At 5PM EST today, you can watch a live debate between Judge Richard Goldstone - of Goldstone Commission fame - and Dore Gold, now of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, formerly the Israeli Ambassador to the UN. Their debate comes one day after the House of Representatives dismissed the Goldstone report as a sham and as the UN General Assembly deliberates over a non-binding resolution to refer the report to the Security Council (bit of a foregone conclusion, that one.)
In the meantime, here is an engaging recent email correspondence between Judge Goldstone and Gregg Mashberg, a leading New York lawyer and prominent Israel advocate.
Continue reading ‘A Correspondence with Richard Goldstone’
Honest Reporting has a useful summary of media coverage of the news that Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the Chief Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court in the Hague, is already considering a war crimes investigation of one IDF reserve officer, Lt. Col. David Benjamin. It’s called “lawfare:” harassing Israeli politicians and military figures with dubious, politically-loaded charges of war crimes.
Meanwhile, Ocampo, Richard Goldstone and others jumping onto the “Israeli war crimes” bandwagon would do well to read Richard Cohen’s take on the context of the Gaza operation in the Washington Post:
Continue reading ‘Waging Lawfare Against the IDF’
Here are a couple of key passages from the report on the Gaza conflict commissioned by the UN’s utterly discredited Human Rights Council:
“While the Israeli Government has sought to portray its operations as essentially a response to rocket attacks in the exercise of its right to self defence, the Mission considers the plan to have been directed, at least in part, at a different target: the people of Gaza as a whole…deeds by Israeli forces and words of military and political leaders prior to and during the operations indicate that as a whole they were premised on a deliberate policy of disproportionate force aimed not at the enemy but at the ’supporting infrastructure.’ In practice, this appears to have meant the civilian population.”
Continue reading ‘UN Human Rights Council Report Distorts Gaza War’
This cartoon by Steve Greenberg sums it all up rather nicely.
It’s a farce, it’s a shambles and it’s a disgrace. At the UN’s anti-racism parley, the world’s leading Holocaust denier stood up and launched a vicious stream of lies against Israel, Zionism and the Jewish people.
Continue reading ‘Ahmadinejad: “Racist! Racist!”’
Now Germany’s withdrawn from the Durban Review Conference. “This decision was not easy,” said German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier (pictured). “As in Durban in 2001, this conference could be abused by others as a platform for their interests. We cannot accept that.” Meanwhile, strident editorials in both the Telegraph and the Times demanding a British pullout.
Cards, dominoes, whatever gaming analogy you choose - it’s collapsing. After the US decision that the UN’s Durban Review Conference was beyond redemption, The Netherlands and Australia have now followed suit.
Continue reading ‘Durban II: The Second Time as Farce’
“It now seems certain these remaining concerns will not be addressed in the document to be adopted by the conference next week. Therefore, with regret, the United States will not join the review conference,” said State Department spokesman Robert Wood. More here.
An anti-racism parley with a Holocaust denier as keynote speaker. Welcome to the UN’s Durban Review Conference. Apparently, the Swiss President might be rolling out the red carpet.
This guest post by Felice Gaer, executive director of the American Jewish Committee’s Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights, was published by JTA. Gaer was a member of the official U.S. delegation at the Durban review negotiations in Geneva in February.
In all the deliberations over the U.N.-sponsored Durban Review Conference on Racism, the one abiding concern has been that the infamous first conference in Durban, South Africa, in August 2001, which degenerated into a cacophony of Israel baiting and outright antisemitism, will be repeated next month in Geneva.
Continue reading ‘Durban: Straight Talk’
Professor Gerald Steinberg has written an excellent piece on the Durban Review conference. While there are many commentators who argue vociferously that any contact with the review process is intrinsically toxic, Steinberg counters that we must acknowledge the “substantial and almost unique” diplomatic victory in securing the latest changes to the draft document, even as he concludes that the case for staying away trumps the case for staying in.
Continue reading ‘Steinberg on the Durban Review’
This is a guest post by Doug Lieb of AJC, editor of the new blog Durban Countdown.
Richard Falk, the UN Special Rapporteur for human rights in the Palestinian territories - previously known for his doubts about what really happened on 9/11 - has just come out with another novel theory.
Continue reading ‘Helpful Advice from Richard Falk’
This is a guest post by Manny Waks and Geoffrey Winn
Australia should follow the United States and Canadian lead in withdrawing from the dubiously named United Nations Durban II “anti-racism” conference to be held in April in Geneva.
Continue reading ‘Australia Must Pull Out Of Durban II’
This is a guest post by Michelle Sieff of the American Jewish Committee.
Today, buried in the New York Times, Somini Sengupta reports that in Sri Lanka UN workers and their families came under heavy shelling during recent fighting between government troops and rebel Tamil Tigers. Nine civilians died and more than twenty were wounded. She describes the UN response:
Continue reading ‘A Question for the UN’
The man with his back to the camera is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian President. The man warmly hugging him is Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, President of the UN General Assembly. The occasion for their embrace was Ahmadinejad’s viciously antisemitic speech at the UN last September.
Continue reading ‘Holocaust Memorial Day: Embracing the Devil’
