Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Goldstone aveva ragione

http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/Content.aspx?id=115389
ALLISTER SPARKS: At home and abroad
The chief rabbi owes Judge Goldstone an abject apology
Published: 2010/07/21 07:34:23 AM
AFTER carrying out its own investigation into last year's Gaza War, the 
Israeli military has finally confirmed several of the most serious incidents 
committed by its troops in that 22-day assault, which a United Nations 
commission of inquiry, headed by our own Judge Richard Goldstone, reported 
on last September.
In a low-key report released two weeks ago that seems to have escaped the 
attention of the entire South African media, perhaps because of its 
preoccupation with the Fifa World Cup at the time, the military has 
confirmed that three of the most serious findings of Goldstone's egregiously 
vilified report were true.
It has confirmed the fatal shooting by a marksman of an unarmed man (the 
Goldstone commission said a man and a woman were killed) walking with a 
group of Palestinians waving a white "surrender" flag; the shelling of a 
mosque during a prayer service, causing casualties among the worshippers; 
and the ordering of a criminal investigation into a fatal air strike on a 
house where about 100 members of an extended Palestinian family, the 
Samounis, were sheltering on the advice of the Israeli Defence Force.
The Samouni case caused particular outrage worldwide because Israeli forces 
prevented Palestinian paramedics from entering the house for days after the 
strike.
When Red Cross workers eventually got into the house, they found four 
emaciated Samouni children, who had been trapped there for days with their 
mothers' corpses. In all, 30 Samounis died.
The Israeli military has also indicted a battalion commander for authorising 
Israeli troops to use a Palestinian man as a human shield when entering a 
Gaza house.
The military report gives few details of its findings in these cases and 
goes to some lengths to minimise the culpability of its soldiers, saying for 
example that the shelling of the mosque had been aimed at an individual 
"terror operative" who was standing outside the mosque and that the injuries 
to the worshippers had been "unintentional and caused by shrapnel that 
entered the mosque". It gives no casualty figures, but the Goldstone 
commission said 15 civilians died.
Similarly, the charges and disciplinary action appear mild. Deliberately 
shooting an unarmed civilian waving a white flag is normally regarded as 
murder or, in formally declared wartime, a war crime. But the sniper is 
being charged with "manslaughter" and will be tried by a military court.
A battalion commander who authorised the human shield has been indicted for 
"inappropriate Israeli Defence Force behaviour" and deviating from 
authorised procedure. The officer who ordered the shelling of the mosque has 
been "rebuked" and will not be allowed to serve in a similar position of 
command again.
But the real importance of this military investigation is that it vindicates 
the Goldstone commission. It is worth recalling that Israel refused to 
co-operate with the commission. It also resisted calls by Israeli and 
international human rights organisations for an independent Israeli 
investigation outside the military framework.
In the circumstances, the four members of the fact-finding mission, which 
Goldstone chaired, called on the Israeli government and the Palestinian 
authorities to use the information they had gathered to carry out serious 
independent investigations - failing which the matter should be referred to 
the International Criminal Court. One can only wonder how much of a 
whitewash there would have been had the Goldstone commission never done this 
preliminary work.
For Judge Richard Goldstone, particularly, this is a personal vindication, 
for he was excoriated by leading members of the local Jewish community for 
chairing the commission. He was told his commission's findings were lies; 
that he was naive and gullible for accepting the version of events given by 
terrorists; and that, since he is a Jew, he was a traitor to his people.
His critics were given support by Chief Rabbi Warren Goldstein, who 
chastised Goldstone for "doing great damage to the state of Israel". He 
should have recused himself instead, Goldstein said, and taken no part in 
the investigating mission.
I have had difficulty understanding what the chief rabbi meant by this.
Goldstein is a trained lawyer as well as a rabbi. Did he mean that no Jew, 
however professionally disciplined - and Judge Goldstone's legal reputation 
is among the highest in the world - can be objective when it comes to a 
matter involving Israel?
And if so, does that involve Jews individually or collectively as well, or 
just the interests of the state of Israel? Or did he mean that it is a 
Jewish person's inherent duty either to set aside his professional ethics 
and find in favour of the state of Israel regardless of the merits of a case 
or, if that is unacceptable, to recuse himself? But that for a Jew to find 
against Israel is traitorous?
What are the moral priorities being expressed here?
We are not dealing with an ordinary individual in this matter, but with the 
head of a major religion in a multiracial, multireligious and 
constitutionally secular state.
We secularists need to know what a religious leader in our community means 
when he seeks to impose such an ethical dictum on a prominent member of his 
faith - someone who was a founding father of our Constitutional Court and an 
interpreter of our infinitely important national constitution in this new 
democracy.
I am reminded here of the conflict between the Dutch Reformed Church and 
Beyers Naude over the issue of apartheid.
I attended the Dutch Reformed Church service in Linden, Johannesburg, at 
which Naude had to respond to the church leaders' demand that he choose 
between the church's doctrine of support for apartheid and his commitment to 
the nonracial Christian Institute he had founded.
In other words, Naude was forced to choose between his moral principles and 
his loyalty to his own people and their church.
I heard Naude announce his decision that memorable day before the glitterati 
of Afrikaner nationalism in the packed pews before him. Smilingly, boldly, 
he told them simply: "I choose God before man."
In other words, principles, truth and justice before ethnic or group 
loyalty. It was the defining moment of that great man's life.
So I ask the chief rabbi that same question today: what is your choice? 
Then, at the level of plain human decency, don't you think, Chief Rabbi 
Goldstein and those members of the Orthodox Jewish community and the South 
African Zionist Federation whom you lead, that you owe Judge Goldstone an 
apology? A public, abject apology.
Leaders of the federation went to the extremes of cruelty when they took 
their religious war against Judge Goldstone (dare I call it a fatwa?) into 
the heart of his family by trying to ban him from his grandson's bar 
mitzvah. Eventually, but it seemed to me somewhat reluctantly, negotiations 
enabled the family to celebrate this important event together.
But I'm sorry, that wasn't enough. In this land of ubuntu, this land of the 
Truth and Reconciliation Commission, you must stand up, Chief Rabbi 
Goldstein, and on behalf of the co-religionists you supported in this 
calumny, bow your head, apologise and, like the man of God I'm sure you are, 
beg forgiveness of Judge Richard Goldstone.
- Sparks is a veteran journalist and political analyst. 

Hai dato un titolo alquanto ottimistico.
Il testo parla di "alcuni episodi".

-- 
Tb (bieco illuminista)

 Il testo parla di "alcuni episodi".
C'è stato chi (tu, ad esempio) negava anche quelli.
Povero tonibaruch: alcune intossicazioni, purtroppo, sono incurabili.

 C'è stato chi (tu, ad esempio) negava anche quelli.
Pensi di poterlo dimostrare con qualche quote?
-- 
Tb (bieco illuminista)

Tonibaruch ha scritto:

Certo, ma facendolo farei torto agli utenti: tutti ricordano il tuo 
entusiastico sostegno a Cast Lead e i tuoi attacchi a Goldstone.

 Certo, ma facendolo farei torto agli utenti
A me, no.

 entusiastico sostegno a Cast Lead e i tuoi attacchi a Goldstone.
Hai sostenuto che avrei negato gli episodi comprovati dall'inchiesta
militare israeliana.
Non ti resta che trovare i quote e smettere di svicolare. 
Su Goldstone non credo di essermi molto diffuso. Non sono al corrente
della sua biografia e la ritengo irrilevante. Ma mi interessano molto
più i quote della pirlata centrale.
-- 
Tb (bieco illuminista)

entusiastico sostegno a Cast Lead e i tuoi attacchi a Goldstone.
Che bei tempi! Il bacherozzo era diventato un militante della
propaganda a tempo pieno! Faceva il body counter e scovava morti
viventi e vecchie dotate del potere dell'ubiquità.

 l'inchiesta israeliana
a tal punto che Israele continua a rifiutare una commissione di
inchiesta ONU. Il che sarebbe inspiegabile se Goldstone e la
commissione israeliana dicessero le stesse cose

commissione israeliana dicessero le stesse cose
Ma hai presente da quali stati è composta l'ONU? Hai presente che
maggioranza c'è in quell'organizzazione? Sembrate tutti degli
alienati.

Der Bildungsphilister ha scritto:

Che patetico essere scodinzolante...

 Sei già in vorticoso backpedalling, pirlacchione?
No, anzi confermo tutto.  E mi basta rievocare le memorie degli utenti.

 utenti.
Mi pare tu ti confonda con Nahum. Fu lui ad occuparsi quasi quotidianamente 
del povero Goldstone, per un certo periodo.
Namib 

Persio ha scritto:

Tu invece sei il solito comico pallone gonfiato dalla calunnietta 
facile: ancora aspetto che mi segnali i miei famosi post di supporto 
alla guerra in Iraq. Pagliaccio.


O più semplicemente è un pirla (senza quote)
-- 
Tb (bieco illuminista)

Che patetico essere scodinzolante...
Ha notato un po' di difficoltà degli altri servetti e cerca di salire
di grado con qualche lappatina qui e lì.

Ma hai presente da quali stati è composta l'ONU? 
Diccelo tu, coglionazzo.