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October 19, 2009

Goldstone Pulls a Carter

Nearly two years ago, after the publication of Jimmy Carter's Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, CAMERA wrote:

In line with this defense, the former president repeatedly has argued that his critics, who supposedly have no grounds to criticize the factual accuracy of the book, have resorted to name-calling and ad hominem attacks.

In the Washington Post, for example, Carter stated that "most critics have not seriously disputed or even mentioned the facts ..."

This, despite the body of criticism by CAMERA and others dealing precisely with factual problems in his work.

Today Judge Richard Goldstone pulls a Jimmy Carter. Goldstone begins his Op-Ed today in the Jerusalem Post:

Five weeks after the release of the Report of the Fact Finding Mission on Gaza, there has been no attempt by any of its critics to come to grips with its substance. It has been fulsomely approved by those whose interests it is thought to serve and rejected by those of the opposite view. Those who attack it do so too often by making personal attacks on its authors' motives and those who approve it rely on its authors' reputations.

No attempt by critics "to come to grips with its substance"? In fact, here are analyses by CAMERA, NGO Monitor and the new site Understanding the Goldstone Report of the factual problems in Goldstone's report.

By denying the existence of his critics' substantive points, Goldstone (like Carter before him) does not have to answer them. Who exactly is failing to come to grips with substance?

Posted by TS at October 19, 2009 08:31 AM

Comments

Goldstone didn't let the facts get in the way of getting his free travel and reporting what the report was told to report.

If Israel had used the same type of force Sri Lank used to crush the Tamil Tigers, perhaps 30,000 Palestinians could have died. The UN says nothing about Sri Lanka and then focuses on Israel defending her border being shelled by an organization even the UN calls a terror group.

Posted by: gb at October 19, 2009 10:44 AM

I saw Goldstone on Bill Moyers tonight, and he was very convincing. I thought Bill Moyers did a pretty good job of playing the "devil's advocate," which I think he felt obligated to do in order to make Goldstone more convincing. I wish he had invited someone from CAMERA to counter the claims directly, since I see a stronger case here, after seeing the show. But I do wonder what Goldstone's motives might be for any anti-Israel bias, as he is himself a Zionist and has very impressive experience in investigating war crimes and human rights violations. Does CAMERA address the issue of motivation? Is it perhaps because the UN started so biased, and Goldstone had to take a stand against this, but felt pressured thereafter to accommodate the agenda of those employing him? He did seem like a sincere and caring man. I did think it odd, though, that he held up the US record in fighting war in Iraq and Afghanistan and other places as the good example in respecting human rights, considering that millions of civilians have been killed and displaced in Iraq since the invasion, and Abu Ghraib was exposed only through a leak, and many, many innocents have been killed by US forces in Afghanistan. All that said, I do think it is important to criticize Israel when criticism is well-founded. Is CAMERA willing to do so? Are any of the accusations grounded in fact, or are they all false or based on questionable sources?

Posted by: as at October 25, 2009 01:08 AM

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