Neve Gordon is not happy that Richard Goldstone’s alleged past as a hanging judge in apartheid South Africa has come to light. He calls it “character assassination” and identifies it as part of a “a well-orchestrated delegitimisation campaign by Israel”.   At least he doesn’t say that it’s well-funded too…

What’s at stake here is not whether Israel should be called to account for its actions, of course it should, but rather whether Goldstone is a morally fit person to do so.  Note the word “fit”, he doesn’t have to be perfect.  Let’s assume that Ynet story is correct. Well, maybe he could have legally sent ten times more people to the gallows than he actually did or maybe he has since displayed a suitable degree of contrition about his role in sustaining apartheid, who knows? You’d expect that someone who sees himself as a defender of human rights like Gordon to display some interest in these questions but he doesn’t.

Perhaps he thinks that by ignoring Goldstone’s past he’s doing the Palestinians of Gaza a favor and side stepping Israel’s propaganda maneuvers. He’s quite wrong on both points. The first people to be interested in the moral adequacy of one of Israel’s chief accusers  should be those who want justice for Palestinians; if Goldstone’s reputation as a paladin of human rights turns out to be a sham then their interests  suffer because the degree of seriousness with which the conclusions of his report can be taken is diminished.

And if you were an Israeli who wanted the impact of scrutiny of Israel’s actions during Operation Cast Lead to be minimized, would you not be very pleased to have those actions scrutinized by someone who, apparently, had previously played a serious role in grave human rights violations himself?