"In Israel, There Is No Apartheid" Declares Judge Richard Goldstone

Rather like closing the stable door after the horse has bolted, Judge Richard Goldstone earlier this year retracted the substance of his notorious Report of the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, a document whose slanted opinions and selective facts had worked so much mischief on the Israel-demonising front, and continues to do so.

And now,  Judge Goldstone, who as a South African knows a thing or two about what genuine apartheid looks like,writing in the New York Times, has, in a most welcome development, stated unequivocally that Israel is not an apartheid state.  Hopefully, this will undermine the Palestine Solidarity activists who peddle the apartheid slur and urge BDS in making it as much as it will dismay them!

NGO Monitor takes up the story:

'In a continued departure from the inflammatory language and false accusations in the Goldstone Report on the Gaza war, Judge Richard Goldstone today in The New York Times declared, "In Israel, there is no apartheid.” His op-ed article is a direct refutation of the campaigns conducted by a number of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that have used the Goldstone Report to promote boycotts, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) and to demonize Israel, says Jerusalem-based research institution NGO Monitor.

"This is a powerful condemnation of the exploitation of the bitter experience of the victims of South African apartheid for use in immoral attacks against Israel," says Prof. Gerald Steinberg, president of NGO Monitor. "Those who invoke this false analogy to advance BDS, lawfare, and other forms of political warfare against Israel, have been named and shamed by the former South African judge who helped end apartheid and who was also critical of Israeli policies. This is a fatal blow to the BDS movement and the apartheid analogy."

Goldstone notes that "while 'apartheid' can have broader meaning, its use is meant to evoke the situation in pre-1994 South Africa. It is an unfair and inaccurate slander against Israel, calculated to retard rather than advance peace negotiations."

"NGO superpowers like Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Amnesty International, along with smaller NGOs like Al Haq and Adalah – many of which receive funding from the New Israel Fund (NIF) and European governments – have been central in spreading this false apartheid analogy,” Steinberg adds. "HRW’s Ken Roth was a key figure in orchestrating the Goldstone Report on Gaza – like this report, Roth is now completely discredited. Similarly, Goldstone’s words answer B’Tselem’s Jessica Montell, who has offensively stated that 'In some cases, the situation in the West Bank is worse than apartheid in South Africa.' She, along with the hundreds of other NGO representatives that have demonized Israel through the Durban strategy, are now exposed for their rhetoric that contributes to hatred and stands in sharp contrast to the moral foundations of universal human rights.

Additional key quotes from Goldstone’s op-ed:

• In Israel, there is no apartheid. Nothing there comes close to the definition of apartheid under the 1998 Rome Statute…
• Israeli Arabs — 20 percent of Israel’s population — vote, have political parties and representatives in the Knesset and occupy positions of acclaim, including on its Supreme Court. Arab patients lie alongside Jewish patients in Israeli hospitals, receiving identical treatment.
• South Africa’s enforced racial separation was intended to permanently benefit the white minority, to the detriment of other races. By contrast, Israel has agreed in concept to the existence of a Palestinian state in Gaza and almost all of the West Bank, and is calling for the Palestinians to negotiate the parameters.
• The mutual recognition and protection of the human dignity of all people is indispensable to bringing an end to hatred and anger. The charge that Israel is an apartheid state is a false and malicious one that precludes, rather than promotes, peace and harmony.'

Read more here

Meanwhile, Gerald M. Steinberg and Anne Herzberg have edited an important critique of Goldstone's methodology and conclusions, entitled  The Goldstone Report "Reconsidered" – A Critical Analysis.  Published jointly by NGO Monitor and the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, this new work can be ordered through Amazon or via NGO Monitor's website, where a list of contributors (who include Alan Dershowitz and other well-known figures) and their topics can be found, along with this statement:.

"Produced under the politicized U.N. Human Rights Council, the fact-finding reflected in the Goldstone Report has been shown to be largely inaccurate. Similarly, international legal claims were distorted in a manner that maximized allegations of Israeli violations, while minimizing Hamas war crimes during the December 2008 January 2009 Gaza War.

Applying a number of academic approaches, the contributors to this book systematically address the flaws of the report and examine its far-reaching consequences. As demonstrated, the Goldstone Report sets a highly flawed example for other investigations of armed conflicts and international justice. Its methodological deficiencies, double standards, misleading interpretations of law, and unsupported conclusions are antithetical to the universal principles of human rights, including the right to self-defense.

The Goldstone Report "Reconsidered" is an essential volume for understanding the principles, as well as the distortions, of human rights and international law,particularly in the context of the Arab-Israeli conflict."