Friday, October 09, 2009

Goldstone Goldstoned Himself, Now a Gallstone

Goldstone: ‘If This Was a Court Of Law,
There Would Have Been Nothing Proven.’

The interview here.

The crucial portion:

Goldstone’s findings themselves have, meanwhile, been left largely unexamined. The 36 specific incidents he focuses on in his report paint a disturbing picture of an Israeli army purposefully targeting unarmed civilians. But the facts of the report are built mostly on testimonies of Palestinian eyewitnesses, which have received little scrutiny or verification. Critics also call attention to parts of the commission’s work that they say was sloppily done, without sufficient cross-examination and double checking of information. Alternative interpretations of the incidents described are not considered, let alone fully explored.

Tellingly, in an interview with the Forward on October 2, Goldstone himself acknowledged the tentative nature of his findings.

Ours wasn’t an investigation, it was a fact-finding mission,” he said, sitting in his Midtown Manhattan office at Fordham University Law School, where he is currently visiting faculty. “We made that clear.” [facts? aren't they provable?]

Goldstone defended the report’s reliance on eyewitness accounts, noting his mission had cross-checked those accounts against each other and sought corroboration from photos, satellite photos, contemporaneous reports, forensic evidence and the mission’s own inspections of the sites in question.

For all that gathered information, though, he said, “We had to do the best we could with the material we had. If this was a court of law, there would have been nothing proven.”

That sounds lame, weak and silly.

But I'm not an antisemite. I just don't like political radicalism disguised as lofty righteousness and as championing human rights.

That approach is moral tranvestitism.

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