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Vol. 12 Issue
38…Dedicated to the Dialogue on
Race…September 20, 2009
Bit of History
Richard J. Goldstone
Born in
From July 1994 to October 2003, Goldstone served as a judge of the Constitutional
Court of South Africa. A committed human rights activist, (1991 to 1994), he
chaired the Commission of Inquiry regarding Public Violence and Intimidation,
which came to be known as the Goldstone Commission. From August 15, 1994 to
September 1996, Goldstone served as the Chief Prosecutor of the United Nations
International Criminal Tribunals for the former
He was a member of the
International Panel of the Commission of Enquiry into the Activities of Nazism
in Argentina (CEANA) which was established in 1997 to identify Nazi war
criminals who had emigrated to
During 1998, he chaired a high
level group of international experts meeting in
In April 2004, Goldstone was
appointed by Kofi Annan, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, to the
Independent International Committee, chaired by Paul Volcker, to investigate
the Iraq Oil for Food program.
From 2004 through 2008, in
addition to his teaching appointments, Goldstone was the chair of the Advisory
Committee to the Institute for Historical Justice and Reconciliation, an
initiative of the Salzburg Global Seminar. In 2008, the Institute became an independent
entity, with Goldstone as its chairman. He also continues as a member of the
board of directors of the Salzburg Global Seminar.
Goldstone serves on the Board of
Directors of several nonprofit organizations that promote justice, including
Physicians for Human Rights, the
In 2004, Goldstone was a Global
Visiting Professor of Law at New York University School of Law and the William
Hughes Mulligan Visiting Professor at
Goldstone is a Woodrow Wilson
Visiting Scholar in Political Science at
Goldstone taught at
Goldstone is the recipient of
numerous awards, including the MacArthur Award for International Justice, the
International Human Rights Award of the American Bar Association and the Thomas
J. Dodd Prize in International Justice and Human Rights. He holds honorary
degrees and is an honorary fellow at a number of renowned colleges and
universities. In 2009, Goldstone became the first person to be named The
Hague Peace Philosopher, which is part of the new Spinoza Fellowship
program run by the city of the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the
Humanities and Social Sciences (NIAS), Radio Netherlands, and the Hague Campus
of the University of Leiden. He is an honorary member of the Association of the
Bar of New York, a member of the
Goldstone has authored numerous articles on international humanitarian law and
written forewords to several books, including "Martha Minow's Beyond
Vengeance and Forgiveness: Facing History after Genocide" and "Mass
Violence and War Crimes: The Legacy of Nuremberg", which examines the
political and legal influence those trials have had on contemporary war crime
proceedings. He is the author of For Humanity: Reflections of a War Crimes
Investigator (2001).
On the 3 April 2009, Goldstone
was named to head the independent United Nations fact-finding mission to
investigate international human rights and humanitarian law violations related
to the Gaza War, which was established by Resolution S-9/1 of the United
Nations Human Rights Council.
A South African Jew, Goldstone is
married and has two daughters and four grandsons. According to his daughter
Nicole, Goldstone "is a Zionist and loves
Goldstone's Views Shaped by
Holocaust
By John Burl Smith
I think the truth is always helpful. If the truth makes
all sides that little bit uncomfortable, that's not a bad thing.
Judge Richard Goldstone, the head of the United Nations commission
investigating war crimes and crimes against humanity has spoke in many forums
regarding this subject. Following charges by his committee that
Interviewed just four days before
the report's release, Goldstone was unapologetic about his decision to take up
the job. "I was driven particularly because I thought the outcome might,
in a small way, assist the peace process. I really thought I was one person who
could achieve an even-handed mission." So with truth and openness as his
goal, Goldstone hopes his report will contribute towards the rebuilding of a
Goldstone believes this process
is very important because: "We live in a world today where there is
accountability for war crimes. This is a very new situation. There should be no
impunity for international crimes that are committed. It's very important that
justice should be done. I believe bringing war criminals to justice stems from
the lessons of the Holocaust. You see the Holocaust has shaped legal protocol
on war, because it was the worst war crime in history. Contrary to their
behavior today,
How did this come about? "The
perception of war crimes against humanity should resonate differently to Jewish
ears, in light of how the Holocaust shaped conventions relevant to the subject.
As a jurist, I viewed the Holocaust as a unique occurrence because of how it
affected judicial protocol on war, as well as international and humanitarian
judicial approaches. Laws, which were in place before the Holocaust, were not
equipped to deal with crimes on such a scale and therefore a new definition was
needed. These crimes were so great they went beyond their direct victims or
countries in which they were perpetrated, to harm humanity as a whole -- thus
they were labeled crimes against humanity. This definition meant that
perpetrators were to be prosecuted anywhere, by any country.
This rationale constituted the
basis for the concept of universal jurisdiction being applied by some countries
where Israel Defense Forces officers are charged for alleged violations during
their command in the West Bank and
Goldstone feels that had a similar court existed to look into the Pol Pot
regime in
Goldstone offered this evaluation, "I perhaps naively and certainly over
optimistically thought that
Stepping into such a volatile situation and accepting such a controversial
position, Goldstone harkened back to his decision in 1980 to accept the racist
South African government's offer of a judicial appointment, which he
characterize as, "The most difficult of my career. The government back
then occasionally appointed liberals as judges in order to 'make good its boast
of having an independent judiciary.' The danger of lending legitimacy to an
immoral system by serving was very real. But ultimately, the hope of liberals
that the legal system could be expanded from within to effect social change was
vindicated." One of Goldstone's rulings effectively ended
By John Burl Smith
Israel struck a civilian
population that remains under its control, it didn't fulfill its obligation to
distinguish between civilians and militants and used military force
disproportionate with the tangible threat to its own civilians. Air Force
drones and helicopters fired deadly missiles at civilians, many of them
children; the Tank Corps and Navy shelled civilian neighborhoods with weapons
not designed for precision strikes; soldiers received orders to fire on rescue
crews; others fired on civilians carrying white flags; and others killed people
in or near their homes. Troops used Gazans as human shields, soldiers detained
civilians in abusive conditions, the army used white phosphorus shells in dense
civilian areas and, on the eve of withdrawing, destroyed wide residential, industrial
and agricultural areas.
The United Nations fact-finding mission into Israel's Gaza offensive, Cast
Lead, last December 27 thru January 18, 2009 describes Israel as perpetrating
war crimes - a police state which persecutes minorities - and said the
Palestinian leadership in the Gaza Strip and West Bank may be guilty of war
crimes also. However, the 575-page report, which was released ahead of its
presentation to the U.N. Human Rights Council later this month, reserved its
most serious condemnation for
The commission specifies a number
of government officials whose actions contributed to the mayhem. First,
then-prime minister Ariel Sharon erred in 2005 in not seeing the
Second, Ehud Olmert and Ehud
Barak (prime and defense ministers respectively) erred in ignoring the Gazan
population's suffering, and in allowing the death and destruction the IDF
perpetrated during the
Third, the mission report said,
Fourth, none of the defenses
given in Israeli media after the
Fifth and finally, to its credit this report relied on nearly 200 interviews
and over 20,000 pages of documents and photos in determining that violations of
international law had been committed. Western governments may ignore this
damning report, however in places where UN documents are still taken seriously
-- public opinion, the media, on campuses and in think tanks -- it will now
serve as the basis of criticism against
For instance, with the help of
human rights groups casualties were set at 1,417 people including 926 civilians
during
Will
By Jeff Gates
Online reports of a study by the
U.S. Central Intelligence Agency cast doubt over the survival of
For more than six decades,
American support for
Though Americans seldom show a
strong interest in foreign affairs, that too is changing. While few of them
grasp the subtleties of one-state versus two-state proposals, many have seen
online the impact of a murderous Israeli assault on Palestinian civilians that
was timed between Christmas and the inauguration of Barack Obama.
The leaders of the 9-11
Commission acknowledged that its members would not allow testimony on the
impetus for that attack. Yet the report confirmed that the key motivation was
the U.S.-Israeli relationship. With access to online news, more Americans are
asking why they are forced to support a colonial Apartheid government.
With the election of yet another
extremist Israeli government led by yet another right-wing Likud Party
stalwart, it's clear that Tel Aviv intends to preclude peace by continuing to
build more settlements. With that stance,
That inescapable conclusion
leaves Americans with few options. After all, the
By December 1948, a distinguished contingent of Jewish scientists and
intellectuals warned in The New York Times that those leading the effort to
establish a Jewish state bear "the unmistakable stamp of a Fascist
party." Albert Einstein joined concerned Jews who cautioned Americans
"not to support this latest manifestation of fascism."
Only in the past few weeks has the momentum emerged to subject
The focal point for peace in the
The key issue need no longer be a subject of endless debate. There must be a
one-state solution consistent with democratic principles of full equality.
Informed Americans are no longer willing to support a theocratic state in which
full citizenship is limited to those deemed "Jewish" (whatever that
means). If local birth rates suggest an eventual end to the "Jewish
state," then so be it. Why wait two decades when this nightmare can be
drawn to a close in less than five years?
Forget about a return to pre-1967 borders, instead return to pre-1948 borders.
Designate
Those who consider themselves "Jewish" can remain as part of an
inclusive democracy. Or they can depart. Americans must consider how many of
these extremists it wants to welcome to a nation already straining under an
immigration burden. A reported 500,000 Israelis hold
Zionists originally saw
By withdrawing
Unless pro-Israelis can create another crisis by inducing an invasion of Iran
(or a race war), Americans will soon realize that only one "state"
had the means, motivation, opportunity and stable nation-state intelligence
required to fix the intelligence that led the U.S. to invade Iraq consistent
with the expansionist goals of Colonial Zionism.
Intelligence now working its way to transparency will soon confirm that, but
for Zionists within the
About Me: A widely acclaimed author,
attorney, investment banker, educator and consultant to government, corporate
and union leaders worldwide, Gates' latest book is Guilt By Association-How
Deception and Self-Deceit Took America to War (2008). His previous works
include Democracy at Risk: Rescuing Main Street From Wall Street and The
Ownership Solution: Toward a Shared Capitalism for the 21st Century.
The Waldorf-Astoria
By Uri Avnery
No point denying it: in the first
round of the match between Barack Obama and Binyamin Netanyahu, Obama was
beaten. Obama had demanded a freeze of all settlement activity, including East
Jerusalem, as a condition for convening a tripartite summit meeting, in the
wake of which accelerated peace negotiations were to start, leading to peace
between two states - Israel and Palestine.
In the words of the ancient
proverb, a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. Netanyahu has
tripped Obama on his first step. The President of the
The threefold summit did indeed
take place. But instead of a shining achievement for the new American
administration, we witnessed a humbling demonstration of weakness. After Obama
was compelled to give up his demand for a settlement freeze, the meeting no
longer had any content.
True, Mahmoud Abbas did come,
after all. He was dragged there against his will. The poor man was unable to
refuse the invitation from Obama, his only support. But he will pay a heavy
price for this flight: the Palestinians, and the entire Arab world, have seen
his weakness. And Obama, who had started his term with a ringing speech to the
Muslim world from
The Israeli peace movement has been dealt another painful blow. It had pinned
its hopes on the steadfastness of the American president. Obama's victory and
the settlement freeze were to show the Israeli public that the refusal policy
of Netanyahu was leading to disaster.
But Netanyahu has won, and in a big way. Not only did he survive, not only has
he shown that he is no "sucker" (a word he uses all the time), he has
proven to his people - and to the public at large - that there is nothing to
fear: Obama is nothing but a paper tiger. The settlements can go on expanding
without hindrance. Any negotiations that start, if they start at all, can go on
until the coming of the Messiah. Nothing will come out of them. For Netanyahu,
the threat of peace has passed. At least for the time being.
It is difficult to understand how
Obama allowed himself to get into this embarrassing situation. Machiavelli
taught that one should not challenge a lion unless one is able to kill him. And
Netanyahu is not even a lion, just a fox.
Logic would say that Obama, before entering the fray, should have decided which
instruments of pressure to employ. The arsenal is inexhaustible - from a threat
by the
It seems that Obama was either unable or unwilling to exert such pressures,
even secretly, even behind the scenes. This week he allowed the American navy
to conduct major joint war-games with the Israeli Air Force.
Some people hoped that Obama
would use the Goldstone report to exert pressure on Netanyahu. Just one hint that
the
True, it is hard for the
The inescapable conclusion is that Obama's defeat is the outcome of a faulty
assessment of the situation. His advisors, who are considered seasoned
politicians, were wrong about the forces involved.
The 2000 threefold summit meeting at
Harvesting Organs
"A Jew is entitled to
extract the liver from a goy if he needs it, for the life of a Jew is more
valuable than the life of a goy, likewise the life of a goy is more valuable
than the life of an animal." Khabbad rabbi, Yitzhak Ginzburg
On August 8, 2009, a leading
Swedish newspaper reported that Israeli soldiers are abducting Palestinians in
order to steal their organs. "They plunder the organs of our sons,"
read the headline in
The report quotes Palestinian
claims that young men from the
Boström's article makes a
link to the recent exposure of an alleged crime syndicate in
You could call me a 'matchmaker,'
said Levy Izhak Rosenbaum, from
It was all about buying and selling kidneys from
On the question of how many organs he has sold Rosenbaum replies: "Quite a
lot. And I have never failed," he boasts. The business has been running
for quite some time. Francis Delmonici, professor of transplant surgery at
Harvard and member of the National Kidney Foundation's Board of Directors,
tells the same newspaper that organ-trafficking, similar to the one reported
from Israel, is carried out in other places of the world as well. 5-6,000
operations a year, about ten per cent of the world's kidney transplants are
carried out illegally, according to Delmonici.
Boström also cites an incident of alleged organ snatching from 1992,
during the time of the first Palestinian intifada. He says that the IDF seized
a young man known for throwing stones at Israeli troops in the Nablus area, who
was shot in the chest, both legs, and the stomach before being taken to a
military helicopter which transported him to "a place unknown to his loved
ones".
Five nights later, Boström
says, the young man's body was returned, wrapped in green hospital sheets.
"The sharp sounds from the shovels were mixed with the occasional laughter
from the soldiers who were joking with each other, waiting to go home. When
Bilal was put into his grave, his chest was revealed and suddenly it became
clear to the present what abuse he had been put through.
Bilal was far from the only one
who was buried cut-up from his stomach to his chin and the speculations about
the reason why had already started," he writes.
Half of the kidneys transplanted
to Israelis since the beginning of the 2000s have been bought illegally from
At a 2003 conference, it was shown that
In the summer of 1992, Ehud Olmert, then minister of health, tried to address
the issue of organ shortage by launching a big campaign aimed at having the
Israeli public register for post mortem organ donation. Half a million
pamphlets were spread in local newspapers.
Ehud Olmert himself was the first person to sign up. A couple of weeks later
the Jerusalem Post reported that the campaign was a success. No fewer than
35,000 people had signed up.
Prior to the campaign it would have been 500 in a normal month. In the same
article, however, Judy Siegel, the reporter, wrote that the gap between supply
and demand was still large. 500 people were in line for a kidney transplant,
but only 124 transplants could be performed. Of 45 people in need of a new
liver, only three could be operated on in
Mailbox: E-Mails, Faxes and
Phone Calls
Email www.presstv.ir
...
Email news@ihr.org ...Hollywood denounces
"boycott Israel" call made at Toronto International Film
Festival...Hollywood fights back against anti-Israeli sentiment…Ad
denounces boycott demands made at Toronto International Film Festival...By Tina
Daunt...Left, right or center, there's two things nearly everybody in Hollywood
agrees on: There's no disease that can't be cured by raising enough money and
the state of Israel deserves unabashed support. These days, sympathy for
Email www.conspiracyplanet.com...The Hidden Truth
about Israel Kidney Theft Ring...By Joseph Cannon...Where do the kidneys come
from? I'm talking about the kidneys offered by an "organist" named
Izzy Rosenbaum. The FBI scooped him up in a corruption probe that focused on
pay-offs to New Jersey pols (nothing surprising about that) and money
laundering by prominent rabbis: The probe also uncovered Levy Izhak Rosenbaum
of Brooklyn, who is accused of conspiring to broker the sale of a human kidney
for a transplant. According to the complaint, Rosenbaum said he had been
brokering sale of kidneys for 10 years. "His business was to entice
vulnerable people to give up a kidney for $10,000 which he would turn around
and sell for $160,000," said Marra. Marra is a