Thoughtful Intervew of Richard Goldstone by Bill Moyers.

[Micah Schuurman]

In this incredible interview, Moyers asks all the tough questions. He doesn't pull any punches. He lays out all the arguments against Goldstone's report on the investigation into war crimes in the war between Israel and Gaza last winter.
Please, take 50 minutes to watch it.

Here is the link.

[Micah Schuurman]

Did you even watch the interview before posting this? Moyers and Goldstone address each and every issue that you raise. Goldstone explicitly states that Hamas was nowhere near him when he conducted his interviews. This is only one example of something that you wrote which makes me severely doubt that you have watched the interview.

One of Goldstone's criticisms of his detractors is that they don't address anything that he actually says in his report. Many of them clearly have not even read the report.

Along these lines, Col. Kemp does not address any of the particular issues raised by the report itself just as you do not address any of the particular issues raised by the interview itself.

Please send me an email: [e-mail]. I need to talk to you about some things that I am hesitant to discuss publicly. It is not as though I am going to start sending you hate-mail or anything like that. I simply need to discuss something with you which I do not feel comfortable discussing in such a public forum.

[Marc Peterson]

Whether or not Goldstone calls himself a Zionist Jew, he obviously has not internalized what it means for the Jews to have a place to go and a defensible homeland. He might not be a liar, but he should never have accepted the mandate handed to him by the laughably-named, anti-Semitic UN Human Rights Commission. The mandate was so biased and one-sided Israel didn't even pretend to defend themselves and Goldstone, who thought he could influence it more from the inside (which does make sense), should have walked away also. He seems to have bought into his own importance and is enjoying the kudos he is receiving from much of the world after his awful report was presented. Did you know that there were Hamas thugs watching and listening to every witness interview for this report? The fear those people live under washes away most of the truth from their statements since they knew what they were "supposed" to say. Following is a report given to the UN by British Col. Richard Kemp in response to Goldstone's flawed report;

Thank you, Mr. President.

I am the former commander of the British forces in Afghanistan. I served with NATO and the United Nations; commanded troops in Northern Ireland, Bosnia and Macedonia; and participated in the Gulf War. I spent considerable time in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, and worked on international terrorism for the UK Governments Joint Intelligence Committee.

Mr. President, based on my knowledge and experience, I can say this: During Operation Cast Lead, the Israeli Defence Forces did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare.

Israel did so while facing an enemy that deliberately positioned its military capability behind the human shield of the civilian population.

Hamas, like Hizballah, are expert at driving the media agenda. Both will always have people ready to give interviews condemning Israeli forces for war crimes. They are adept at staging and distorting incidents.

The IDF faces a challenge that we British do not have to face to the same extent. It is the automatic, Pavlovian presumption by many in the international media, and international human rights groups, that the IDF are in the wrong, that they are abusing human rights.

The truth is that the IDF took extraordinary measures to give Gaza civilians notice of targeted areas, dropping over 2 million leaflets, and making over 100,000 phone calls. Many missions that could have taken out Hamas military capability were aborted to prevent civilian casualties. During the conflict, the IDF allowed huge amounts of humanitarian aid into Gaza. To deliver aid virtually into your enemy’s hands is, to the military tactician, normally quite unthinkable. But the IDF took on those risks.

Despite all of this, of course innocent civilians were killed. War is chaos and full of mistakes. There have been mistakes by the British, American and other forces in Afghanistan and in Iraq, many of which can be put down to human error. But mistakes are not war crimes.

More than anything, the civilian casualties were a consequence of Hamas way of fighting. Hamas deliberately tried to sacrifice their own civilians.

Mr. President, Israel had no choice apart from defending its people, to stop Hamas from attacking them with rockets.

And I say this again: the IDF did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare.

Thank you, Mr. President.

[Micah Schuurman]

The US House of Representatives just overwhelmingly passed a motion to urge President Obama to condemn Goldstone's report. The rationale given in the motion is that Goldstone's report is biased. I just don't understand. What do they mean by biased? Goldstone is a Zionist Jew. Just watch the interview above... What is his bias?

Interestingly the websites for CNN, the NY Times and Fox News are all ignoring the issue. On the other side of the Atlantic, this is front page news for Haarets, the Jerusalem Post and Al Jazeera.

I just don't get it.

But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream! (Amos 5:24)