"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."

In Praise of Israeli Justice: A Riposte to the Boycotters

In the wake of the reprehensible Boycott of Israeli goods that forms part of the platform of the Green Party in New South Wales, and in the wake too of Richard Goldstone's recent mea culpa in the Washington Post, political scientist Raffe Gold has written the following hard-hitting piece,  Entitled "Israel's Record of Self-Investigation: Obvious to Anyone Who Looked," it comes via the antipodean J-Wire service:

'With the NSW Greens so busy demanding a boycott of Israel for various crimes against humanity it appears that they have failed to keep up to date with the news. Richard Goldstone, lead investigator of the UN inquiry into the 2008 Gaza conflict, recanted some of the reports most incendiary findings and praised Israel for her ability to investigate herself and ensure that those few Israeli soldiers who violated the laws of war are brought to justice.

The far-left is hoping that Goldstone’s OpEd article was simply an aberration of history brought on by social pressures. This mea culpa, however, is par for the course in Israel’s long war of fighting not just its Arab neighbors, but the persistent tide of Western left-wing opinion that erroneously believe that the Zionist nation is fundamentally racist, amoral and colonist.


Over the course of her sixty-year history Israel has been forced to fight a number of wars for her survival or to ensure that her citizens remain free from the threat of suicide bombers, sniper attacks or rockets on kindergartens. During this time she has constantly evaluated her actions and taken appropriate measures to ensure that mistakes are learnt from and civilian harm is minimised.


In the aftermath of every conflict with her neighbors there is a major government investigation free from interference. In the aftermath of the 1982 War in Lebanon the Kahan Commission was established in order to investigate the events surrounding the Sabra and Shatilla massacres and found both the military and political echelons guilty to a varying degree.


Israel has consistently been willing to assess and evaluate the conduct of both her military actions and her political imperatives, yet the IDF’s self-investigatory measures pales in comparison to the role that the Supreme Court plays in deciding security policy. Time and again Palestinians have brought cases before Israeli jurists and time and again they have had their petitions to alter certain policies granted. The Supreme Court outlawed physical interrogation despite its proven record, it outlawed the use of the ‘neighbor policy’ despite the fact that it saved lives, and it ordered the IDF to change significant sections of the West Bank security barrier to ensure that it does not unnecessarily impede Palestinian daily life.


In short, Israel has a well-deserved record of self-assessment and investigation, yet more often than not this record is dismissed or maligned in favor of a good media story or scoring political points. The initial accusations made against Israel are usually shouted, yet when the accusers should recant they often do so in a whisper.


Israel’s enemies regularly accuse her of war crimes, crimes against humanity, or massacres. The infamous Jenin Massacre in 2002 occurred when Israel, tired of multiple suicide bombers against her citizens, launched a military operation into the Jenin Refugee Camp which had been a primary base of terror groups. When the IDF finally withdrew there were claims of ‘thousands dead’ being propagated by the Palestinian Authority and greedily being published by a willing media hoping to spin a David vs Goliath story with the Jewish state as the Philistinian giant.


Throughout the few days of combat the rumors of the massacre reached a crescendo before multiple investigations agreed with the IDF assessments that only 52 Palestinians, mostly gunmen, and 23 Israeli soldiers were killed. To this day, the ‘Jenin Massacre’ is still quoted amongst Israel’s list of ‘war crimes’ by her enemies and despite independent verifications that no massacre had taken place the myth refuses to die.


During Operation Cast Lead, Israel was accused of shelling a UN run school in Gaza and causing more than 40 deaths. Eventually, when the smoke cleared, the truth emerged that the IDF had never fired directly on the school, the total number of dead lay at 12 and a number of eyewitnesses testified that Hamas terrorists had fired from the street outside the school. This led to the UN admitting, after a vicious media campaign slandering the Israeli army, that a ‘clerical error’ was to blame for falsely accusing Israel firing on them.


During the heat of Operation Cast Lead, Colonel Richard Kemp, former commander of British Forces in Afghanistan stated unequivocally “the IDF did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare”. His call for understanding of Israel’s positions fell on deaf ears with Goldstone failing to heed his testimony. However, even with Goldstone’s recantation, Kemp’s words will not change the course of the anti-Israel mantra of ‘denounce first and ask questions later’ that has become the norm for both the international community and the media.


Far too often Israel’s actions, whilst at times deserving of criticism, are condemned prior to any evidence being demanded. The inevitable television shot of a destroyed building is more than enough for people of the world to accuse Israel of crimes that it never committed. Boarding the Gaza Flotilla IDF soldiers were equipped with paint ball guns to defend themselves. With the world too quick to assign Israel blame it seems we must go one step further and arm our soldiers with pillows. Maybe then Israel will get a fair trial in the court of public opinion.'

The Foreign Office Camel Corps Sticks by the Goldstone Report

Mud sticks, and so, I guess, does camel dung. Despite Richard Goldstone's virtual mea culpa in a recent Washington Post (see http://daphneanson.blogspot.com/2011/04/goldstone-guilt-of-gullible-man.html) and pledge to help nullify the report in the UN, Her Britannic Majesty's Foreign and Commonwealth Office is sticking to the notion that Israel committed war crimes during Operation Cast Lead.

A Foreign Office spokesman is quoted as telling the Jewish Chronicle (http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/47497/foreign-office-still-backing-goldstone-report) that Goldstone's comments in the Washington Post are due to "the process that was set in train by his fact-finding mission" and that since Goldstone hasn't elaborated "on his views on the various other allegations made against Israel in his report," or called for the report's retraction independent investigations of claims against Israel should continue.

Declared the spokesman:

"Allegations of breaches of international humanitarian law made against all parties to the Gaza conflict are not limited to the Goldstone Report, and have arisen from certain other credible organisations.

We firmly believe that any and all such allegations must be met with credible and independent investigations by the parties to the conflict."

There is a similar, amplified, report in the Jerusalem Post regarding Britain's perfidious stance. http://www.jpost.com/DiplomacyAndPolitics/Article.aspx?ID=215275&R=R1

Clearly, whatever slimy David Cameron and turgid William Hague might claim to the contrary, the Cameron-Clegg Coalition are no true friends of Israel.

They evidently have a well-planned agenda.

The Jewish Chronicle (25 February 2011) carried a front page article headed "UK pushes for 'two states by September'", and as Caroline Glick observes in her recent Jerusalem Post piece regarding Goldstone's volte-face, the "denoument" of current trends is likely to be the recognition by the United Nations in September of a Palestinian State comprising the West Bank, Gaza, and all of Jerusalem but the western portion.

Continues Ms Glick, who justifiably calls the Goldstone Report an "eponymous blood libel":

'The fact is that while acceptance of "Palestine" as a UN member state will be a blow, it will mark an escalation not a qualitative departure from the basic challenges we have been facing for years.

Europe already claims that by maintaining sovereignty over its capital and control over its heartland in Judea and Samaria, Israel is illegally occupying the Palestinians' land. So does the Obama administration.

As we approach the September deadline, the question we need to consider is what the concrete consequences of Palestinian membership in the UN would be? What new anti-Israel activities will international organizations and states engage in following such a move? And how can we meet those challenges? In general, the acceptance of "Palestine" will present us with new threats from three different actors: the International Criminal Court, the EU and the US.

If "Palestine" is accepted as a UN member nation, we have been warned, it will join the International Criminal Court and file war crimes complaints against us. While this is probably true, the fact is that even without the prerequisite UN membership, the Palestinians have already filed war crimes complaints against us at the ICC. Although "Palestine" must already be a state for the ICC to entertain the complaints, it has not rejected them.

But two can play this game. Say "Palestine" joins the ICC. Even if Israel remains outside the treaty, it can use the Palestinians' membership against them. Both Fatah and Hamas have committed innumerable war crimes. Every terrorist murder and attempted murder, every missile, mortar shell and rocket fired is a separate war crime. And every terror victim has the right to file war crimes complaints against "Palestine" with the ICC prosecutor.

As to the Europeans, the fact is that they have already joined the Arab onslaught on the international diplomatic stage and they have already imposed limited economic sanctions. They have set aside negotiations on upgrading the EU-Israel Economic Association Agreement. Several EU member states have unofficially enacted trade boycotts. Britain, for instance, implemented an unofficial arms embargo several years ago.'

Read all of Caroline Glick's piece here: http://www.carolineglick.com/e/2011/04/richard-goldstone-and-palestin.php

Goldstone: The Guilt of a Gullible Man

So Judge Richard Goldstone has more or less retracted that shameful, odious Report of his that found Israel guilty of war crimes in Gaza during Operation Cast Lead, a report that has fed the frenzy of antisemites and anti-Zionists eveywhere, and even been touted as a death warrant for the embattled Jewish State.

In the Washington Post Goldstone, an apartheid era judge in South Africa, writes that on the basis of evidence that has since become available the Report would be "a different document". 

'The allegations of intentionality by Israel were based on the deaths of and injuries to civilians in situations where our fact-finding mission had no evidence on which to draw any other reasonable conclusion. While the investigations published by the Israeli military and recognized in the U.N. committee’s report have established the validity of some incidents that we investigated in cases involving individual soldiers, they also indicate that civilians were not intentionally targeted as a matter of policy.'

Read his entire article here :http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/reconsidering-the-goldstone-report-on-israel-and-war-crimes/2011/04/01/AFg111JC_story.html

Appropriately enough, that article appeared on April Fool's Day.  But its readers are not the dupes.  Its author was made a fool of long ago.

No wonder Israel's President is demanding an apology to his country from the judge who by accepting blood libels put a noose around Israel's neck in the court of public opinion: http://www.jpost.com/NationalNews/Article.aspx?ID=214907&R=R1

The pity - the woeful, shameful pity - of it all is that Goldstone's original rush to judgment has had its nefarious propagandistic effects.   Binyamin Netanyahu has rightly and not surprisingly said that the Report should be thrown into "the dustbin of history".  But "mud sticks" (and no mud more firmly than when it is hurled at Jews and the Jewish State).

Just as in benighted corners of Europe even into the twentieth century ignorant country folk believed (perhaps their descendents still do) that Jews ritually murdered children at Passover to mix their blood with matzah meal, so the Report has stamped its impress on countless ordinary men and women.  Its negative impact on Israel's image is well-nigh incalculable.

As someone has so pithily described what many see as a retraction by Goldstone born of a guilty conscience: "It's a day late and a shilling short".