remains a leading candidate to replace him, are overt anti-Semites and proud of it. 

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Confronting evil at Durban II

Last week I came face to face with evil, as I stood just a few feet away from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. We were both staying in the same hotel in Geneva. He was there to be the opening speaker at Durban II, a review and reprise of Durban I, the United Nations sponsored conference on racism that had turned into a racist hate fest against the Jewish people and the Jewish state. I was there - along with Elie Wiesel, Irwin Cotler and others who have devoted their lives to combating bigotry - to try to prevent a recurrence of Durban I.

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Bishop Tutu, the UN and 'Alice in Wonderland' justice

On March 16, 2009, a group of 16 self-described experts on "international justice and reconciliation of conflict" - including Bishop Desmond Tutu, who has characterized Israeli self-defense actions as "unchristian" - called for the establishment of "a United Nations Commission" to conduct an "independent and impartial investigation" of war crime allegations stemming from the Gaza conflict. There is of course no need to conduct any investigation into whether Hamas has committed war crimes: they readily admit - indeed they boast - that they are trying to kill as many Jewish Israeli citizens as their anti-personnel rockets are capable of killing. They also acknowledge, as a Hamas legislator did on television, that they use women and children as "human shields." 

The only real target of this investigation is Israel.

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The Hampshire administration does the right thing

A substantial majority of students at Hampshire College, as well as a majority of the vocal faculty, apparently still believe that Israel is the only country in the world from which Hampshire and other universities should divest. They seem not to care about the great abuses of human rights that are occurring in Iran, which routinely hangs children and dissidents; in North Korea which tolerates no dissent; in Zimbabwe which imprisons opposition candidates; in China which occupies Tibet; in Russia which engages in brutality against Chechnya; in Venezuela and Cuba which are ruled by dictators; in Belarus which is a throwback to Stalin’s time; in Saudi Arabia which practices gender apartheid; in Egypt, Jordan and the Philippines which routinely practiced torture against dissidents, and in so many other countries around the world. 

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