The Price of Courage: On Goldstone's Bar Mitzvah and Finkelstein's Book

In
his report on Gaza issued late last year, prominent South African
jurist Richard Goldstone accused Israel and Hamas of committing war
crimes. His language also showed awareness of the fact that the former
is an occupying power with most sophisticated weapon arsenal (as
reflecting in the number of Palestinian victims), and the latter is a
besieged, occupied faction in a state of self-defense. Although
Goldstone must have been aware of the kind of hysteria such a report
would generate, he still did not allow ideological or ethnic
affiliation to stand between him and his moral convictions.

Despite
some initial apprehension - owing to the fact that Goldstone is a
self-declared Zionist with links to Israel - many justice and peace
advocates were comforted by the man's past record. He was a former
judge of the Constitutional Court of South Africa and former Prosecutor
of the International Criminal Tribunals of the former Yugoslavia and
Rwanda.

In
April 2009, the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) appointed
Goldstone to lead the mission of investigating war crimes committed by
Israel in the devastating war in Gaza between December 27, 2008 and
January 18, 2009. Goldstone insisted that the mandate must also include
alleged violations committed by Palestinians. At the end, he was asked
to set his own mission's mandate, a reflection of the level of trust
placed in him by the UNHRC.

The
report's findings were published in September 2009, providing one of
the most vivid, sober and unmistakable recommendations ever issued by a
UN mission since Israel began its open-ended campaign of massacres and
violations on the territorial sovereignty and human dignity of the
Palestinian people and its Arab neighbors.

What
has been shocking for Israel and its supporters is the nature of the
report's recommendations. It urges the international community to
"start criminal investigation in national courts...where alleged
perpetrators (of war crimes) should be arrested and prosecuted in
accordance with internationally recognized standards of justice." But
more than this, the anger in Israelis and Zionists everywhere has
largely been inspired by the fact that Goldstone is supposed to be 'one
of them'. He cannot be easily derided either as a 'self-hating Jew,'
nor can he be accused of anti-Semitism, the ready-to-serve warrant of
anyone who dares criticize Israel's criminal conduct.

My
own interest in Goldstone is motivated by three reasons. First, Gaza is
still suffering under the very conditions that Judge Goldstone so aptly
described in his report. Nothing has happened since then to ease the
pain of the victims, nor to heed his call for justice.

Second,
there is the ongoing 'controversy' over the man's wish to take part in
his grandson's bar mitzvah in South Africa. He has now been forced to
negotiate with a group of South African Jewish leaders in order to
participate in this coming of age ceremony. South Africa's chief rabbi,
Warren Goldstein, accused Goldstone of being a liar whose report is
'delegitimizing Israel'. The South African Jewish Board of Deputies
accused Goldstone of 'selling out'.

It
behooves Rabbi Goldstein to remember that it is only the barbarous
killing of thousands of innocent civilians that is 'delegitimizing'
Israel. As for 'selling out,' Goldstone is indeed a 'sell out' as far
as any blind tribal affiliations are concerned, affiliations that seem
to matter more to the Jewish Board of Deputies than the cause of
justice, fairness, equality and peace that are enshrined in all major
world religions and philosophies, notwithstanding Judaism.

That
leads to the third reason that compelled the revisiting of this subject
- Norman Finkelstein's most recent volume, 'This Time We Went Too Far:
Truth and Consequences of the Gaza Invasion.'

Finkelstein
is not an ordinary author. His readers know well that one rarely finds
so many strong qualities in a single writer: compelling academic
research, unbending moral clarity, lucidity in style, and a refusal to
dehumanize the subject and the victim. 'This Time We Went Too Far' will
serve in academic and human rights circles - as Goldstone will serve a
similar purpose in the legal arena - as the categorical indictment of
Israel's brutal policies in Gaza. More, it will forever shame those who
have allowed titles, money, prestige and, again, blind tribal
affiliation to prevent them from seeing the untold inhumanity that took
place, and continues to take place in Gaza and the rest of Palestine.
Sadly, as such cruelty perpetuates, so do the diatribes of Israel's
apologists. Finkelstein is no stranger to vile attacks from Israel's
diehard friends, and Goldstone will also eventually get used to it.

Finkelstein
positions his book within proper historical contexts. He summons the
events that lead to, coincided with and followed the Israeli war on
Lebanon in the summer of 2006, which also killed and wounded thousands,
and destroyed much of the country's civilian infrastructure. The
similarities are too stark, but are made much clearer by Finkelstein's
patient evaluation of both events. Moreover, he revisits the Israeli
war and invasion of Lebanon of 1982, revealing much of Israel's bizarre
but predictable behavior.

Finkelstein
provides lengthy and immaculate research that highlights the repellent
propaganda which preceded and followed the massacre in Gaza. Although
he makes various references to the Goldstone mission and report earlier
in the book, he dedicates most of the book's epilogue to the Goldstone
report and its many consequences. His revelations and analysis are
encouraging in that they suggest that things are in fact changing.
Israel, a rouge state by any reasonable standards, will never reclaim
its fictitious old status as a beacon of progress and democracy. No
amount of lies, intimidation or blackmail could sell Israeli war crimes
as self-defense, or smear Israeli critics as anti-Semites. The book
makes a very convincing case to back up this assertion.

"The
times they are a-changing," wrote Finkelstein. True, and that is a most
impressive achievement that was made possible by the likes of Jimmy
Carter, John Mearsheimer, Stephen Walt, Richard Goldstone, Richard
Falk, John Dugard, Finkelstein himself, and the innumerable authors,
journalists and bloggers who tirelessly worked to document the truth.

But
it is also the courage of the Palestinian people in Gaza and elsewhere
that made it possible for us to take such stances. Our efforts dwarf in
comparison to their courage, resilience and sacrifices.

Finkelstein's book is a testimony to all of that, and much more.