Soccer Dad

Let that be your last apple pie

Do you figure that on better days on Cheron, Lokai and Bele would have eaten this?

Crossposted on Yourish.

Goldstone's telling remark

In his debate with Dr. Dore Gold last night, Judge Richard Goldstone made a very telling remark.

Goldstone also revealed a personal aspect. "I was afraid to enter Gaza. I had nightmares that Hamas would kidnap me and that the Israelis would rejoice," he said.

Judge Goldstone has been maintaining that he saw no sign of pressure exerted by Hamas on any of his witnesses. And yet he felt menaced? Goldstone was in Gaza under UN auspices and presumably there temporarily. What of the people who wouldn't have the freedom to leave? Wouldn't they fear kidnapping or worse, especially if they didn't give Goldstone the responses that Hamas wanted them to?

But the second part of the remark is telling too. If he thought he was being fair why would Israelis rejoice at his kidnapping? I think that he's strongly suggesting that he knew the verdict before the investigation. My Right Word noticed the same thing.

The Boston Globe also covered the debate.

Goldstone said the forum allowed him a chance to explain the substance of his findings "and avoid the personal and ad hominem attacks that have marked the debate on the report to date.'' Goldstone, a former South African constitutional court justice who is himself a Jew, said much of the criticism of the report was based on false premises.

For example, he pointed out that many complaints say the UN Human Rights Council's mandate to Goldstone was biased because it called only for an investigation of illegal Israeli acts. But Goldstone said he had refused to accept that mandate precisely because of its bias, and he had agreed to take part only when he was given the chance to rewrite the terms of the investigation.

He said the revised language called for a probe into the conduct by both sides in the three-week war, which raged from late December last year to mid-January and took 13 Israeli lives and those of more than 1,300 Palestinians.

Yes, I know he was hurt by the ad hominem attacks, But in order to argue that his opponents failed to critique the substance of his report, starting off with a distortion like that, wasn't a good idea. Yes, Goldstone purported to change the mandate of his mission. But as Rep. Howard Berman's revised resolution condemning Goldstone points out, the changes Goldstone "insisted" upon had no legal force.

Whereas Justice Richard Goldstone, who chaired the `United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict,' told the then-President of the UNHRC, Nigerian Ambassador Martin Ihoeghian Uhomoibhi, that he intended to broaden the mandate of the Mission to include "all violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law that might have been committed at any time in the context of the military operations that were conducted in Gaza during the period from 27 December 2008 and 18 January 2009, whether before, during or after," a phrase that, according to Justice Goldstone, was intended to allow him to investigate Hamas attacks on Israeli civilians;

Whereas Ambassador Uhomoibhi issued a statement on April 3, 2009, that endorsed part of Justice Goldstone's proposed broadened mandate but deleted the phrase "before, during, and after," and added inflammatory anti-Israeli language;

Whereas a so-called broadened mandate was never officially endorsed by a plenary meeting of the UNHRC, neither in the form proposed by Justice Goldstone nor in the form proposed by Ambassador Uhomoibhi;

And then Goldstone got off into his "collective punishment" argument. Funny, but having 1 million Israelis in missile range didn't qualify.

The Globe also synopsizes Dr. Gold's repsonse:

Gold - who has three degrees from Columbia University, including a doctorate, and now runs the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs - answered that while the report did criticize Hamas, it concentrated more intensively on alleged Israeli wrongdoing, when it was Hamas units that hid among civilians and all but ensured they would end up in the crossfire.

"There's no question there was enormous damage in Gaza,'' he said. "But why doesn't Hamas appear as a responsible party for what happened? Who booby-trapped the buildings in Gaza? Who launched an eight-year war against Israel? Who built tunnels under people's homes? The Hamas political leadership, which seems to get off the hook.''

Israel Matzav was there and blogged the event. He notes that Dr. Gold rebutted the report's finding that Israel didn't make sufficient efforts to alert civilians of impending attacks.

They said that they would hit any house that stored rockets, but sent multiple warnings to the civilian population. They entered into radio transmissions, leaflets were dropped, and then there was an attempt to directly contact families through cell phones or home phones. He put up a message in Arabic with an English translation.

How do we know that they received those warnings? Here's a Hamas TV clip and how Hamas tried to keep the civilians among the military. (I haven't seen these before - this is impressive). He said that the Goldstone Report wanted proof that the Palestinians were forced to be human shields - that's an impossible standard to meet. He shows the famous video that I have of Fathi Hamad telling a rally that they must act as human shields and how they desire death. There's no separation between Hamas and the 'armed elements' that fight Israel. He talked about Israel redirecting missiles while putting up a slide about the Palestinian police station strike.

How did Judge Goldstone respond to such presentations? Elsewhere, Israel Matzav observes:

Overall, I really felt that Dore Gold won the debate. That assessment is based on the audience reaction and on the comprehensiveness of his presentation. Goldstone seemed dumbfounded at the slides and video that Gold produced.

That's pretty incredible. In this day and age, to learn anything of what Dr. Gold presented would have required a computer, an internet connection and a browser. But Judge Goldstone and his confederates couldn't be bothered. If it didn't fit their conclusions, they wouldn't seek it out.

Courtesy of One Jerusalem here is Goldstone:

and here is Gold

In the end it's impossible to escape the impression that Goldstone relishes playing the put upon prophet who only tells the truth, no matter the cost. However looking at his commission's work and his smug self-righteousness you can only conclude that he cynically cherry picked his information in order to support his belief in Israel's guilt rather than attempting to determine the truth. Impartiality was not a quality that Goldstone's commission possessed.

Crossposted on Yourish.

MPAC.ie: "Reclaiming Al Andalus Stone by Stone"

Thanks to Elder of Ziyon, I see that MPAC-UK has an Irish sister organization called MPAC.ie. They want to reclaim Al-Andalus, otherwise known as Spain:

In the 1400s the Muslim reign in Spain came to an abrupt and bloody end. For over 600yrs Islam had dominated the Spanish landscape, bringing to the west learning and sciences that made Medieval Europe look positively barbaric. Despite the inculcation of a largely egalitarian society based on Islamic mores, Christian kings in the north plotted a reconquest, one that would give rise to one of the darkest moments in European history - the Inquisition.

The last few hundred years of Muslim rule in Spain weren't that tolerant either.

Today the rich tapestry of Islamic art and architecture of Al Andalusia draws hundreds and thousands of tourists who marvel at the wonders of a bygone era. However, it is also of great interest to Muslims and the area has seen a surge of interest from European Muslims seeking to settle in a former Muslim homeland.

In recent years, schools and communities have been established and Muslim influence is gaining momentum. Recently a request was made to the Catholic Pope to allow Muslims to once again worship in the mosque of Cordoba. We lost this land over 600yrs ago, inshaAllah this new resurgence will see our reclaiming of our former homeland.

The wealthy among us can facilitate this by purchasing land and property in the area, and then making this available to Muslims seeking to reside in Islamic communities. Play your part in restoring our former glory.

Andalus was having trouble/What a sad sad story/Needed a new leader to restore its former glory . . .

For more information on what you do to facilitate this reclamation, contact MPACIE and info@mpac.ie.

Operators are standing by.

Crossposted on Judeopundit

Engagement delays peace

While there are problems with this article an analysis by Glenn Kessler observes Administration missteps hamper Mideast efforts. Here's the key:

The administration's key error, many analysts say, was to insist that Israel immediately freeze all settlement growth in Palestinian-occupied territories. The United States has never accepted the legitimacy of Israeli settlements, but the Obama administration took an unusually tough stance. It refused to acknowledge an unwritten agreement between Israel and Bush to limit growth in settlements, with Clinton leading the charge to demand a full settlement freeze.

U.S. officials say that in the wake of the war in the Gaza Strip in the winter, they wanted to send a signal of toughness and push both sides to take positive steps to build an atmosphere for talks. By that measure, there has been some progress: Israelis and Palestinians have been deep in conversations trying to set the parameters for negotiations.

But Abbas, emboldened by the U.S. rhetoric, announced that he would not begin negotiations until settlements were frozen. Facing Israeli opposition, the administration appeared to back off the demand for a full settlement freeze, first exempting East Jerusalem and then signaling approval of an Israeli plan to exempt nearly 3,000 housing units on the West Bank.

A parallel editorial observes the same thing:

The administration set the stage last spring for this diplomatic impasse by demanding "a stop to settlement construction, additions, natural growth -- any kind of settlement activity," as Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton put it. No Israeli government has agreed to such terms, and the administration's public insistence on them only served to boost Mr. Netanyahu's approval rating with Israelis, while Mr. Obama's plummeted to the single digits. The administration now wants to set the issue aside and move on with the talks; officials say a settlement freeze was never a precondition. But Ms. Clinton is having trouble clambering out of the hole she helped to dig: Last weekend she praised as "unprecedented" an Israeli proposal for limiting settlement growth; this week, after Arab protests, she backpedaled.

Mr. Abbas has a similar predicament. Having adopted the original U.S. demand as his own, he cannot easily drop it. Arab leaders could provide Mr. Abbas political cover, but neither they nor he seems to share Mr. Obama's notion that the time is ripe for a deal. Apart from the settlement issue, the Israelis and Palestinians are far apart in their proposals for what negotiations would cover and how quickly they would progress. Israelis note that Mr. Abbas already rejected a far-reaching peace offer by former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert. Palestinians rightly suspect that Mr. Netanyahu would be less compromising than Mr. Olmert.

The Post's editors go on to say that the best possible option now is Salam Fayyad's efforts to build institutions of governance. The problem is that Fayyad has no real following.

And then we have this:

Omar Hilmi Al-Ghul, a top advisor to the PA's caretaker Prime Minister Salam Feyadh, said on Wednesday that Clinton is being bribed by "the Zionists" to support their interests in her attempts to revive the long-stalled Palestinian-Israeli peace talks.

"Why, Mrs. Hillary? How much did the Zionists bribe you, and what weight does AIPAC [American Israel Public Affairs Committee] carry in your decisions and inclinations? Have you asked yourself who is occupying whose land? Which side is plundering the land, murdering [its] inhabitants, sowing death, violence, and terror, and destroying human civilization in the region?" he wrote in an article in a Palestinian daily under the headline, "Clinton, Why Must You Lie?"

Al-Ghul, who is considered to be a "moderate" and a peace partner by the US government, made the remarks after Clinton praised the Israeli proposal for restrained settlement building during a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, describing it as an "unprecedented" settlement concession.

Remember that this is a declared "moderate."

This was accompanied by a cartoon that looks like it came from Nazi Germany. Hamas is improving its missile technology. Fatah considers the Balfour Declaration a causus belli. And as we just noted, Iran is arming Hezbollah.

Can anyone still think that real obstacle to peace are "settlements" or the "hawkish" government of Binyamin Netanyahu rather than the "false inevitability of Middle East moderation?"

No evidence

In regards to whether UN has proof that Iran is smuggling arms to Hezbollah, after the Israeli capture of an Iranian ship bound for Lebanon, Yaacov Lozowick makes the mischievous observation:

Try to imagine what the world would be like if anyone trusted the important things to the United Nations.

But of course, it's not just the UN that ignores proof. Consider Israel's capture of the Karine A in 2002. Initially the New York Times reported:

The Israeli Army said today that it had seized a ship carrying 50 tons of rockets, mines, antitank missiles and other munitions meant for Yasir Arafat's Palestinian Authority, even as the Bush administration's envoy met with Mr. Arafat in the hope of strengthening his declared cease-fire with Israel.

Palestinian officials denied any link to the ship, the Karine A, and dismissed the announcement a day after the seizure as propaganda timed to undermine Mr. Arafat.

This was followed three days later with an admission from the captain of the ship.

The interviews with the captain were rationed to selected news organizations by Israeli military officials frustrated that the smuggling has not gotten more international attention. They bolstered the Israeli contention that the weapons were intended for Palestinians for use against Israel.

As Captain Akawi did not draw a direct line between the shipment and Mr. Arafat. He said he did not know if Palestinian officials senior to the man he called Awadallah had been aware of the operation.

The captain also did not directly implicate the Iranian government in the smuggling, as the Israelis have, but he did describe a link to Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group backed by Iran.

Note how careful the reporter is not to implicate Yasser Arafat (or even) Iran explicitly. Also, note that this huge news was largely ignored "frustrating" Israeli officials.

A couple of months later this was reported:

American officials said that Israeli intelligence reports about the Moscow meeting were at the heart of secret briefings that Israel provided to the Bush administration after the arms shipment was intercepted.

''There's plenty of evidence to show that it wasn't a rogue operation,'' a senior State Department official said of the ship that Israel seized in early January.

Palestinian Authority officials dismissed the charges of any Iranian involvement in their struggle against Israel and denied that Mr. Arafat knew of the arms shipment. They said the allegations were an attempt by Israel to discredit the Palestinians and to justify Israel's military operations in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

''This is a factory of lies,'' Yasir Abed Rabbo, the Palestinian minister of information, said. ''Israel is like any colonial power. When they get in trouble, they try to blame outsiders. There has not been a single Iranian here since the 14th century.''

Iran also has denied any involvement with the Palestinians or the arms shipments. Ali Shamkhani, the Iranian minister of defense, told the state news agency, ''The Islamic Republic of Iran has had no military relations with Arafat, and no steps have been taken by any Iranian organization for the shipment of arms to the mentioned lands.''

And of course, note the denial. So let's to this week's capture of Iranian arm shipment to Hezbollah.

Here's the Washington Post:

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem, speaking from Tehran, denied that Iranian arms were bound for Syria and said "pirates" had disrupted legitimate trade between Syria and Iran, news services reported.

The incident comes as Israeli political officials defend their country in the U.N. General Assembly against allegations that Israeli forces committed war crimes during last winter's three-week war with the Islamist Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip.
...
Israeli officials offered no direct evidence that the supplies were bound for Hezbollah. They noted, however, that Iran is forbidden under a U.N. embargo to export arms. Iran is widely considered a major weapons supplier for Hezbollah and Hamas.

The New York Times:

News reports quoted the Israeli president, Shimon Peres, and other officials saying the ship had been carrying the arms from Iran to Hezbollah forces in Lebanon, but officials released no evidence to support those claims.

The capture of the ship came hours before the United Nations General Assembly began deliberations on the Goldstone report on the Gaza war last January, which asserts that both Israeli soldiers and Hamas fighters committed war crimes.

Note how both articles claim that Israel offered "no evidence" of the charges and that it came at the same time that Israel's responsibility of "war crimes" is being discussed in the UN. Both articles are effectively suggesting that Israel's making a claim to deflect attention from its (unproven) guilt. Just like Yaser Abad Rabbo did in 2002.

AP (via memeorandum) too:

But hours after the seizure, Israel had not provided proof that the arms were meant for the Lebanese guerrillas.

At least AP doesn't mention the irrelevant (to this story) UN activity.

Media Backspin observes that there is proof that the ship is Iranian in origin.

But what more proof does Israel need?

The Syiran and Iranian foreign ministers issued denials:

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, in a joint press conference with his Syrian counterpart Walid Muallem on Wednesday, dismissed the allegations out of hand.

His remarks were backed by Muallem, who asserted that contrary to Israeli claims, "the ship was not carrying Iranian-made weaponry for Syria or Lebanon," but was in fact carrying Syrian-made items for consumption in Iran.

"Unfortunately a number of pirates disrupt business activities and frequenting of the ships, these pirates sometimes act in the name of [Iranians]," said the Syrian Foreign Minister.

Well as far as consumer good being transported, Israel provided visual proof that it's not Syrian made toasters on the ship.

As Noah Pollak observes:

Moallem says there were no arms on board. The IDF has released a video of the ship's weapons being unloaded in the port of Ashdod. There are rows and rows of mortar shells, rockets, and crates filled with grenades

Power Line notes:

Our enemies don't stop scheming against us when we're not paying attention to them. Or when we're negotiating with them, either.

But there will be plenty who will cover for them aren't there?

Crossposted on Yourish.

MPAC-UK: "The planet earth is in real danger of being controlled by the Zionist thought-police"

Just when I start thinking they don't love me anymore, they post this:

The Zionist state is accelerating its Hasbara campaign, by forming "Internet Warfare Squads", their sole remit: to post pro-Israel responses on websites worldwide. This assault on free speech and effectively muzzling any criticism of Israel is a tool which will be used in the public relations war, the Zionist thought police are only a click away.

Ynet news reports that the Israel Foreign Ministry intends to hire young people who speak at least one language and who study communication, political science, or law - or alternately, Israelis with military experience gained at units dealing with information analysis.

"Young people who speak at least one language"--wow, those are hard to come by!

A budget of $150,000 has been set aside to pay the bloggers who will serve the Zionist state. [...]

I could use some of that dough.

This anti-democratic initiative is typical of the Zionist state, one that flies in the face of their self proclamation of being the only democracy in the Middle East. Any attempt to plant talkbacks online must fail. Especially if the State is behind it. Not only because it's easy to identify responses made on behalf of someone, but also because it's anti-democratic. When the Israel Electric Company or other companies do it, it's annoying. Yet when the State does it, it's dangerous.

Impostors on behalf of the government are threatening free discourse even if they only wander through the virtual space. The Internet was meant to serve as an open platform for dialogue between people, rather than as a propaganda means.

Something worrisome is happening here lately. We see the accumulation of silencing attempts. The Nakba Law, the bill calling for a ban on protests outside the homes of politicians, Lieberman's Loyalty Law, and the biometric information database.

The free speech hunting season is on. [...]

Never mind a Big Brother state.

This is far more dangerous.

The planet earth is in real danger of being controlled by the Zionist thought-police.

So what is MPAC-UK worried about? They have no thought to control.

Crossposted on Judeopundit

Goldstone commission report is not flawed

Judge Richard Goldstone has repeatedly referred to his commission's finding 36 incidents during Israel's war against Hamas to investigate. Augean Stables has studied the report and identified the 36 incidents. The Augean Stables observes:

In other words, we didn't look specifically into incidents of Hamas using human shields, didn't listen to witnesses who, taking that information into account, found the IDF took remarkable risks to avoid hitting civilians. Instead, they chose 36 incidents to investigate which "appear to represent situations where there was little or no military justification for what happened," and nonethess, found Israel guilty of targeting civilians. If Moyers had done his homework, he'd have noticed the absurdity of Goldstone's claim.

Indeed, the FFM, even as it only tangentially considered evidence of Hamas' military strategy of human shields, consistently dismissed any evidence to the contrary. The trope "The Mission found no evidence... did not find any evidence... for illegitimate behavior by Hamas and other Palestinian combatants runs through the report like a scarlet thread:

In other words the Goldstone commission chose the incidents to investigate, specifically because it determined that those incidents would demonstrate that Israel committed war crimes. And of course any incidents that would show that Hamas committed war crimes was ignored.

Yaacov Lozowick comments at the end:

One of the strangest things about the report, to my mind, is that the fact finders never made even the slightest attempt to figure out what the Palestinian fighters - Hamas or Islamic Jihad - were doing. At least in the case of Israel, they repeatedly asked; when Israel didn't respond they invented what they thought might be reasonable answers (they weren't). When it comes to the other side, however: nothing. They were in Gaza! They could have sought all sorts of facts. But no: for all the report has to say, there were evil Israelis, there were lots of poor civilians, and here and there, rarely, there were unidentified people shooting rockets. Was their any Gazan semi-military force facing the Israelis? Taking action? Planning attacks or fending off Israeli ones?

But really, it's worse than that. It's not just the Goldstone & co. cherry picked the incidents they investigated, they even cherry picked within those incidents.

This is from the famous Forward Goldstone article:

Some have challenged the report's version. These critics raise questions as to whether the Samounis' neighborhood was fully pacified when the Israeli Army shelled the house, as the report contends. Jonathan Halevi, a retired lieutenant colonel in the Israel army, submitted material to the commission citing accounts of combat by Palestinian armed groups that he argued disproved many assertions made in the report.

The Goldstone report made use of Halevi's material, finding that they actually supported Goldstone's own findings. But Halevi faulted Goldstone for failing to look into similar material freely available elsewhere on-line.

In the material Halevi sent to the commission about the Samouni incident, he focused exclusively on the military activity of Hamas in the area at the time in question. He found there was none and Goldstone cited this in the report as evidence that fighting had ended. But Halevi said that other information--specifically, the Web sites of other militant groups--would have made it clear that another militia, Islamic Jihad, was operating in the area on the morning in question.

In fact here's some of the information that Halevi gathered:

The al-Samouni family members firmly adhere to the version that there was no Palestinian military activity near the house and that the nearest military activity was at least a mile away, and that, they claimed, was limited to firing rockets into Israeli territory, not close fighting.

However, the official Palestinian Islamic Jihad version is completely different. In a statement issued on January 5, Palestinian Islamic Jihad said that on the evening of January 4 its fighters had fired an RGP from the Zeitun neighborhood at an Israeli tank and had opened fire at IDF soldiers. At 1:20 a.m. on January 5, a Palestinian Islamic Jihad engineering unit detonated a 50-kg. bomb near an Israeli tank not far from the Al-Tawhid mosque near the house of Wail al-Samouni. At 6:30 a.m., the engineering unit detonated a bomb near an IDF infantry unit operating near the Al-Tawhid mosque in the Zeitun neighborhood.23 According to another official Palestinian Islamic Jihad statement, one of its operatives was killed in fighting nearby. His name was Muhammad Ibrahim al-Samouni.

This means that the Goldstone commission used Halevi's information and
1) ignored his evidence of terror activity in the area - used it to confirm that Hamas was not operating in the area but ignoring that Islamic Jihad was -
and
2) accepted testimony from compromised witnesses as factual.

So when Goldstone told the Forward that his commission's report would not prove anything in a court of law, he was being modest. In a court of law, as opposed to a kangaroo court such as the UNHRC, he would be guilty of suborning perjury and tampering with evidence.

It would be wrong to say that the Goldstone commission's report is flawed. If it were flawed, it would suggest an element of good faith. But the conclusions of the report are exactly the ones its originators' intended. The Goldstone commission was convened not to uncover the truth, but to convict Israel. The way that the commission operated by cherry picking the incidents it investigated and the evidence it accepted ensured that result.

Congress was correct in repudiating it.

Crossposted on Yourish.

Challenging berman

Ron Kampeas reported that Judge Goldstone objected to a Congressional resolution criticizing his report.

We reported earlier this week the resolution that U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), the senior Republican on the U.S. House of Representatives, introduced condemning the Goldstone report, and urging the Obama administration not to allow it to advance further.

(Quickie refresher: the U.N. Human Rights Council mandated a fact finding mission, led by Richard Goldstone, a noted pro-Israel human rights judge, to investigate alleged war crimes during last winter's Gaza war. Israel would not cooperate with the mission, saying the original mandate, by naming only Israel and assuming war crimes had been committed, was inherently biased. Goldstone addressed Hamas actions as well in his report and accused both sides of war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity.)

Ros-Lehtinen marshalled to her side the who's-who of House Middle East luminaries: The chairman, Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.) and the chairman and ranking member of its Middle East subcommittee, Reps. Gary Ackerman (D-N.Y.) and Dan Burton (R-Ind.) respectively.

We briefed this, but I haven't had time until now to post the whole thing, and it's below the jump. Last I looked, it's garnered 114 co-sponsors (very good in a four-day period).

Also below the jump is Goldstone's reply. I give him a win on points.

Kampeas is being credulous here. Goldstone's response was incomplete and misleading. Co-blogger Daled Amos poked a number of holes in his response. More importantly, Rep. Berman or someone on his staff wrote a rebuttal to Goldstone. Clearly Goldstone believed that the term "respected" that preceded his name in so many news reports would shield him from scrutiny. But as Yaacov Lozowick observes:

One of the strange things about the report is that if you dislike Israel, there's lots in it that will warm your cockles. However, if you're into factual analysis, the report supplies endless demonstrations of its own profound biases and general lack of honesty and seriousness. Someone in Berman's office has done this homework.

To take the first example:

"Here are some comments on this resolution in an effort to correct factual errors: "1. Paragraph 3:That is why I and others refused the original mandate - it only called for an investigation into violations committed by Israel. The mandate given to and accepted by me and under which we worked and reported reads as follows: '. . .to investigate all violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law that might have been committed at any time in the context of the military operations that were conducted in Gaza during the period from 27 December 2008 and 18 January 2009, whether before, during or after.'

"That mandate clearly included rocket and mortar attacks on Israel and as the report makes clear was so interpreted and implemented. It was the report with that mandate that was adopted by the Human Rights Council and that included the serious findings made against Hamas and other militant Palestinian groups."

Response: The broadened mandate Justice Goldstone sought was discussed, but not voted on, at a UNHRC plenary session. It was then announced via a press release in an altered formulation, more restrictive than the formulation envisioned by Justice Goldstone. The UNHRC did not create a new mandate. The only relevant mandate remained the one which includes operational paragraph 14 of UNHRC resolution A/HRC/S-9/L.1, as was accepted by the Council on January 12, 2009. The January 12 mandate was also the only mandate referenced in the October 16 UNHRC resolution that adopted the Report.

This whereas clause focuses on the mandate. Of course, the far more important issue is the Report itself, which makes only limited mention of the rocket attacks on Israel.

This, by the way contradicts Kampeas, who seems to feel his job is to defend Goldstone, not report.

Goldstone clearly thought that if he made a statement everyone would accept it. In fact he has regularly claimed that his critics never read what he wrote and attacked him instead. Now that someone has challenged his words, will he respond?

"The terrorists' magna carta"

Israel's former Justice Minister, Daniel Friedmann, in an op-ed calls the Goldstone report - "the terrorists' Magna Carta."

Friedmann makes note of the inherent conflict between Goldstone's defensive claims and his actual report:

Moreover, Goldstone's claim that he was leading "a fact-finding mission" is refuted by the report, which is highly judicial, replete with purported legal analysis of international law, detailed legal findings and reaching judicial determinations on "war crimes."

As Goldstone told the Forward:

"If I was advising Israel, I would say have open investigations," he told the Forward. "In that way, you can put an end to this. It's in the interest of all the people of Israel that if any of our allegations are established and if they're criminal, there should be prosecutions. And if they're false, that should be established. And I wouldn't consider it in any way embarrassing if many of the allegations turn out to be disproved."

According to Goldstone, nothing is proven, but Israel must investigate, else be judge guilty.

Still, Friedmann gets to the most insulting aspect of the Goldstone report here:

I shall not elaborate upon the mission's biased recommendations which are not devoid of a ludicrous aspect. "The mission recommends that Palestinian armed groups undertake forthwith to respect international humanitarian law, in particular by renouncing attacks on Israeli civilians" (p. 1770). This recommendation is a plea to fundamentalist terrorists for whom terror against civilians is their raison d'être, who regard suicide bombers and murderers as heroes. Is this recommendation, which seems like recommending to the Mafia to respect the law, a lip service to objectivity, naiveté, or evidence of complete detachment from reality?

I really can't add anything else, but I will. Here's how Hamas views its role:

The following were the main points quoted by the Hamas-affiliated Safa News Agency, October 28, 2009:1

i) The [Hamas] interior ministry "coordinates with all the factions of the resistance in [the] Gaza [Strip]" [i.e., the terrorist organizations].

ii) The ministry makes every effort "to protect them and make it easier for them to carry out every aspect of their jihadist missions."

iii) There is routine coordination between the interior ministry and the various organizations: "We routinely meet with the commanders of the factions [i.e., the terrorist organizations] to remove obstacles between us. We have ended the security coordination with the occupation [i.e., the Palestinian Authority's security coordination with Israel] and have replaced it with jihadist coordination" [i.e., operational coordination to carry out terrorist attacks against Israel].

I could be wrong but this doesn't suggest that adherence to international law is one of the primary focuses of Hamas. Judge Goldstone will be so disappointed.

Crossposted on Yourish.

"Slap in the face"

Meryl noticed this yesterday. (See the end of the post.)

Barry Rubin summarized the administration's efforts in the Middle East like this:

The president of the United States has said that he wants talks resumed immediately and believes it possible to make a breakthrough. The Palestinian leadership is thwarting him on both points. In other words, they are responsible for the failure of a major U.S. policy.

So when the administration, specifically, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton points this out and it brings howls of protest from the Arab world what is the administration's response?

The New York Times:

Arab officials expressed alarm that the United States seemed to be easing pressure on Israel after Mrs. Clinton said in Jerusalem on Saturday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's proposal of restrained settlement building was better than anything previous Israeli governments had offered.

Mrs. Clinton said the administration would not stop pushing Mr. Netanyahu to do more. But she said that in trying to revive a stalled peace process, she wanted to offer Israel encouragement for moving in the right direction, even if that movement fell short of what the United States wanted.

"I will offer positive reinforcement to the parties when I believe they are taking steps that support the objective of reaching a two-state solution," she said here, on the eve of a conference of Arab and Western countries. "I will also push them as I have in public and private to do even more."

The Washington Post:

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton tried to soothe Arab uneasiness Monday over weekend statements she made praising the Israeli government's offer to "restrain" growth in Israeli settlements in the West Bank, saying it "falls far short" of the Obama administration's hopes and is "not enough."

Reflecting her concern over the Arab reaction, Clinton decided to extend her week-long trip to the region, scheduled to end Tuesday, with a previously unplanned stop in Cairo on Wednesday to meet with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. On Sunday, Egypt backed the Palestinian stance that negotiations cannot resume until Israel stops all settlement construction.

Clinton insisted that the administration still considers settlement activity on disputed territory "illegitimate" and advocates a freeze. But she repeated at a news conference here that Israel's offer was "unprecedented" and that it "holds the promise of moving a step closer to a two-state solution."

So faced with Arab displeasure, the administration backtracked. But the Washington Post observed:

Clinton's comments represented a shift in the dynamics since Obama took office, with initial pressure on Israel giving way over the past several weeks to apparent impatience over the refusal of Palestinian officials to resume peace talks in the absence of a settlement freeze.

And the NYT quoted Arab League Secretary General, Amr Moussa:

Amr Moussa, the secretary general of the Arab League, urged the administration not to accept what he called a "slap in the face" by Israel. He said he hoped the Americans would "try hard and in a firmer way."

And how would you characterize the official Palestinian response to Secretary of State Clinton's remarks in Israel?

"Why, Mrs. Hillary? How much did the Zionists pay you as a bribe?" taunted an article in today's edition of Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, which is controlled by the office of PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.

That's the "moderate" Palestinian response. And check out the cartoon. The Arab world actually slapped the administration in the face and the administration meekly backs down. The Palestinians, supported by the Arab world, show that they're uninterested in peace and the administration simply tolerates it.

Crossposted on Yourish.

"Iran Views US as No. 1 Enemy"

In which we learn that "We hate America day" is almost here:

The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) in a statement issued on Monday lashed out at the US for the numerous plots it has hatched against Iran's Islamic establishment since the onset of the Islamic Revolution in the country.

"The honorable nation of the Islamic Iran considers the US - the Great Satan - as the main contributor to problems in the Muslim world and source of plots and conspiracies against the Islamic Republic and the Islamic Revolution," the IRGC statement said.

Pointing to the US-led soft war against Iran, the IRGC underlined that the Iranian nation will make its unwise and incapable enemies face with a tough defeat through their wide-scale and strong support for the Islamic establishment to be displayed in their wise and dedicated presence on the scene, including massive anti-US rallies on November 4.

The statement came two days before countrywide rallies in Iran to mark the 30th anniversary of the seizure of the US embassy in Tehran.

Iranian students seized the United States' espionage center at its embassy in Tehran on November 4, 1979. The two countries have had tense relations ever since.

November 4 has emerged as an anti-American day in Iran with thousands of Iranian students gathering annually outside the former US embassy complex in Tehran to shout slogans against the United States and Israel.

Elsewhere in the Iranian press we learn from ISNA, "US budget for soft war in Iran due to Zionism pressure":

Former Iranian Parliament Speaker Gholam Ali Haddad Adel said the US ratification of a 55-milion dollar budget for launching soft war in Iran is due to Zionism pressure on the US management and major decision-making.

He said these issues will destroy the influence of the motto of change by the US President Barack Obama.

After the eight-year war imposed on Iran, World Arrogance came up with the conclusion that it should invade Iranians' thoughts through media and internet instead of military attack, the Parliament Member said.

Invading Iranian thoughts! That has Zionist fingerprints all over it!

"There are a lot of hands in the US for making decisions which show Zionism's pressure on management and major decision-making in the country." [...]

The only thing that doesn't require stimulus.

Crossposted on Judeopundit

Taking the smart out of smart diplomacy

Washington Post reporter Scott Wilson writes of President Obama's new approach to diplomacy "Shared interests define Obama's world. Wilson starts:

President Obama is applying the same tools to international diplomacy that he once used as a community organizer on Chicago's South Side, constructing appeals to shared interests and attempting to bring the government's conduct in line with its ideals.

Obama's approach to the world as a community of nations, more alike than different in outlook and interest, has elevated America's standing abroad and won him the Nobel Peace Prize. But on the farthest-reaching U.S. foreign policy challenges, he is struggling to translate his own popularity into American influence, even with allies that have celebrated his break from the Bush administration's emphasis on military strength, unilateral action and personal chemistry.

Of course as a community organizer he could claim that all sides shared the same goals, but if he was organzing against a business, the business likely had self interest involved. Its goals would not have been shared with those Obama was representing, but the business likely would have preferred to cede some of its own interests rather than getting labeled as insensitive or uncaring.

We actually get some wisdom from Tom Malinowski of Human Rights Watch:

"There's an appropriate reaction to the crusading moralism of the Bush administration, but it sometimes goes too far in the direction of hoping that reasoned and quiet persuasion will convince cynical and self-interested authoritarian governments to change their ways," Malinowski said.

Thought I don't agree the first part, he has the second part exactly right..

In September, taking a tangible step to improve relations with Russia, Obama abandoned Bush-era plans to station a ballistic-missile defense shield in the Czech Republic and Poland designed to protect the United States from Iran's arsenal. The Russian government had for years complained that the system posed a security threat to the country, already squeezed by NATO's expansion, in a region it has long considered part of its sphere of influence.

Obama announced a scaled-back system that he said would better protect Eastern Europe from attack. The Czech and Polish governments accepted the new plans last month, but conservatives argue that the shift only rewarded an aggressive Russian government to win its help with Iran.

"This was a clear signal that Washington is more interested in currying favor with its strategic competitors than in building or even maintaining its alliances with its traditional allies," said Nile Gardiner, director of the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom at the conservative Heritage Foundation. "There is no evidence the Obama doctrine is reaping benefits. On the contrary, the United States is increasingly viewed as weak and unreliable by some of its traditional allies."

U.S. and Iranian officials held the highest-level talks in three decades in early October, and later that month they agreed to a plan that appeared to mark a victory for Obama's approach.

Under the draft agreement, Iran would ship most of its low-grade nuclear fuel to Russia for further enrichment so it could be sent back to Iran later for use as medical isotopes. The deal, conceived by the Obama administration, would leave too little uranium inside Iran to produce a nuclear weapon in the short term.

But last week Iran's government reversed course in a sign that its own domestic calculations are still exerting more influence than Obama's brand of international diplomacy.

In other words it didn't work.

Towards the end of an article Wilson writes:

Obama also has spoken candidly to Israel's government, calling its West Bank settlements "illegitimate" while asking Arab nations to make a series of diplomatic and economic gestures toward the Jewish state. His call for Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to freeze settlement construction -- a Palestinian condition for opening peace talks -- has so far been ignored.

This inaccurate. Barry Rubin writes:

In fact, at the time it signed the original peace process agreement--often called the Oslo accord--in 1993, that's 16 years ago--Israel put forward its interpretation of the agreement. It said that there would be no new Jewish settlements and no geographical expansion of existing settlements. But Israel made it clear that it would continue to build apartments on existing settlements. That position was not challenged by the Palestinians at the time and it has never held up talks before now.

It only became a condition because President Obama made it one. Barry Rubin again:

Indeed, another Washington Post article of November 1, this one by Howard Schneider, pointed out--though only indirectly--why things got even worse:

"However, Obama's election raised expectations among Palestinians and throughout the Arab states that the peace process would yield quicker results from an administration willing to openly criticize Israel and, it seemed, elevate Palestinian interests."

More than that, it was the Obama Administration which called for a total freeze, distances itself from Israel, and took other steps leading the PA and Arab states to believe that by being intransigent they could get Washington to deliver Israel on their own terms. In other words, while everyone is being too polite to say so, the Obama Administration was responsible for the situation deteriorating.

Similarly, Meryl wrote:

But if you look at those words, and the words of Obama's Cairo speech, there is a cognitive dissonance that explains why the Palestinians continue to use the lack of a freeze as a reason to halt negotiations. Because the Obama administration opened the door for it use. And the Palestinians have never, ever not used an excuse to refuse to negotiate with Israel.

Later on Barry Rubin observes in regard to events in the Middle East:

And so we have come to the point where it is becoming clear even to those who have been ruled by wishful thinking that there is not going to be any peace and that the Palestinian-Arab side is responsible for this situation.

It is quite probable--and this is extremely important to understand--that there is nothing the Obama Administration can say or do in order to make them change their mind. After all, this is the ideal position from the standpoint of the PA, Egypt, Jordan, and others. Refuse to support talks, reap benefits by showing their militancy, and be able to blame it on Israel.

After all his efforts and alleged popularity, Obama has absolutely zero credit and no leverage in the Arabic-speaking world.

How is this going to affect Obama Administration policy and thinking?

If the conclusion of Wilson's article is any indication, not at all.

"Our interests are the same with our allies and our adversaries," Rhodes said. "We're saying the same thing to everybody. Our interests are the same no matter what country we're talking to."

Crossposted on Yourish.

Musical monday #115

Musical Monday is a feature that alternates between Elie and me. Elie hasn't yet posted the answers for Musical Monday 114, so you can still check it out.

I hope to add more tonight tomorrow. I don't know if the theme will emerge quickly or not. It was hard choosing songs because in some cases the same song would have made sense as more than one entry. And just to be different: One song appears in this list twice.

One other thing. I used Wikipedia as my source. I think the Wikipedia list looked plausible. If there's another source that contradicts Wikipedia, my apologies.

Anyway you know the drill identify the lyrics and figure out the theme. No Googling! Have fun.

1) 'Cause She Said I Blow Her Mind
2) Now I'm back in the ring to take another swing
3) I'll never break my promise or forget my vow
4) Remembering games and daisy chains and laughs
5) In Winslow, Arizona
6) We saw the writing on the wall, as we felt this magical fantasy
7) I hope life treats you kind
8) Slowly, gently night unfurls its splendour
9) But we are two worlds apart, can't reach to your heart
10) And that sweet city woman, she moves through the light,
11) Listen to the wind blow, down comes the night
12) Okay, so you're a rocket scientist
13) It's just a spring clean for the May queen
14) I'm broke but I'm happy
15) Made her look a little like a military man.
16) There were hours that just went on for days
17) I don't want another pretender
18) In This Place You'll Feel, there's No Hurt Or Sorrow
19) Someone to love, somebody new
20) Far across the distance and spaces between us
21) If you wanna party let me hear you yell
22) Got to be a joker he just do what he please
23) When you lose control an you got no soul
24) radio's on and I'm moving 'round the place
25) Near, far, wherever you are
26) Maybe get a blister on your thumb
27) Just Show Your Face In Broad Daylight
28) "Wrong, Do it again!"
UPDATE 1:
29) I can't count all the times that I've told you we're through
30) An angel's smile is what you sell
31) She's got eyes of the bluest skies
32) We gotta plug and think, we gotta feed it right
33) my Spanish Harlem, Mona Lisa
34) I'm such a baby 'cause the Dolphins make me cry
35) I feel stupid and contagious

Wsj football simulations

There's a neat tool at the Wall Street Journal for simulating brackets. Near as I can tell the results are pretty random.

In order to include the Ravens, I ranked the divisions by point differential.

AFC
1 Colts
2 Patriots
3 Ravens
4 Broncos
5 Jets
6 Steelers

NFC
1 Saints
2 Vikings
3 Eagles
4 Cardinals
5 Cowboys
6 Packers

There's also a simulation for College Football.

Next year in Jerusalem!

Al-Ahram succumbs to the current Arab hysteria about the Temple Mount:

Government-backed Jewish religious extremists have stepped up their efforts to seize a foothold at Al-Aqsa Mosque esplanade in East Jerusalem, ostensibly in order to erect there a Jewish temple.

Al-Aqsa Mosque is one of the three holiest Islamic sanctuaries. The other two are the Sacred Mosque in Mecca and the Prophet Mohamed's Mosque in Medina in Saudi Arabia.

On Sunday, 25 October crack Israeli soldiers stormed the Al-Aqsa site, firing rubber-coated bullets, stun grenades and tear gas canisters at Muslim worshipers. The troops also savagely beat Palestinian worshipers, including women and children. The paramilitary police, known as the Border Guard, also briefly shut off the Noble Sanctuary (the 141,000-square metre court housing Islamic holy places), barring Muslims from accessing the site.

More than 20 were injured, some badly, and dozens of others arrested. The Israeli occupation authorities also cut off electricity to the Old City of Jerusalem, including Al-Aqsa Mosque.

The new violation of the holy site by Israeli forces followed a call by Muslim leaders in Jerusalem alerting inhabitants to go to the mosque and maintain a presence there to repulse a fresh attempt by Jewish extremists to storm the Noble Sanctuary and seize a foothold to practise Jewish rituals. Jewish extremists, along with some government officials, hope that persistent provocations at the exclusively Islamic holy site will allow them to worship at the site and eventually build a Jewish temple.

Many Jews believe that the ancient Temple of Solomon stood where Al-Aqsa Mosque was built more than 1,300 years ago. Destroying Al-Aqsa Mosque and building a Jewish temple in its place is said by some extremists to be a condition for the second coming of Christ.

Hmm, I'd say they're a bit confused.

In recent days and weeks, Talmudic extremists placed a huge menorah -- a Jewish religious symbol -- opposite the Dome of the Rock Mosque.

The only reference I can find to a "huge menorah" placed "opposite the Dome of the Rock" is this article. Oh well.

Other extremists erected at the same place a model of the so-called Temple of Solomon. Israeli occupation authorities made no effort to stop the manifestly provocative acts.

Meanwhile, the religious Zionist camp in Israel, which spearheads anti-Islam provocations at Al-Aqsa esplanade, held a meeting in West Jerusalem during which Jews were urged to descend to the Islamic holy place and wrest it from the hands of the "goyem" (a derogatory epithet for non-Jews).

At the beginning of last week's Torah-portion, Hashem tells Avraham that He is going to make him a "goy gadol"--a "big goy."

The meeting was attended by several prominent rabbis affiliated with the settler movement, as well as several Knesset members and other extremist leaders.

Following the meeting, a statement issued called on Jews to maintain a presence at the "Temple Mount" to prevent Arabs from turning the site into "a theatre of violence". Participants urged Jews interested in "changing the status quo at the Temple Mount" to "work more and speak less" and to carry out their task "quietly and through subterfuge". [...]

No more huge menorahs, in other words . . .

Crossposted on Judeopundit

The blogosphere this week

Snoopy is hosting the latest Haveil Havalim on his site. Comprhensive. How can he go wrong if he starts off with a picture by Dzeni? If I may emphasize a few posts for special mention, I'd recommend this one by the Contentious Centrist, Seraphic Secret's trip to China and this one by Daled Amos. I'd love to recommend this one by Lady Light, but I really think that you need to read her previous post to fully appreciate her argument. (It's especially of interest because I see ads for said movie all over Jewish sites.)

Thanks for including two of mine, especially the one about Time magazine.
And BTW, happy 4th blogoversary, Snoopy!

A few weeks ago I retired from the Watcher's Council after 3 years. I was unable to devote the time to it that I needed to. But that doesn't mean that it doesn't feature some of the best blogging out there. Check out the recent entries.

And if you don't see a connection between Haveil Havalim and the Watcher's Council, the most recent Watcher's Council weekly winner, my friend, JoshuaPundit is hosting the next edition of Haveil Havalim, so get your entries in!

BTW, Twitter has added a capability of maintaining lists.

I now have a list to follow the J-Blogosphere (following Jack, Batya and Leora who administer the three Jewish blogging carnivals.)

And a list following the Watcher's council - or at least those who have Twitter accounts.

Conceived in sin

According to Al Jazeera, the impetus for the Goldstone Commission report came from the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC). (h/t My Right Word)

Al Jazeera: The UN's Goldstone report has been in the headlines in the past few weeks - not without controversy - and has brought to light the conduct of the Israelis and Hamas during the war on Gaza earlier in the year. Does the OIC see this as a step forward in recognising what transpired during that war and in bringing the plight of the Palestinians to the fore on an international scale?

Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu: Let me first start by completing the story of the history of the Goldstone report. What I would like to put on record is that the OIC was the initiator of this process.

On January 3, during the attacks on Gaza, we convened the executive committee of the OIC on a ministerial level. It was decided that the OIC group in Geneva should ask the Human Rights Council to convene and consider the possibility of sending a fact-finding mission to Gaza.

The OIC was instrumental in getting through this resolution and thanks to the good offices of Ms Pilay, the UN high commissioner, that she formed this fact-finding mission headed by Judge Goldstone.

On October 8, I visited Geneva and had a meeting with OIC ambassadors and the high commissioner. We revived the process again and the Goldstone report has been approved by the rights council.

Now as for the prospects of the Goldstone report, I think the first thing to mention here is that the acceptance and approval of the report by the UN's human rights council is itself testimony of the world's public opinion about what happened in Gaza.

This report has certain operative paragraphs which aim to determine who is responsible for the massacres and destruction - illegally and in flagrant violation of humanitarian law and the Geneva Conventions on the conduct of war.

I think now the OIC and the international community should work hand-in-hand to implement the proposals made in the Goldstone report.

The OIC, it should be remembered, opposed the arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir. In other words, in the view of the OIC international law is war by other means. It is an instrument to be used for its members' benefit or ignored if inconvenient.

The Washington Post editorialized at the time:

To be sure, some human rights groups have alleged crimes by Israeli forces in Gaza. But, according to Palestinian accounts, 1,409 people were killed during the offensive, of whom a substantial number were armed Hamas fighters. In contrast, the United Nations has reported more than 300,000 civilian deaths in Darfur as a result of the genocidal campaign sponsored by Mr. Bashir. Scores of villages have been systematically burned, and thousands of women systematically raped. Mr. Bashir responded to the ICC's arrest warrant last month by expelling international aid groups from Darfur. The result has been growing food and water shortages and new epidemics, according to the Enough Project.

Regardless of this blatant hypocrisy, Israel Matzav points out:

But the key figure in this article has nothing to do with Israel: The OIC is the second largest intergovernmental body after the UN. So long as internationalists (like Barack Obama) try to govern the world on the basis of 'one country, one vote,' there will always be an automatic majority against Israel and Jews everywhere.

So if someone has ambitions in the milieu of international organizations, playing along is a great way to get ahead. And who better than a Jew, someone who could provide a fig leaf to this ugly conspiracy to vilify Israel?

A number of reports on the Goldstone commission describe Judge Goldstone, as "respected," but perhaps "ambitious" might be a better description. South African ex-pat Douglas Davis explains (h/t/ Barry Rubin):

'Oh yes,' says a former senior colleague who was close to Goldstone for many years. 'We believed he saw himself as a future secretary-general of the United Nations. At the time Boutros Boutros-Ghali held the post, so it seemed a logical progression for Goldstone to become Richard Richard.'

It might appear unkind to doubt the purity of Goldstone's motives in joining the human rights industry, poignantly as Israel's excoriator-in-chief. But he is, it seems, regarded by colleagues who knew him well as an opportunist. And the record suggests they might be right. There is nothing in Goldstone's biography to imply he was destined to become a hero of the people, let alone a human rights champion. During his career he has executed some canny intellectual and ideological manoeuvres, leveraging past accomplishments to propel himself further up the pole of seniority and celebrity.

While many of his countrymen were fighting against apartheid, Goldstone was loftily administering South Africa's laws from the bench of the Supreme Court. The impression that he was at least 'friendly' towards the Nationalists gained weight when he was elevated to the appellate division.

That's not to say that he didn't adapt when he saw change coming.

Then, just as apartheid was reaching tipping point, Goldstone jumped. He became chairman of the South African Standing Commission of Inquiry Regarding Public Violence and Intimidation, a position he used to publicise the evils of apartheid and promote a new African National Congress-friendly persona (he refused to investigate 'public violence and intimidation' by the ANC).

Goldstone was on the road to redemption. With Mandela in power, he slid seamlessly onto the bench of the new South Africa's highest court. Yet this was still not the summit of his ambitions. He was ready to burst onto the international stage, and in August 1994, he was appointed chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for both the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. He had become a global brand.

So if Judge Goldstone is really Richard Richard, everything makes sense. Accepting the mission formulated by the OIC, is one sure way to get ahead in the world of unelected international politicians. However many times Goldstone piously claims that it his special responsibility as a Jew to investigate war crimes -

Judge Richard Goldstone, who headed the UN commission that investigated Operation Cast Lead said that he is saddened that Jews around the world feel that because he himself is a Jew that he should not investigate Israel. Goldstone said that as a Jew, he feels that he has a larger responsibility than most to investigate war crimes.

- in accepting his mandate from the UNHRC and OIC, he has violated tenets of Judaism such as judging fairly and standing up to a corrupt majority.

The latest revelations show that the point of the Goldstone Commission was to vilify Israel. Goldstone's accepting of it had nothing to do with justice and everything to do with advancement.

Crossposted on Yourish.

J-street cleaning

What happens when you try to present yourself as something you're not, and then events conspire to show your true colors? Well you go to a sympathetic reporter and get him to present your side of the story. It's very easy, really.

After its first annual convention last week, J-Street stands exposed as left wing organization that is very attractive to critics of Israel. So its leaders went to the New York Times, presented their talking points and got reporters Neil Lewis and Mark Landler to write a sympathetic press release Moderate in America's Jewish Lobby Causes a Stir

Did I get the headline correct? J-Street is moderate? Let me quote from two sources who are not as far to right as I am. First David Bernstein:

Opposing the war in Gaza put JStreet far outside the mainstream of Jewish opinion in Israel (and the U.S., for that matter); even the left-wing Meretz party supported the war, as did over 90% of the Jewish Israeli public. So JStreet is respositioning itself from left of Meretz to right of Labor?

and Yaacov Lozowick:

In spite of the difference between them, they are both pro-Israel. What stuck me was the degree of their disconnect (both) from the Israeli reality. Certainly Yglesias, and probably also Chiat, would fit into the Meretz part of the Israeli political spectrum - yet there's a reason Meretz hovers on the edge of political extinction these days. I'm not saying the Meretz position is illegitimate - but it does have to deal with a whole set of facts known to every Israeli; most deal by abandoning the Meretz positions, and a small number deal and manage to maintain their positions. These two fine young men - I'm not being facetious - are engaged in a conversation about Israel that doesn't relate to the world Israelis live in.

No matter how many times Jeremy Ben Ami and his associates say "we're moderate" the truth is that they are way out of the mainstream of the Israeli political spectrum. They also are not in the mainstream of American Jewish politics. In fact most of the people who associate with J-Street's positions are in fact anti-Zionists and hostile to Israel as the J-Street bloggers panel showed. (h/t Israel Matzav)

Here's the meat of the NYT's report:

J Street has only a small fraction of the resources and membership of more established pro-Israel groups, like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, and it remains unclear how potent it will be in presenting itself as an alternative. Nonetheless, it has had great success in quickly becoming a major reference point in the complicated debate over President Obama's Middle East policy as well as the more emotional issue of the appropriate role for American Jews in supporting Israel.

While opinions in the Jewish community have never been uniform or monolithic, several analysts, elected officials and pollsters said the debate over Mr. Obama's approach to Israel and its neighbors has sharpened boundaries between those who strongly support him and those who have grown more wary.

J Street has tried to position itself as a counterweight to groups like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or Aipac, which J Street supporters say require the United States to support the Israeli government too reflexively.

This sounds a lot more like J-Street's talking points. Since when does an objective news report use the phrase "it has had great success?"

The reason J-Street has had great success in getting its message out is because it is 1) well funded 2) politically connected and 3) can find sympathetic reporters to reprint their main talking points.

Landler and Lewis also write:

The issue of how much any American administration should press an Israeli government to make concessions for peace is at the heart of delicate and long-unresolved questions among American Jews. At the least, say the traditional supporters of Israel, any disagreements should not be aired publicly.

I think that debate's been over for some 30 years at least. No what's at issue is how pressure on Israel will help the cause of peace, when there's no reciprocal pressure on the Arabs. Or how further Israeli concessions will further the cause of peace, when Israeli concessions over the past 16 years have not led to any softening of the Palestinian position.

Towards the end of the article, one more bit of support is brought for J-Street:

Jim Gerstein, one of J Street's founders, said his research and other polls found that most American Jews were uncomfortable with Israel's settlement policy. But he said Orthodox Jews generally did support it.

Glad that the reporters acknowledged that Gerstein is affiliated with J-Street, but as Noah Pollak observed, this means:

So J Street not only commissions polls--it writes the questions, conducts them, analyzes the results, and then carries out promotional campaigns with the findings. If you were wondering how it was possible that J Street could repeatedly produce "polling data" that almost perfectly complements the group's political agenda, now we have one important clue.

Given how battered Jeremy Ben Ami must have felt after his convention was over, he must feel relieved that there were two New York Times reporters he could count on to help rehabilitate his organization's image.

UPDATE: One last thing. The Times fails to report one of the more bewildering aspects of J-Street's "pro-Israel" approach. Its university outreach arm, decided to drop "pro-Israel" from its self description. I know that the J-Street leaders have since said that they are undoubtedly "pro-Israel," but really here is an example of actions speaking louder than words. J-Street U knows that its pool of potential recruits is very small among those who consider themselves pro-Israel. That speaks volumes about where J-Street actually stands in the pro-Israel constellation. In a different galaxy altogether.

Crossposted on Yourish.