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?
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