Soccer Dad

Goldstone - nazi hunter?

I had not noticed this before. Last week in advance of the vote on the congressional resolution criticizing the Goldstone report, Minnesota representative Keith Ellison, offered his reasons for opposing the resolution. (APN quoted Ellison favorably and opposed the resolution.) Rep. Ellison's arguments ranged from naive to dishonest to absolutely fantastic.

Ellison - naive:

Israel, however, refused to cooperate with the investigation because of the original "one-sided mandate." What if Israel had participated from the beginning? It could have pointed out that the U.N. Human Rights Council has a history of unfairly singling out Israel for criticism. It could have described Hamas's abuses, and it could have elaborated on the context of the Israeli invasion of Gaza, which includes a long history of attacks on civilians. Israel could have observed the difficulties of combat in urban areas. But instead, Israel condemned the effort and then attacked the final product.

When the Goldstone commission was aware of the "difficulties of combat in urban areas," the commission judged extensive Israeli efforts to avoid civilian casualties to be inadequate. As I've read parts of the report, it's very clear that the commission was looking to convict Israel, not learn the facts.

Ellison - dishonest:

I agree with my congressional colleagues -- and with Goldstone -- that the initial U.N. resolution of Jan. 12, 2009, calling for an investigation of abuses committed during the Gaza crisis was one-sided, focusing exclusively on Israel. That resolution was used by some countries to criticize Israel without acknowledging the abuses by Hamas. Goldstone initially refused to lead the investigation because of the original flawed mandate.

But Goldstone pushed back. He succeeded in expanding the scope of the mission to include an examination of the actions of both Hamas and Israel.

Goldstone's push back was never accepted by the UNHRC. Anyone insisting that the final report reflected an investigation of both Israel and Hamas, need only consider how infrequently Hamas was mentioned in the report to realize how weak that claim is. A revised congressional resolution said explicitly that Goldstone had, in fact, failed to change the original flawed mandate in any legal sense.

Ellison - absolutely fantastic

Why the fear? Judge Goldstone is no Israel basher. He is famous for apprehending Nazi criminals in Argentina, for serving as chief prosecutor for the U.N. International Criminal Tribunals and for chairing the Independent International Commission on Kosovo. He is motivated by his struggle against apartheid in South Africa. A self-described Zionist, he serves as a trustee of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and has said that "bringing war criminals to justice stems from the lessons of the Holocaust."

Goldtone was a Nazi hunter? I did some research and discovered, no, not really. This isn't to disparage what he did. Judge Goldstone was part of a commission that investigated the traffic of Nazis and Nazi money into Argentina. However it doesn't appear that the organization played any role in apprehending Nazis as Ellison claimed, and it seems that it was more focused on locating illict Nazi assets..

(Glad to know that the NJDC supported the resolution, but had no words of rebuke for Ellison whom they supported they endorsed for office - in part because he was deemed sympathetic to Israel.)