Letters (October 2, 2009)

A selection of letters published in the AJN print edition of October 2, 2009

Giving credence to terrorists

AS former advocates (barristers) of the Johannesburg Bar, South Africa, we are outraged and disappointed by the Goldstone report. The moral equivalent of holding Israel to a higher standard than that required of the Hamas terrorists and the dishonesty of denying that Hamas uses human shields to maximise civilian casualties when Israel retaliates, beggars belief.

The report gives more weight to the evidence of a terrorist organisation than to the actions of a democratic government doing what every government must — protect its citizens. Justice Richard Goldstone’s justification (AJN 25/09) smacks of expedient hypocrisy by blaming Israel’s refusal to cooperate with his mission for his report’s lack of honesty and even-handedness.

As an experienced lawyer, he should not have participated in a commission which, by its terms of reference, prejudged the issue. Even Mary Robinson, former UN high commissioner for human rights, who was invited to head this mission before Justice Goldstone, refused, saying the UN adopts resolutions guided not by human rights but by politics. Does he seriously believe that Israel should have participated in this farce?

Why did Justice Goldstone agree to head this mission? Although elevated to the bench under the former apartheid regime in South Africa, Justice Goldstone was highly respected as an honourable and fair-minded judge who sought the truth without bias.

What misguided agenda prompted him to put his name to this mission and report, flawed from the outset by the biased terms of reference, which will stand forever condemned and abhorred by civilised people?

MELISSA McCURDIE, St Ives, NSW
PETER ALTER, Pymble, NSW
BRIAN KAMENTZKY, Caulfield, Vic
ERROL PRICE, Vaucluse, NSW

Israel did not cooperate

YOUR front cover photo of Justice Richard Goldstone and unbalanced reporting was unfortunate and merely peddles the ignorance of the legal issues at the heart of the report (AJN 25/09).

Israel refused to cooperate with the UN Fact-Finding Mission because the resolution, which was supported by 33 votes, including South Africa, presupposed that Israel had engaged in an unlawful war and had committed gross human rights violations. Israel had good cause to refuse to cooperate with a biased resolution, but this had a detrimental impact on the outcome of the report, as many allegations against Israel went undefended.

The mission was unable to visit Israel because Israel did not permit it to do so, and so it entered Gaza through Egypt. While self-defence may have been a pivotal issue in determining whether Israel’s incursion in Gaza was lawful, self-defence is irrelevant to a war crimes investigation under Geneva Convention IV and similar laws.

Further, the investigation of war crimes is not, and has never been, intended to help the peace process in any country, and the International Criminal Court’s indictment of Sudan’s president is testament to this. With his experience in The Hague, Justice Goldstone understands this fact better than most, and the Israeli representative to the United Nations in Geneva accordingly supported him on a personal level throughout the investigation.

The flaw is not in the report of the mission, whose conclusions were inevitable as a result of Israel’s calculated decision, however justified, to not cooperate, but in the Human Rights Council Resolution that created it. Portraying Justice Goldstone as a “disgrace” and a “fully-fledged member of the international bash-Israel chorus” is unhelpful and conceals the true complexity of the issues.

TOM LEVI
Rose Bay, NSW

Goldstone report a sham

WHAT a complete sham is the UN report on the war in Gaza. Firstly, Israel would never have engaged with Hamas in Gaza if Hamas hadn’t fired 8000 or so Kassam rockets after Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005.

So does the UN commission take that into account before dispensing its poison pen to paint Israel as a pariah state? If these so-called UN inspectors were impartial, they would look at Israel’s history of confronting Arab states and their terrorist lackeys.

Israel only engages in military action when provoked and does not start it. If Hamas had reined in its rockets and stopped manufacturing them, there would not have been any need for Operation Cast Lead.

URI BUTNARU
North Bondi, NSW

Report calls for reflection

IS the front page screaming “Disgrace” (AJN 25/09), along with the usual hasbarah and the twists and turns about human shields offered by Alan Dershowitz, the best that commentators can do in response to the Goldstone report that highlights the disproportionate killing of civilians by Israel?

Israel was offered the opportunity to submit testimony in its defence and actively participate in this report. Did it? To quote the report summary, “the decision to hear participants from Israel and the West Bank in Geneva rather than in situ was taken after Israel denied the mission access to both locations. Israel also failed to respond to a comprehensive list of questions posed to it by the mission.”

Was the investigation random? No. In the case of Israel, it did not look at what happened in battle where accounts are disputable, but situations where Israel carried out deliberate and documented attacks on specific targets.

Friends of Israel and Palestine should see the report as a cause for serious reflection and should be urging their respective leaders to abandon their failed approach to the conflict. It further demonstrates that only international intervention and compromise, not war, can provide a way out of the conflict.

LARRY STILLMAN, LES ROSENBLATT
Australian Jewish Democratic Society

Goldstone and World War II

I NOTICE the controversy over the war crimes report by Justice Richard Goldstone. I wonder, using his criteria, how the Allied bombing of Germany and Japan in World War II would be viewed today?

JOHN BEAR
Maroubra, NSW

Report not one-eyed

IT may be a bit of harmless fun to declare oneself a one-eyed supporter of the Mighty Crows, the Mighty Wombats or the Mighty Potaroos, but it can be downright dangerous to adopt this attitude in international affairs.

The real sin of Justice Richard Goldstone is not that he is anti-Israel, but that he refuses to take sides in a manner acceptable to the Israeli government.

Yet this is precisely what the one-eyed supporters of the “Mighty Israelis” are demanding we do, no matter the cost in human lives and treasure. These folk tell us that the Palestinians should admit defeat in the struggle over Middle East real estate, and then everything would work out.

I cannot imagine that Jews or Israelis, if placed in a similar position to that of the Palestinians, would behave much differently. We would have our crazies too, people prepared to blow themselves up to make a political point, as well as those more level-headed -— hopefully the majority -— who do not believe that collectively punishing your adversary will get you anywhere.

Equally, I cannot imagine that Justice Richard Goldstone would take any side other than that of legality and unblinkered fairness, and never mind the special pleading from either the “Mighty Israelis” or the “Mighty Palestinians”. Go Goldstone!

STEVE BROOK
Elwood, Vic

NSW MPs hear Israel’s case

THE impetus behind the NSW Opposition’s motion against the kidnapping and continuing detention of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was not made clear in your article “Liberals side with Gilad Shalit” (AJN 25/09).

On September 8, at the initiative of the State Zionist Council (SZC) of NSW, through its executive director Aviva Kogus, the Alan Dershowitz film, The Case for Israel, was shown to NSW parliamentarians and Jewish communal leaders at the theatrette of the NSW Parliament.

The reaction of many of the MPs was one of surprise and interest. They intimated they had not been aware of many of the facts surrounding the history of the events leading up to the creation of the State of Israel, and the tumultuous 61 years since its establishment.

In addition, information about the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit , including the SZC’s “Blue Ribbon Appeal for Gilad Shalit”, was made available.

As a result, Chris Hartcher and Mike Gallacher initiated a motion against the kidnapping of Shalit and called for his immediate release. The motion was carried unanimously without debate.

Hasbarah, the dissemination of facts about what is happening in Israel, is an important tool in the constant battle against those who libel Israel and call for it to cease being a Jewish state. The State Zionist Council is at the forefront of promoting Israel advocacy and offers a daily email service of current events and opinions related to Israel. Readers who are interested should contact the SZC office.

RON WISEMAN
Vice-president, SZC NSW

Irwin’s best move

I’D like to congratulate Member of Parliament Julia Irwin for announcing her retirement from federal Parliament (AJN 25/09). It is probably the best political move that she, as an Israel critic, could make. Perhaps she will spend the free time she’ll soon have more wisely, researching the Arab-Israel conflict carefully and properly.

JOSH BARTAK
St Kilda East, Vic

Bush years harmed security

URI Butnaru (18/09) describes the Bush administration as “Israel’s greatest friend in the White House”. Given that during the Bush years (assuming he meant Jnr), the security situation in the Middle East significantly deteriorated, it is fair to say, with friends like that, who needs enemies.

RUSSELL BANCROFT
Sandringham, Vic

‘Jewish lobby’ jibe was humorous

NATHAN Pinskier’s complaint regarding 774 ABC radio presenter Red Symons’ remark, when speaking with caller “Harry of East St Kilda” about the “Jewish lobby” driving up the prices of Simon and Garfunkel tickets (AJN 25/09), reminds me of the scene in Woody Allen’s film, Annie Hall, where he claims there is anti-Semitism everywhere and uses the line, “did Jew (you) know …” to demonstrate his point.

To start with, Harry, who is obviously Jewish, is a regular on Red’s program, and they often engage in ironic Jewish-centric banter. Red also talks about the idiosyncrasies of different ethnicities and does so in a humorous and inoffensive way.

And lastly, Dr Pinskier, don’t you know sarcasm when you hear it? Red was actually sticking up for us by ridiculing the anti-Semitic rubbish we cop about the “powerful” Jewish lobby. Ain’t that right, Red?

HENRY HERZOG
ST Kilda East, Vic

Iran crushes human rights

IT is distressing to witness the heinous persecution of brave Iranian dissidents by the Iranian government. Unfortunately, this is but one of a litany of terrible human rights violations that have occurred in the Middle East.

There was the Turkish genocide of one million Armenians; the expulsion of 750,000 Jews from a myriad of Arab countries and the Arab massacre of the 2000-year-old Jewish community in Hebron in 1929; the expulsion of thousands of Christians from Libya; Israel’s abandonment by the world in 1948 and 1973 when it faced potential annihilation at the hands of its neighbours; the massacre of millions of Iraqis by Saddam Hussein lasting decades; as well as Syria’s brutal occupation of Lebanon, also lasting more than 20 years.

Iran has hanged more than 7000 homosexuals since the Islamic Revolution in 1979. The plight of women and ethnic minorities such as the Kurds, Baha’i, and Copts in the Arab and Islamic world continues to be of grave concern. The list goes on.

History is against the Iranian dissidents who dare to dream of a free and democratic country. Like the people suffering under the junta in Burma, and Israelis in Sderot pounded by rockets, there was hope that the current administration in Washington, the UN, and the so-called freedom fighters of the international political Left would be there to support them. Unfortunately, they were mistaken.

IAN KATZ
Caulfield, Vic

Abbas the best bet

SHIMON Peres suggested Salaam Fayad deserves to be called “the Palestinian Ben Gurion” because he is pointing to the leadership qualities that gave David Ben Gurion the guts to take on the Irgun as he needed to in order to create a unified state, to rein in his “extremists” and to win. This seems to be happening, to a degree, on the West Bank.

What we need to do is to decide, honestly, where we stand if and when the Palestinian Authority’s Prime Minister succeeds. Do we wish him to succeed? Or are we simply looking for reasons to maintain the status quo, to continue to build Greater Israel, while resorting to the old idea of “ein breira” (we have no option)?

FRED ZARTZ
Canterbury, Vic

Hakoah should change direction

I CANNOT believe the management of Hakoah Club has sent out letters to members to renew their memberships (AJN 25/09). We don’t even know where the club will be operating from. There are rumours it will be Bondi Junction or Double Bay!

This management has done a lousy job finding a suitable place. After all, they had two years to do it and $19 million to spend. It can’t be that difficult.

I say resign and bring back people to run the club who have had club experience and know what it takes to manage a social Jewish club. Hakoah is essentially a Jewish club, so why turn it into just another leagues club?

DAVID CASHREIN
Crows Nest, NSW

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