David Suissa

April 4, 2011

Dear Mr. Goldstone: Six months until Kol Nidre

By David Suissa

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Dear Mr. Goldstone:

You really screwed up. You screwed up so badly that Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic says you contributed, more than any other individual, to the delegitimization and demonization of the Jewish state.

The deliberate killing of innocent civilians is the equivalent of murder. As far as accusations go, that’s about as low as you can go. Your report accused Israel of a lot of things, but that accusation was the most lethal: targeting innocent civilians.

Now you write that you were wrong. Israel is not the war criminal she was made out to be. It was Hamas that targeted innocent civilians, not Israel. Well, like Goldberg says, “It is somewhat difficult to retract a blood libel, once it has been broadcast across the world.”

Remember, this was no ordinary blood libel. This was an official indictment bearing the stamp of approval of the closest thing we have to a global legislative body — the United Nations. Thanks to this stamp of approval, Israel’s enemies have feasted on Israel’s good name like vultures on a carcass.

I’m sure you’ve noticed the global campaign to delegitimize Israel, as well as the flourishing BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) movement that is turning Israel into a pariah state. Sadly, much of the ammunition for these movements has come from the Goldstone report — the same report you now have repudiated with a phrase that might go down in Jewish infamy: “Civilians were not intentionally targeted as a matter of policy.”

I wonder what went through your mind as you wrote those words: “Why did I rush to judgment? Should I have paid more attention to the hundreds of thousands of Israeli leaflets and phone calls that warned civilians, and to the preliminary Israel Defense Forces reports and other publicly available information that contradicted our conclusions? Should I have put Israel’s behavior in the proper context of defending its people after years of Hamas rockets? Should I have been more skeptical of sources I knew were unreliable?”

A friend told me over Shabbat that I should cut you some slack because you had the courage to eat your words in public after getting “new information.” That’s fine, but another friend told me a parable that made him somewhat less forgiving.

It’s the story of a man who goes to his rabbi to ask for forgiveness because he spread false rumors about him. The rabbi instructs him to take a feathered pillow and a knife, go to a nearby forest and slice open the pillow. When the man returned, the rabbi said to him, “Now go try to retrieve all those feathers.”

Now go try, Mr. Goldstone, to “retrieve” all the damage your report inflicted on Israel. Go to every television and radio station, to every newspaper and magazine, to every Web site and blogger, to every Jew and non-Jew on the planet who inhaled your dark accusations against Israel, and try to take those accusations back. Try telling them you didn’t mean it.

Surely you must have known that so many past accusations of Israeli “massacres” have been proved false (see Jenin). And as an international jurist who is familiar with the phenomenon of anti-Israel bias, surely you must have anticipated the vermin that would rain on the Jewish state if a Zionist jurist formally accused it of targeting innocent civilians.

I wouldn’t be surprised if you’ve had more than a few sleepless nights since then. Why? Because I do believe there is a piece of your heart that loves Israel, that believes in Israel and that now cries for Israel because of the damage you have inflicted upon her.

While you can never undo that damage, there is still something you can undo: the report itself. Given your deep knowledge of international law, with all its arcane rules and procedures, if anyone can formally retract the report or officially amend it, it is you.

It won’t be easy. You will be going up against the many enemies of Israel, those who dream of turning the Jewish state into an illegal enterprise, those for whom the Goldstone report is the gift that keeps on giving — their little gold mine rich with never-ending ammunition against the hated Zionist entity. They won’t let you take away their gold mine that easily.

But I have confidence you can do it. I have seen how you can be dogged and relentless in front of intense opposition. I have seen how when you put your mind to something, nothing can stop you, not even your own people. I have seen you go the distance.

Now go the distance on this one, Mr. Goldstone. Make this your cause. Put the Goldstone report where it belongs, in the delete button of history. You can replace it, amend it, retract it or do whatever you feel will correct it. You will not undo the damage, but you might at least stanch some of the bleeding — not just in Israel’s name, but perhaps in yours, as well.

Kol Nidre is still six months away, but you don’t have to wait that long.

A version of this article appeared in print.

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Megadittos. Here were my thoughts on this on The God Blog:
Goldstone is just trying to weasel out of his irresponsible participation in this kangaroo proceeding. More than participation; he allowed his formerly reputable Jewish name to be used as camoflage for Israel-bashing. Maybe it has come to attention that he is now a hero only to the usual vile evil creeps who populate the anti-Zionist underworld. Rot in hell, Goldstone. Or should we hire Charlie Sheen to call you ‘Goldstein’?

The whole commission was an offensive move to equate a the primitive tribe of Hamas savages with the legitimate and ethical enterprise that is the Jewish State. Israel was right to refuse to participate as the report would have been identical, contrary to Goldstone’s assertions, except it could have pretended to have taken all the facts into account. Goldstone wanted Israel to do what he himself was doing. If what he says now is true, Goldstone’s move should have been to recuse himself from the panel on the basis of the impossibility of obtaining proper information.

What exactly is the meaning of “The allegations of intentionality by Israel were based on the deaths of and injuries to civilians in situations where our fact-finding mission had no evidence on which to draw any other reasonable conclusion”? Conclusions are not facts, Sherlock. And if they aren’t reasonable now, they weren’t reasonable then.

“It was my hope, even if unrealistic, that Hamas [conduct investigations into its war crimes]”, and “I hoped that in the face of a clear finding that its members were committing serious war crimes, Hamas would curtail its attacks. Sadly, that has not been the case.” “In the end, asking Hamas to investigate may have been a mistaken enterprise. How about in the beginning, you idiot?

You weren’t signed up to to open the door for the U.N. Human Rights Council with its “history of bias against Israel” that “cannot be doubted” to pour fuel on the worldwide BDS movement. Who the hell needs a judge who is supposed to have some expertise evaluating the quality of evidence and testimony and the credibility of witnesses to collaborate with enemies of Israel and the Jews?

Comment by Ben Plonie on 4/04/11 at 7:58 pm

David: Bravo

Comment by george on 4/04/11 at 9:38 pm

Worth reading as well
http://www.aish.com/jw/s/Goldstones_Feeble_Backtrack.html

Comment by Ben Plonie on 4/04/11 at 11:18 pm

If you want to see how badly Goldstone lied in his report, and how he still is covering up his lies:  http://cifwatch.com/2011/04/05/goldstone-report-the-judge-is-still-lying/

Comment by george on 4/05/11 at 6:26 am

Today’s editorial of the LAT is just the opening shot for all those who will never give up until Israel is eliminated from the map. No amount of denial will change their mind about Israel’s guilt. As Suissa correctly noted, Goldstone repudiation is too little too late to restore the damage he cause to Israel’s reputation and to thousands of Israelis who cannot travel abroad from fear of being charged as war criminals.

Comment by Avi on 4/05/11 at 9:21 am

“Noam Bedein, one of six Israeli civilians who testified before the Goldstone Commission probing Operation Cast tells how Richard Goldstone fell asleep while he was showed movies of kids in Sderot fleeing from ‘Palestinian’ rockets”

Comment by Full Disclosure on 4/05/11 at 9:31 am

Extremely well said, Mr. Suissa. This was blood libel on a global scale.

Comment by Marc Porter Zasada on 4/05/11 at 11:56 am

Those writers who so strongly attack Mr. Goldstone would better attack the Israeli government for not cooperating and assisting with his investigation. They would do better criticizing the Israeli government for this savage and disproportionate attack upon the population of Gaza, during which more than a thousand civilians, including women and children , were killed. If the actions of the State of Israel cause many to view it with hostility, it is those actions which cause this, not some latent, irrational anti-Jewish sentiment. It is Israel and its supporters who must decide whether their occupation of another people’s land is worth the price. Surely it is not.

Comment by bill on 4/05/11 at 11:58 am

@Bill: Like you I was dismayed by the brutality of the LAPD yesterday in Sylmar, CA. That was a case of a poor 53 year old male, Hispanic, whose only crime was shooting a police offices in the face and chest. I was shocked and horrified by the disproportionate force which was used by the LAPD against this poor innocent man who ended up 100% dead. He was outnumbered and outgunned. They completely destroyed the home where he and his innocent wife and children lived. The innocent neighbors were removed from their homes, and now they suffer the decline of their property value due to the incident. Rather than acting Gestapo like, the LAPD should have surgically removed him from his home and provided him with psychiatric help. That could have cost the lives of a few LAPD officers, but who cares anyway. Just a few cops, their families and their loved ones.

Comment by Mini on 4/05/11 at 12:16 pm

Goldstone pulled a Roseanne Rosannadanna move:
“Never mind.”
(Remember. She was the comedian who obliviously would have a piece of toilet paper hanging from her shoe from the ladies room. She did it on purpose for comedy.)

Comment by TMay on 4/05/11 at 12:22 pm

@Bill, one more thing: Gaza is occupation? The only Israeli soldier in Gaza isGilad Schalit. And one more thing Billy, we are not marching to the gas chambers again. Sorry Billy boy, if you send 10000 rockets to hit the big boy, you may get your little ass kicked. Comprehend?

Comment by Mini, on 4/05/11 at 12:25 pm

I HEAR, and agree with MOST of what Suissa and the comments…but I cant, in all good conscious agree “100%”.
YES- Israel can do no right in the world’s eyes, but, had the Israeli government cooperated with Goldstone, the outcome may well have been different (probably not, but we gave him and the world an excuse).

Comment by Jeffrey Bohrer on 4/05/11 at 12:29 pm

Bill, can you please clarify what would be in your view a “proportionate response” to Palestinian terror attacks over 7 years? You meant Israel should have lobed 10,000 rockets over Gaza? Would you be OK with such response?

Comment by Avi on 4/05/11 at 12:30 pm

@Jefferey, fair enough. Israel was insulted by the UNHRC which has already convicted her before investigation started. the commission was to “investigate all violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law by the occupying power, Israel, against the Palestinian people throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory, particularly in the occupied Gaza Strip, due to the current aggression.”

Comment by Avi on 4/05/11 at 12:48 pm

@Jefferey: Before they started, Christine Chinkin had signed a letter which appeared in The Times, stating: “Israel’s bombardment of Gaza is not self-defence - it’s a war crime…. The rocket attacks on Israel by Hamas deplorable as they are, do not, in terms of scale and effect amount to an armed attack entitling Israel to rely on self-defence…Israel’s actions amount to aggression, not self-defence”.

Comment by Avi on 4/05/11 at 12:55 pm

WORDS HURT!  THEY REALLY DO!  LET THIS A-HOLE KEEP CHEWING ON HIS WORDS FOR THE REST OF HIS DAYS!!

Comment by WM GOLDSTEIN on 4/05/11 at 1:15 pm

I get upset when Leftist Jews stand up at anti-Israel lectures and say “I am a Jew and ...” as they put a dagger into our back, and we never seem to have the right response. I think from now on, any time a Leftist Jew who stands up to take an anti-Israel stand (but I repeat myself) we should call them Richard Goldstone, as in “Don’t pull a Richard Goldstone.” “Have a seat, Richard Goldstone.” There are plenty of characters caught in Yiddish for all perpetuity, like Moishe Kapoyer a character who has gone down in history as a person who thinks with his behind instead of with his head, who thinks upside down. I think Richard Goldstone has earned a perpetual remembrance.

Comment by TMay on 4/05/11 at 1:33 pm

Goldstone finally, grudgingly, while offering excuses, has retracted only part of his blood libel.

If he has any decency, he will retract the rest, supporting his retraction with the mountain of evidence that was always available to him. He will then devote the rest of his life to trying to undo the damage he has caused.

If I remember my Jewish law basics, someone who has done something so unspeakable must sincerely and completely repent, and do all he can to make amends.

Comment by Davidka on 4/05/11 at 1:39 pm

After having been battered just short of bloody by the world Zionist community, robbed of his dignity and reputation from those within his community whose company and respect he cherished and no doubt felt lost without,
Judge Goldstone finally caved. No, for these zealots of Zion, what the judge had done was far worse than the killing of 1400 Palestinians in what was for Israel the equivalent of a “turkey shoot,” he had pointed the finger at Israel, based on the evidence presented, and it was not just Goldstone, but two other distinguished jurists who arrived at the same conclusions.

And, of course, it is clear that demands will be made upon him to grovel even further.

I assure all you Judeo-Nazis out there that this forcing of Goldstone to kneel before you will only make the case for delegitimizing Israel that much stronger. The handwriting is on the wall.

Comment by Hollywood Jeff on 4/05/11 at 3:12 pm

For Rob Eshman, Marty Kaplan, Danielle whatever, and the other leftist Jews who write here (the “Azzajews”): the damage you do to Jews is incalculable, it permits the “HJ” assholes and the NYTimes, the Guardian, KPFK, etc. to demonize the Jews under the cover of the Azzajews. You have the blood of Jewish babies on your hands.

Comment by george on 4/05/11 at 3:19 pm

Hollywood Jeff is exhibit #1 of Jew-haters becoming unglued when they hear a piece of good news about Israel.  Hope you don’t choke on your venom, Jeff dear. Hollywood will not be fun without clowns like you.

Comment by FU on 4/05/11 at 4:05 pm

Actually, I remain thoroughly glued about Goldstone’s reverse Saul of Taurus moment because, as I expected, his somewhat vague mea culpa in the Washington Post would quickly lead to demands from those scenting blood (can’t forget that trusty shibboleth, “blood libel,” can we?)for more of Poor Richard’s hide and that is already exposing the ugly core and unmitigated viciousness that poisons the hearts of those whose affections for Israel trumped, nay stamped out, what remained of their own humanity. It’s like the invasion of the body snatchers and I am afraid they are beyond help.

Comment by HollywoodJeff on 4/05/11 at 8:25 pm

What a brilliant piece of imagery - the feathers.  In his case, he carelessly released them in a jungle, where all manner of vicious animals are now hungrily pacing and on the prowl for their mouth-watering pound of Zionest flesh.

Comment by Tristan Benz on 4/05/11 at 9:06 pm

Jeff
Goldstone himself has admitted that the real crimes of the Arab occupiers of Jewish Gaza were unstated in his report, and that the real defense of the IDF was misstated in his report because of a lack of information. As the point by point refutation at http://www.aish.com/jw/s/Goldstones_Feeble_Backtrack.html demonstrates, the purported lack of information is just a new lie for an old truth.

The characterization of Goldstone as a corrupt, lying sack of crap at the time of he report’s’ release have been amply borne out. The case of the humane performance of the IDF has been amply borne out. Goldstone’s reputation has been permanently lost. Neither groveling nor hiding is sought for him. I hope the accolades and sympathy he is getting from Jew haters is an adequate compensation for him.

After a few dozen centuries, your act is getting old.

Comment by Ben Plonie on 4/05/11 at 9:27 pm

Given Israel’s track record in all the rest of its assaults/wars, it is hard to believe that Goldstone did not cave in under the assault from the Jewish community. The fact that he recanted does not throw out all the report since the other members of the commission have not recanted.
Israel has a long and sorry record of war crimes. Lets not forget the shelling of the UN compound in Qana, Lebanon, where a number of civilians were killed. When Israel attacked Lebanon in 1982 they deliberately bombed orphanages and hospitals even though those orphanages and hospitals had been clearly marked with red crosses on the roof.
Israel began Cast Lead just at the time that kids were getting out of school. Made a good turkey shoot for the IDF fly boys. It is also a war crime to deliberately attack a sewage plant, schools and hospitals but Israel has a lot of practice doing that.
Finally check out the youtube video of the Samouni family, 30 of whom were murdered by Israel, among them many kids. But maybe the Palestinians just shot their own kids and the IDF was totally innocent.

Comment by Janice on 4/05/11 at 9:39 pm

If Goldstone was going to cave, it would have been at the time of he report, not now. All of the purported Israeli war crimes have been shown to be lies or responses to intolerable provocations by cowards using human shields. Qana in particular was a fraud. Israel blanketed civilian neighborhoods with leaflets and phone calls warning non-combatants to leave the areas to be hit. Never in the history of warfare has a fighting force been more humane than the IDF. The Palestinian Arab experiment is drawing to a close.

Comment by Ben Plonie on 4/05/11 at 9:57 pm

Dear Janice, I was an IDF artillery officer on reserve duty, serving 100 days from the beginning of the military campaign against Lebanon in 1982. I have opposed the operation from the start and resented everything which followed.  However your claim that we deliberately bombed orphanages and hospitals is baseless. On the contrary, our target bank, as well as the orders we got, included specific instructions to avoid such institutions, and minimize civilian casualties. Ironically, when we entered Lebanese villages we were welcomed by the locals as heroes and liberators, with villagers showering us with rice.

I realize that my attempt to sway your mind would be futile, but I still owe this to other readers who might fall for your lies. I am signing with my full name, because unlike you, I have nothing to hide.
of.

Comment by Avi Zirler, La Canada, CA on 4/05/11 at 10:38 pm

Avi, you are correct on one point, that when Israeli soldiers first entered Lebanon, they were greeted as liberators by the Shia of southern Lebanon who were tired of having the PLO carry out its battles from its soil, which engendered heavy responses from the Israeli military.

That romance soured very quickly when your fellow invaders began treating the Lebanese as they had the Palestinians, shitting in their mosques, pouring oil on their flour, and flour in their oil, humiliating the Lebanese as they had learned to do to the Palestinians.

And whether or not, Israel planned to destroy hospitals, they ended up doing that as well. In addition, they used white phosphorous and cluster bombs against both Palestinian and Lebanese civilians, many of them children, to the point where Pres. Reagan was forced to cut off the supplies of cluster bombs to the IDF. Do you remember that?

All in all, over 18,000 Lebanese and Palestinian civilians were killed by Israel, excluding Sabra and Shatila, and whole sections of apartment houses in Beirut destroyed by Israeli missiles as they would be again in 2006. At Sabra and Shatila, the Israeli soldiers surrounded the camps, preventing its inhabitants from leaving, while providing flares so the the killing could keep on throughout the night, as well as food for the exhausted Phalange killers.

It was Israel’s mistreatment of the Lebanese Shia that produced Hezbollah, a deadly headache for Israel that will not go away and grows stronger as Israel grows weaker, despite Israel’s attempts to destroy it. Beating up on the ineffectual Hamas was much easier for your Israeli bully boys in 2008 and 2009, but the sting of being stopped by Hezbollah in 2006 has still not gone away as you are no doubt aware.

How do I know this? Because I also was there, but not as a combatant, and I saw the refugee camps, such as Ain Helweh that had been leveled almost to the ground and were just being rebuilt.

Israel’s crimes in the 1982 war were attested to by members of Yesh G’vul who participated in the invasion but refused to participate afterward, choosing prison instead.
Afterward, many chose to live some place other than Israel, as apparently did you.

Comment by HollywoodJeff on 4/05/11 at 11:25 pm

Avi, you da man!

Jeff

I don’t know if you were really there and I don’t care. If you were, your mind was made up before you got there.
I have to let Avi handle the detailed debunking, but all I will say is that the oldest antisemitic charge in the world is that the Jews and now Israel created their enemies. Israel did not create their enemies, and enemies have to be eliminated in some manner. Israel did not create Palestinians, refugees, ‘fedayeen’, Hezbollah, Hamas or civil wars. The phony PLO was doing to the Lebanese what they did to the Jordanians and what they want to do to Israel, and for the same reasons; because they are like Rocky’s brother in law Paulie, lazy jealous bums who want something for nothing. And Hezbollah has been making the the Christians like Brigitte Gabriel’s family live like animals under their rule having nothing to do with Israel but a lot to do with Iran.

Speaking of Yesh Gvul, Southern Lebanon is northern Palestine, part of Greater Israel, the ancient tribal lands of the great State of Naphtali and the great State of Asher. It was an original part of the Mandate given by Britain to France for their Syria Mandate (just as Trans-Jordan was more famously given away). It became ‘Lebanon’ in the first Two-State Solution to protect the Christians from the the stinking Syrians a hundred years ago.

Comment by Ben Plonie on 4/06/11 at 3:18 am

How could Judge Goldstone ever have accepted an invitation to sit on a U.N. panel, in the first place, knowing that they are so biased against Israel. His only reason could be, that some-time in the future,he might be offered a position at the International Court Of Justice, in the Hague. The “Yichas and Covet” must have seemed a justification for joining the Tribunal.
“lashon harah” is so offensive that deserves maximum punishment.

Comment by John on 4/06/11 at 5:27 am

Dear Ben Plonie, sorry. Not playing this endless debunking game; each time you debunk a point, they will come back with 5 more. Futile. They aren’t seeking your info, they just want to engage you. Not engaging w/ foreigners who disparaging me contemptuously. My parents had enough of it back in Europe, I was raised differently. The far-left has this absurd notion that soldiers are trained social workers, and military campaigns are conducted with laser beam precision. Ain’t so. Shock: War is ugly. Look at your own military which I deeply respect. One more thing, Jeff said that “… Israel grows weaker.” Factually wrong. This quote was lifted directly from Hassan Nasrallah’s speech deep in his bunker.

Comment by Avi Zirler, La Canada, CA on 4/06/11 at 9:39 am

On the internet, men can pretend to be women, women can pretend to be men, children can pretend to be adults, adults can pretend to be children, Jeff can pretend to be a former IDF person involved in the Lebanon war. There is no way to ascertain. The Left feels that the ends justifies the means. The Left sacrifices truth for their ends, which presently IMHO is to hurt Israel, hurt the US, create a partnership with the Arabs and hopefully get petrodollar financing. I don’t buy Jeff’s post. The Left is a competing ideology that views Judaism and Judea Christian society as something to be wiped off the earth so that Leftist ideology can take over and they see it as the answer when all it ever does is mess up societies. Christianity used to wipe out existing religions “to save the souls of the people” and they co-opted things of those religions to make the take over easier. We have seen how Leftism co-opts language of the people they target, like justice for instance, which under Leftism becomes social justice which is not justice, it is part of their redistribution plan, the same way they talk about Freedom of Speech as redistribution of speech, and redistribution of wealth.

Comment by TMay on 4/06/11 at 9:56 am

Anybody else notice that both the mysterious, I know because I was there but not as an invader, Jeff and Janice both use the words “turkey shoot”, both refer extensively to Lebanon.
Read their/his/her comments carefully. They say that Israelis deliberately always try to murder as many children as possible. Israelis (Jews) are demons.
Not one mention of Hamas, about the Hamas charter that promotes the slaughter of all Jews.
Of course not. Like the Nazis they say that Jews are demons and what’s wrong with killing demons?
Why do these Jew-haters keep posting in Jewish newspapers? Because Jews reply to them and they can continue their diatribes. They really enjoy themselves.

Comment by Beauchard on 4/06/11 at 12:45 pm

Beauchard,
Well we can take the opportunity of educating Jewish readers and Jewish Leftists. After all, this is what Jewish students have to listen to on university campuses from their professors, even in the Jewish Study programs.

Comment by TMay on 4/06/11 at 1:02 pm

Mr suissa (ben plonie) I am so glad you are reading jeffrey goldberg’s blog, hope you enjoyed his comments on jstreet and hope you read this one he wrote on march 3 about the need for bibi to come clean with a real policy….we’re still waiting
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/03/is-netanyahu-breaking-toward-the-center/72016/

Comment by lwynman on 4/06/11 at 3:38 pm

whatever happened to suissa writing interesting stuff about jewish LA ? I can read better versions of this stuff in about 10,000 other places

Comment by la jew on 4/06/11 at 3:39 pm

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