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Congress to Weigh in on UN's Gaza Report
House resolution calls the findings 'irredeemably biased'
The House of Representatives on Tuesday is poised to pass a nonbinding resolution condemning a controversial U.N. report on alleged Israeli war crimes in the Gaza Strip that has become a major complication in Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's diplomacy in the Middle East this weekend.
Fire and smoke rise into the sky from an Israeli air strike in Gaza City on January 3. The US House of Representatives is expected to vote Tuesday on a resolution calling on President Barack Obama to reject the UN's Goldstone report, which accuses Israel and Palestinian militants of war crimes in Gaza. (AFP/File/Mahmud Hams) Clinton will meet in Abu Dhabi on Saturday with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, who has seen his popularity plummet since he initially agreed under pressure from the Obama administration to defer U.N. consideration of the report. He later shifted course, and now the U.N. General Assembly will consider it on Wednesday. But Israeli officials have warned that any effort by the United Nations to add further legitimacy to the report will undermine the administration's efforts to relaunch peace talks with the Palestinians.
The resolution, co-sponsored by the two senior members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Calif.) and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), charges that the report by South African jurist Richard Goldstone for the U.N. Human Rights Council is "irredeemably biased and unworthy of further consideration or legitimacy," in part because it was based on "a flawed and biased mandate," and that the militant group Hamas was able to "significantly shape the findings of the investigation." Lawmakers expect it to win easy approval under a fast-track procedure that allows for no amendments.
The White House has taken no position on the House resolution, which is supported by many major Jewish organizations. The administration has previously said that the report is flawed but raises "important issues and serious allegations," and it has urged Israel to investigate its conduct in the conflict more closely.
"AIPAC, in concert with every mainstream pro-Israel organization in the United States, supports this important resolution," said Josh Block, a spokesman for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. "In echoing the administration's condemnation and calling for concrete action, Congress will be sending the strong message that the United States will not stand for turning the victim into the perpetrator."
However, a new Jewish organization, J Street, has taken a sharply different tack, saying it could not support the resolution as drafted. "The resolution will pass in its current form," said Jeremy Ben-Ami, executive director of J Street. "Yet it puts members of Congress in an uncomfortable box because it is factually inaccurate and contains gross misrepresentations" about the Goldstone report.
J Street this week held its first major conference in Washington, which included a major speech by national security adviser James L. Jones.
Israeli leaders say that they launched the Gaza war in self-defense, after years of Hamas rocket and mortar fire into Israel, and that the Goldstone study played down that part of the conflict. The Goldstone report focused on civilian casualties and whether Israeli military practices -- from the use of white phosphorus munitions to the conduct of combat soldiers -- did enough to minimize them. The report also charges that Hamas and its rival Palestinian faction, Fatah, have carried out attacks, including torture and assassinations, against each other's members.
Goldstone, in a letter to Berman and Ros-Lehtinen, has complained of numerous inaccuracies in the resolution about his report. But Lynne Weil, a spokeswoman for Berman, said that the chairman believes Goldstone's letter contains "a number of points that are inaccurate" and that he will "issue a complete response" to Goldstone before the House vote.
78 Comments so far
Show AllAs AIPAC goes, so goes the Congress.
And the White House.
And the State Department.
And the Pentagon.
And the media.
A little tweaking.
W hite House
A IPAC
S tate department
P entagon.
Ah, our Elected Misrepresentatives! Not for nothing did the keen-witted Mark Twain characterize Congress as "America's only native criminal class".
Twain was being a little too kind, I think, in leaving it at that-- but then, he always WAS a good-hearted and generous man.
If hens laid eggs as promptly and prolifically as these models of barbaric depravity lay base, self-serving prevarications, world famine would be but a distant memory.
I suppose we may chalk this latest travesty up to the abiding Honor Among War Criminals.
· Yr Obd't Servant
I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has ever defended the rights of the Palestinians: I thank you so much from the bottom of my heart.
The following is a link to my village in the West Bank. Please come visit and enjoy it:
http://www.hcsn.org/aboudyouth/main_en.html
Thank you again and keep up the good fight. Take care.
Esam
It is good to hear a voice from the west bank. It is unfortunate that people that were once supremely victimized have turned full suit and are perpetuating an equal injustice on the Palestinians. It is irrelevant what the Palestinians have done in the past 50 or so years. The Israeli's STOLE their land from them. What person does not strike out at a thief in his house.
If the Jewish people had once owned it 12 billion years ago, so what? I am sure my ancestors once owned parts of England, is everyone going to be okay with it if I grab a bunch of fellow Irish assholes and weapons, money, and other support from say, China, and say killed or "relocated" everyone who lived there for 200 miles around the Blarney Stone, which is historically and religiously central to those of my culture. And basically China is sending me, like atomic weapons, cool guns and tanks, and nice jet planes, and they send "advisors" (assassins) to help me with my "problems" (opposition leaders), China sends me money and swaggers around threatening everybody who is opposed to the fact that I have "re-annexed" my ancestral lands. And I am still subjegating the original inhabitants that are left. And I get mad when those people retaliate and kill some of my people and so i kill a lot more people than they did in retaliation and there is more retaliation and I am saying "hey see, he hit me!" as I strike back at a disproportionate number of civilians.
This pretty well parallells what has happened and yet are you seriously okay with it, cuz, I mean, like, I miss the Blarney Stone, I need it in my life, that most sacred of geographical locations in my religious history. I mean if we're all good, I'll gather up the boys, call my Chinese contacts, and I'm off to retake Jerusale... er... The Blarney Stone!!!
Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post wrote:
"U.N. report on alleged Israeli war crimes in the Gaza Strip that has become a major complication in Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's diplomacy in the Middle East this weekend."
Have you noticed the newspeak "become a major complication"?
As if before the report was published in September, Obama and Hillary were getting anything accomplished as far as the so-called peace process goes. As if Israel didn't snub Obama when he demanded a halt to colony building.
Then, of course there is the doublespeak and spin that portrays the Goldstone report itself as an obstacle, instead of pointing the finger directly at the culprit and criminal state of Israel. Israel's actions and behavior is a "complication", not the report itself.
None of those senators - or is it hacks? - have brought up any specific points concerning the report. We still don't know what is it exactly they believe is not accurate. How can they claim that the report is biased and inaccurate if they haven't been to Gaza or spoken to anyone on the ground?
The answer is obvious. These so-called representatives, have been bought and paid for by AIPAC as the book The Lobby shows. These senators will do anyone's bidding so long as there was a dollar to be made.
US citizens should reject these hacks and remove them from office. Corruption, it seems, is endemic in Washington.
Good catch. I hate this constant distortion of news using innuendo, bland tones and slippery language.
Joe
Me too. But I expect it to get more devious as their position becomes more untenable.
"...as their position becomes more untenable." –(AGG)
–It cannot get more untenable than it already is and has been. Soon all the pretenses will be dropped and only the blood spoor will remain. Still the justifications will flow. The killing will be enough, in and of itself. –(Jill Bains)
Quite right, mohawk.
The pretext of emphatically faulting the report on its merits, yet never actually identifying, much less rebutting, the alleged flaws and distortions, is a cheap trick that can only fool sycophants and the intellectually-challenged.
It reminds me of Michael Moore's detractors, who use exactly the same gimmick. Equal parts of high dudgeon and vagueness is the standard formula.
The purpose of the gimmick is to create and reinforce a two-edged fiction: first, that the critics are manifestly competent, sincere, ethical, and unbiased; second, that those responsible for the report implicitly lack some or all of these virtues.
It's most commonly employed in desperate circumstances, when precisely the opposite is true-- when, whether in or out of denial, the critics are wrong as two right shoes and know it.
As is universally the case with frauds and confidence-tricksters, the perpetrator can only hope that the marks are stupid or gullible enough to mistake the heat and wind for light and air.
· Yr Obd't Servant
You've got the modus operandi of most politicians right there. Well said.
Thanks, AGG.
I probably should've included the point that, from an interpersonal dynamics perspective, the name of the game is "one-upmanship".
To those who blunder into the rhetorical trap and buy into it, the politician (and/or the politician's "side") takes a one-up position with regards to their interlocutor-- i.e., "opponent", since such gamesmanship presumes an adversarial relationship.
PS: The hasbarist berserkers who rush in to defend Zionist Israel upon the slightest criticism also overwork this approach-- to extinction, happily.
· Yr Obd't Servant
Israel has yet to admit that its actions in Gaza were war crimes or to acknowledge any of its other illegal-under-international-law acts (illegal settlements, two invasions of Lebanon, illegal embargo and imprisonment of Gazans in the virtual prison that is their home) are anything but "self defense." Any who resist its militant attacks are labeled as terrorists by both Israel and the U.S. (Hamas, Hezbollah).
J-Street, while supporting Israel's right to a peaceful and secure future, recognizes that Israel itself must change and must recognize the right of the Palestinians as well to their own homeland, to justice and to peace. I sincerely hope it can help the Congress overcome a half-century diet of AIPAC's right-wing fundamentalist Zionism and that of Israel's current government.
The world is divided into three camps as far as Israel is concerned.
Zionsts and Israel_firsters. These being peoples in full supportof Israeli actions and never questioning that countries actions or Motivations. They are always pure and noble.
Terrorists. Those who resist Israeli occupation of their lands or of aggressions committed against them.
Anti_semites; Everyone else who does not fit in either of the two categories above.
the universe is too big for montheism
Bernice,
I too had hopes. I had hoped that J Street would actually bring about the change that everyone in the Middle East and in the US needed.
But, in recent weeks, through speeches and interviews, J Street's management have revealed themselves to simply be AIPAC lite.
The Goldstone Report was just thrown under the bus as J Street is refusing to challenge Congress's initiative aimed at destroying the report and its findings. J Street has proven itself to be useless.
It is not a matter of "let's wait and see" if they will bring about said change, but more of a "the truth finally comes out" moment.
At this point, the only solution to these crimes and human rights abuses is Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions.
Please read more about the Global BDS Movement at this website:
http://www.bdsmovement.net/
Hey Congress Representatives of USA
This is a message from a Palestinian woman to you, I just wanted to say:
THANK YOU
So, let me get this straight:
You tear my veil to free me
You jail me to rid me of my terror
You kill my beloved to liberate me
You shoot my baby to erase my misery
You starve me to show me how to vote
You threaten me to bring me to my senses
You wage war on me to help me find peace
You slay my people to teach me compassion
You humiliate me to aid me live with dignity
You insult me to illustrate freedom of speech
You crush my bones to save me from my evil
You demolish my home to elevate my morality
You uproot my tree to raise my ethical standard
You steal my resources to bring me social justice
You assassinate my leaders to bring me democracy
You destroy my history to educate me about progress
You dehumanise me to coach me into humanity
You bomb my town to train me into security
You wipe me out to push me to civilization
You scorn my faith to bring me salvation
.
Thank you sir
How can I -ever- pay you back?
Well said.
Thank you for sharing, Nahida.
Hasbara classes any one??
You can get them free, on line now :-)
http://www.israelactivism.com/training
Just watch how they train their hasbara soldiers to lie, and lie and lie even more, until it seeps out of their ears and noses!!
********************************
TRUTH AND LIES
Lies like to be groomed
To be prepared in advance
They are artificially manufactured
Laughable, not in a funny way
Incoherent, pitiable and frail
Unpleasant to the ear as much to the heart
..
Truth however, is spontaneous
Honest and natural
Breathtaking with its splendor
Like a waterfall;
It needs no training for her to shine
It flows gracefully from the heart
Powerful, relentless, elegant and beautiful
Alhamdulillah
.
Thank you, nahida! http://www.israelactivism.com/training really is a fascinating website, full of cunning deceptions.
It is very useful to read (and view) this stuff, because it is good preparation for the mistruths that will be brought up in defense of Israel in those water-cooler discussions we should all be having. Forewarned is forearmed!
I would like to recommend, also,
http://www.alanhart.net/the-liberty-
affair-and-the-problem-with-the-truth-of-history/
It is important to remind people that the truth about Israel's vicious, deliberate attack on the U.S.S. Liberty is still being covered up by our own government, 42 years later. Israel is a foreign country, not the 51st state, and yet Israel remains firmly in control of the U.S. government.
I decided to watch one of these clips to see how accurate they were. I picked the last one and got about 30 seconds in before giving up with the person stating..
"we all know that when Israel was attacked in the 6 day war...."
This is NOT what we all know. This is not a fact. ISRAEL Launced a sneak attack that started the 6 day war. They boast of this. The destroyed the Arab air Forces on the ground because they launched a sneak attack...
That was enough of the persons "facts".
"AIPAC, in concert with every mainstream pro-Israel organization in the United States ..."
Now that was real smooth. Did you notice the conjunction of MAINSTREAM WITH PRO-ISRAEL?
Man, these zionists are sneaky. At any rate, is there any mainstream media left in the USA that DOESN'T shill for ZION-LAND?
Would it be imprudent or anti-semitic to ask how many dual citizens we have in congress?
Do you think Israeli dual citizens will vote to defend Israel in congress regardless of whether or not war crimes were committed?
Does a wild bear poop in the woods?
Are these dual citizens compromised? Nah.
Now here is a really inappropriate question: Do you think people with dual citizenship should be allowed to run for election in the USA? If you answered, only if it is Israeli dual citizenship, then you are officially NOT anti-semitic. Shalom, and keep that "aid" coming to Israel. We need lots of cluster bombs...
This is a prelude to a veto by the US. Hope Obama returns his Nobel Peace Prize - it's worth nothing.
To accuse the report being biased is absolutely ridiculous.
I guess this will give the right to Jews to continue killing Palestinians at will.
This comes with no surprise and this lack of justice will go on as long as Americans ignore that US is run by Jews and Zionists.
Why do you say it is absolutely ridicules to say that the report is biased?
Have you read it? Have you seen evidence from both sides? Do you know who wrote it, how the investigation was conducted, and who gave the panel the mandate to investigate?
Do you think a trail should be held by biased people who prejudged the suspect, without defense lawyer, without cross examination, without seeing the other side’s evidence?
It is not ridicules to say that this report is biased – for the simple fact that it is biased.
The House of Gangsters are convening, with the Bombers blessing, to sanctify another crime.
Those fanatical zionists killed as many or more of their own citizens in the Gaza Holocaust ( op Cast Lead) than Hamas did in years of throwing those exploding soup cans at the invaders.
Zionists, the perpetual victims even as the incinerate children.
This just in: Hypocricy on steroids!
"Clinton Calls Israeli Concessions 'Unprecedented'
by The Associated Press"
Pretentious - perhaps.
Mendacious - certainly.
Obfuscatory - quite.
Orwellian - Bingo!
Hillary is just "doing what she does". Bush, Obama, Geithner, Summers, Bernake and Hillary along with congress
belong in Jurrasic park.
Our Government = Liars & Killers-R-US
Black is white.
Up is down.
War is peace.
2 plus 2 equals 5.
The world is become an Orwellian fun house mirror.
...................................
ILLEGITIMATE, ILLEGITIMATE , ILLEGITIMATE:
israel HAS NO RIGHT TO EXIST
...................................
http://palestinethinktank.com/2009/10/16/alan-hart-israels-right-or-not-to-exist-the-facts-and-truth/#comment-12704
By Alan Hart
On Monday 12 October, Prime Minister Netanyahu opened the Knesset's winter session by blasting the Goldstone Report that accuses Israel of committing war crimes and vowing that he would never allow Israelis be tried for them. But that was not his main message. It was an appeal, delivered I thought with a measure of desperation, to the "Palestinian leadership", presumably the leadership of "President" Abbas and his Fatah cronies, leaders who are regarded by very many if not most Palestinians as American-and-Israeli stooges at best and traitors at worst.
Netanyahu again called on this leadership to agree to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, saying this was, and remains, the key to peace. And he went on and on and on about it.
"For 62 years the Palestinians have been saying ‘No' to the Jewish state. I am once again calling upon our Palestinian neighbors – say ‘Yes' to the Jewish state. Without recognition of the Israel as the state of the Jews we shall not be able to attain peace… Such recognition is a step which requires courage and the Palestinian leadership should tell its people the truth – that without this recognition there can be no peace… There is no alternative to Palestinian leaders showing courage by recognizing the Jewish state. This has been and remains the true key to peace."
As Ha'aretz noted in its report, Netanyahu's demand for Palestinian acceptance of Israel as a Jewish state is for him "a way on ensuring recognition of Israel's right to exist as opposed to merely recognizing Israel" (my emphasis). This, as Ha'aretz added, is the recognition which Netanyahu and many other Israelis see as the real core of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
In the name of pragmatism, willingness to "merely to recognize" Israel – meaning to accept and live in peace with an Israel inside its pre-June '67 borders – has long been the formal Palestinian and all-Arab position. Why does it stop short of recognizing Israel's "right to exist", and why, really, does it matter so much to Zionism that Palestinians recognize this right?
The answer is in the following.
According to history as written by the winner, Zionism, Israel was given its birth certificate and thus legitimacy by the UN Partition Resolution of 29 November 1947. This is propaganda nonsense.
In the first place the UN without the consent of the majority of the people of Palestine did not have the right to decide to partition Palestine or assign any part of its territory to a minority of alien immigrants in order for them to establish a state of their own.
Despite that, by the narrowest of margins, and only after a rigged vote, the UN General Assembly did pass a resolution to partition Palestine and create two states, one Arab, one Jewish, with Jerusalem not part of either. But the General Assembly resolution was only a proposal – meaning that it could have no effect, would not become policy, unless approved by the Security Council.
The truth is that the General Assembly's partition proposal never went to the Security Council for consideration. Why not? Because the U.S. knew that, if approved, it could only be implemented by force given the extent of Arab and other Muslim opposition to it; and President Truman was not prepared to use force to partition Palestine.
So the partition plan was vitiated (became invalid) and the question of what the hell to do about Palestine – after Britain had made a mess of it and walked away, effectively surrendering to Zionist terrorism – was taken back to the General Assembly for more discussion. The option favored and proposed by the U.S. was temporary UN Trusteeship. It was while the General Assembly was debating what do that Israel unilaterally declared itself to be in existence – actually in defiance of the will of the organized international community, including the Truman administration.
The truth of the time was that the Zionist state, which came into being mainly as a consequence of pre-planned ethnic cleansing, had no right to exist and, more to the point, could have no right to exist UNLESS … Unless it was recognized and legitimized by those who were dispossessed of their land and their rights during the creation of the Zionist state. In international law only the Palestinians could give Israel the legitimacy it craved.
And that legitimacy was the only thing the Zionists could not and cannot take from the Palestinians by force.
No wonder Prime Minister Netanyahu is more than a little concerned on this account.
Israel's leaders have always known the truth summarized above.
It's time for the rest of the world to know it.
.
.....................................................
That's why they detest Hamas, the legitimate Leadership of Palestine, and the democratically elected representatives of Palestinian people
Hamas, refuses to tow down to their criminal demands
.....................................................
The most significant reason for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was clearly demonstrated here by you, nahida.
The only reason why we don't have peace in the Middle-East, is because many Palestinians share your mindset, the belief that Israel have no right to exist.
This is the core root for the conflict, this is why we have no peace. (Ant not because Israel doesn’t want peace.)
That "they have no right to exist" mindset, shared by you and the Hamas, is the root cause for the 1948 war, for rocket launches against Israeli civilians and for the suicide bombers, (which leads to Israeli retaliations.)
Your and your people's intolerance is the single reason why your people suffer.
For your sake, for your children's sake, for all the Palestinians' sake, try the live and let live approach instead of delegitimize and seek the destruction of your neighbors.
Wouldn't it be better for your peaple if you had the wisdom to accept one of these proposals?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faisal-Weizmann_Agreement
http://www.palestinefacts.org/pf_mandate_peel.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1947_UN_Partition_Plan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_Camp_David_Summit
What hold does AIPAC have on their congressional stooges who seek to exonerate Israel's shameful slaughter of civilians in Gaza??
The same that they have on the rest of the world: the Holocaust™
I cannot imagine how the corrupt clowns of our Congress can contribute in any way to understanding or solving one of the most complicated and sad situations in the world today. It is like asking the local pimp to comment on women's rights.
Joe
I would strongly recommend that the US Congress refrain from sticking its neck out about international law and war crimes. They are not exactly qualified!
The rest of the world is getting more than tired of America’s hypocritical view of reality as it can be related to political contributions and corporate profits internally and the mounting debt externally.
There is a broader perspective that the rest of the world is already getting on with in its attempt to survive despite American myopia covering environment, security, and economics.
IDF generals and Israeli politicos are perfectly free to choose between a jail in Tel Aviv today or one in the Hague tomorrow. “The times they-are-a-changin” its also time for the Congress to catch up with more than their list of contributors.
“Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside
And it is ragin'.
It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'.”
Ain’t it sad when leaders have to play catch-up! Silly old farts!
Israel is not complicated and peace is simple for the Middle East. The control resides with the people of the U.S.A. and they know it. The only thing we have to do is to make sure your Congress person knows you won't vote for them if they don't stop the money going to Israel. Cut it off cold, and let them know that if they try to find another way to supply arms and money to Israel, you will support their opponent.
Make sure they understand your seriousness.
Condemning the Goldstone report is insane. The US House is an international disgrace. It is declaring to the whole world that it is the toady of Israel, Israeli-occupied territory, and the best government Israeli money can buy. Americans should be sicked and disgusted by this cowardly resolution because the House is speaking in the name of we the people. Most likely not a single one of those irresponsible congresspersons even read the report. Certainly none of them bothered to call for a cease-fire as Israel was bombing and killing 1400 civilians in Gaza. Isn't it enough that we give this criminal country 3 billion taxpayer dollars each year--at a time when our government is telling us it doesn't have the money for health care (which, by the way, all Israelis have). It's time these pandering failures understood that they represent America, not Israel, and their constant support Israel's war crimes is UN-AMERICAN.
The report is biased. (See my comment from 1st, 2009 2:31 pm for more details.)
The congress is telling the truth when describing the Goldstone report as Biased.
Standing for the truth is not UN_AMERICAN, even if the truth is unpopular in some dark corners of this globe.
If you think the report is a beacon of morality and a shining example for proper legal due process - you are welcome to present your "evidence." I'll bring mine.
It is not UN_AMERICAN to tell the truth, even if the truth is unpopular in some dark corners of this globe.
_________________________________________
I can't think of a darker corner than Israel's seat of government.
· Yr Obd't Servant
I'm sorry that you can't think.
That doesn't make the Goldstone report less Biased.
Nice zinger!
You don't miss a trick! And you try SO hard, even though Israel keeps the vast majority of Amerika's corrupt and depraved Elected Misrepresentatives in its back pocket.
You've got the POWER! You're WINNING! Don't embarrass yourself by trying to capture the TRUTH as well; THAT check was cashed, and the proceeds spent, LONG ago.
· Yr Obd't Servant
I prefer to debate on facts, instead of getting into an argument about power spinning and winning. (I will leave that to the UN-Human-right Council)
Any thoughts about the facts I posted in this forum within the November 1st, 2009 2:31 pm comment?
"I prefer to debate on facts"
______________________________
Yeah, I'll bet you do-- as fast as you can invent them.
I don't get into the question of whether Internet comment forum defenders of the Zionist terror state are "professional" hasbarists or zealous amateurs. There is an overall uniform quality to hasbarist performers, but that may be because of the common denominator of defending the same wrong cause.
I DO know that you employ a series of rhetorical devices that "can't fail". One such tactic is luring in interlocutors with the high-minded declaration that the discussion must be "factual", and of course "civil". That's when the hasbarists aren't taking cheap shots themselves-- which is OK, because it's provoked.
It's a case of pathological ontology recapitulating pathological phylogeny. It's also a reiteration of the so-called "lawyer's trick": when the facts are against you, argue the law; when the law's against you, argue the facts; when the facts AND law are against you, pound the table! Sometimes the latter point is changed to "plea-bargain".
Anyone dumb enough to get sucked in by this treacherous and deceitful rhetorical framework risks becoming ground meat. Not just because the "facts" are invariably disputed "factoids" used like shaped charges to blow up the discussion whenever it threatens to undermine the hasbarist's spiel, but also because hasbarists have a million of 'em.
The trick is simply to wear out the opposition by stoning one's interlocutor with a thousand factoids. And all one has to do is endure to become the last one standing.
I've seen threads last for hours-- if one checks back in, one finds endless variations on "Aha! But in nineteen forty-EIGHT, Israel agreed to do SUCH-and-such-- so your argument is meaningless!" Or maybe it was nineteen forty-SEVEN.
I was born at night, but it wasn't LAST night. "Facts" indeed!
· Yr Obd't Servant
YOS: no point arguing with this asshole, he's an Israeli troll paid to cause discourse and mud the issue. If we all ignore it, it will eventually go away!
You are a Marsian Troll paid by Zolthar. You also have a highly developed imagination.
Shame on Congress. Israel stands condemned in the eyes of the world, and the USA seeks to acquit it. America will merely share the world's verdict. Guilty.
The Congress is 100% right for condemning this report as Biased
The Goldstone report is a biased report, conceived by a biased body, and it should be regards as such.
The Goldstone report was an initiative of the UN human right council. This UN body has a long history of extreme Anti-Israeli bias. Since its inspection in 2006, this political body (yes, a political body that has nothing to do with human-right) had passed 32 country specific resolutions. 26 of those resolutions (82.5%) were against Israel, 6 resolutions criticized N. Korea and Myanmar. All other 189 UN members were simply ignored.
No wonder they chose to investigate Israel, while ignoring other conflicts such as Georgia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan, Congo, Sari-Lanka etc.
The mission was authorized by the January 12, 2009 resolution titled “The Grave Violations of Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory due to the Recent Israeli Military Aggression in the Occupied Gaza Strip.” As the title indicates, the resolution prejudged the outcome of any inquiry, determining in advance that Israel had “caused massive violations of human rights.” The resolution said nothing about Hamas violations.
The four members of the Goldstone panel were selected after having made public statements sympathizing with the Hamas narrative. Richard Goldstone, Hina Jilani and Desmond Travers each signed a statement saying they were “shocked to the core” about Gaza—but never said anything when 10,000 rockets attacked Israel over 8 years. And the fourth panel member, Christine Chinkin, declared—prior to seeing any evidence—that she “categorically rejected” Israel’s right to self-defence against Hamas rocket attacks, “deplorable as they are.” Not surprisingly, their final report accuses Israel of committing “war crimes” and possibly “crimes against humanity.”
In any semi functional legal system, any judge, jury, or investigator who publically declares before the trail that a suspect is guilty– would immediately be discharged.
The Congress is 100% right for condemning this report as Biased.
The Congress is 100% WRONG either to extol or condemn this UN report on war crimes.
This is yet another new pro-Zionist AIPAC Congressional resolution, with seemingly no real consequences for those who vote yes- hey it 'costs' nothing, right, so what the hell. Especially since there will be a 'political price' to pay for those who vote the appropriate No to condemning a UN finding. The price for thus daring to be fair, AIPAC will definitely extract at election time.
This is a typical AIPAC maneuver. Its devoted congresspeople put up a Congressional resolution siding with Israel, no matter what, and condemning the other side as mere terrorists. Then dare congresspersons to vote against the Zionist line. Then target those who do for defeat at elections, using a lot of money and propaganda against them. Wash, rinse, repeat. Until Congress is owned.
So this vote is brought up Solely on Israel's behalf, and will further alienate the US with the entire REST OF THE WORLD. And it will further solidify the Arab worldview that the US is NOT, as Letti might put it, an "objective" referee with regards to the ME. And since that is in fact the truth, perhaps the USA "should immediately be discharged", as Letti says of biased judges, and the USA should just go home.
Also, since this is a time when the US is in NO shape itself to give advice on ANYTHING, this worthless, insulting, polarizing resolution should never come up. But leave it to AIPAC to make sure the US Congress continues to fly right on Zionism. So you can depend upon a stupid yes vote on this crap, from the whole gang of unthinking, lobbyist-riddled, moneygrubbing, Zionist-terrified, deadbrained-reflex-action Congresspersons we have now.
This UN report is not a trial, but a finding. It is only a public statement. Is Israel going to jail? I think not. So Letto's railing about 'legal systems' is a red herring. But of course, even to participate in it, Judge Goldstone must be a self-hating Jew, as are all those who do not kowtow to the Zionist line. So if you do not agree with the Zionists, you are either not a good and real Jew or you are an anti-semite. Take your pick, you can't win with them. Just like the neo-con right-wing uses 'patriotism', it is only They (Zionists and Neo-Cons and Right-Wingers) who will define the meanings of words and so control the discourse and the labels.
A couple of other points on the resolution; have ALL the good Congresspeople voting on this resolution against the UN report even read the report? As Representative Conyers indicated on film about the way Congress operates, they have absolutely NOT read it- so how can they 'judge', right? And how does this trivial, mean-spirited, UN-bashing, Goldstone-trashing, bitchy, up-yours-world resolution on a non-jurisdictional foreign affair of Israel's get Fast-Tracked in the US Congress, yet the Really Important votes that actually are about THIS country (like healthcare and environment and war and peace and peoples' livlihoods) get stalled-out and sidelined, or riddled with amendments, or watered-down into nothing, or postponed for resolutions like this one?
And finally, with all the Carping about the UN, perhaps ALL UN actions regarding the ME should be rescinded... including the UN actions that recognized the state of Israel in the first place. And of course, the UN resolutions on Iraq that gave cover for the USA's own war crimes.
FVHorn "as Letti might put it, an "objective" referee with regards to the ME."
Where exactly did I say that "objective" referee with regards to the ME?
I never said so. My agenda is that all nations will be judged by the same rules and that the focus will be based on the severity of the case.
Read my comment once more; replace the word "Israel" with "Zimbabwe" and the word "Jew" with "Apache" and “Palestinian” with “Tutsi”. I would still call it extreme biased. And I would still justify the congress to declare this bias by its name.
It has nothing with "us" vs. "them" it has all about doable-standard.
I agree with you that the UN should also investigate Iraq. Moreover, they should also investigate Georgia, Afghanistan, Sari-Lanka, Chechnya, Congo and Sudan (and I’m sure you agree with me).
This is exactly the criticism of the UN Human-Right Council double standard and extream bias I was talking about.
This proposed action by the US Congress is obscene. Speak of the tail wagging the dog; those who vote for this are displaying total moral cowardice. Israel is not a democracy in any respect. It is at best an absurd little theocracy, peopled primarily by those of Russian and Eastern European ancestry. Using their regional monopoly of nuclear weapons they are intent on dominating their neighbors. And the American Zionist community is far worse. They live on the dream of a "Greater Israel" extending from the Nile to the Euphrates. They continue to display their power over elected officials in this country, who live in fear of losing Jewish money and seem to have forgotten the constitutional mandate of seperation of church and state. Every action like this creates more hatred against us all around the world and especially in the Middle East.