Michael Oren hits the nail exactly on the head. How can the world expect Israelis to make huge sacrifices for peace and reconciliation, risking their children's' lives, when the court of world opinion denies them the basic human right of self-defense and self-protection?
see also Alan Dershowitz and Ehud Barak below
G'mar chatimah tovah and a meaningful fast!
david
Ironically, the greatest victim of the UN report is not Israel’s ability to wage a moral war but its willingness to make an historic peace. If asked to take immense risks for peace, Israelis must be convinced of their internationally recognized right to self-defense should that peace be broken. Deprived of that right, even after being subjected to years of murderous rocket attacks, an Israeli electorate will understandably recoil from such risks.
UN Report a Victory for Terror - Michael Oren
Just as the U.S. entered Afghanistan in response to an unprovoked attack on American civilians in 2001, so, too, did Israel's intervention, which followed more than 7,000 Hamas rocket and mortar strikes on Israeli towns and villages since the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in 2005. Given the UN Human Rights Commission's silence in the face of this aggression, and Hamas' rejection of Israeli offers to renew a cease-fire, Israel exercised its unassailable right to defend its citizens.
The UN report is not about justice. Rather, it is the latest initiative designed to delegitimize Israel and deny its right to self-defense. The UN report not only endangers Israel. It bestows virtual immunity on terrorists and ties the hands of any nation to protect itself.
The writer is Israel's ambassador to the U.S. (Boston Globe)
Goldstone Report Is a Barrier to Peace - Alan Dershowitz
There are many things wrong with the Goldstone report, which accuses Israel of deliberately targeting civilians in order to punish the people of Gaza. First, its primary conclusions are entirely false as a matter of demonstrable fact. Second, it defames one of the most moral military forces in the world, along with one of the most responsive legal systems and one of the freest nations in the world when it comes to dissent. Third, it destroys the credibility of "international human rights," and proves that this honorable concept has been hijacked for political purposes directed primarily against one nation - Israel.
But fourth, and most important, it has set back prospects of peace by making it far more difficult for Israel to withdraw from the West Bank. If Israel were to leave, rockets fired from the West Bank would endanger far more Israeli civilians and threaten to close Ben-Gurion Airport. Israel now knows that if it were to try to defend itself against such rockets, it would once again be condemned by the UN. (Hudson Institute New York)
At the UN, Terrorism Pays - Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak
The UN Human Rights Council produced a 600-page report alleging that Israel carried out war crimes in Gaza. Enduring eight years of ongoing rocket fire, thousands of Israeli children living in southern Israel had to study, play, eat and sleep while being preoccupied about the distance to the nearest bomb shelter. When I accompanied then-presidential candidate Barack Obama on his visit to the shelled city of Sderot, he said: "If somebody was sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep at night, I'm going to do everything in my power to stop that. And I would expect Israelis to do the same thing." When the Goldstone mission gathers testimony from local residents in Hamas-ruled Gaza, but forgets to ask them whether they happened to notice any armed Palestinians during the Israeli operation, or didn't realize that its impartially chosen witnesses happened to be known Hamas operatives according to Israeli intelligence, I begin to question the methodology of such a "fact-finding" effort.
The time has come for us to put an end to this calculated erosion of common sense. Democracies should be concentrating on defending themselves from extremism - not from accusations by kangaroo courts. (Wall Street Journal)
Friday, September 25, 2009
Why the Goldstone/UN Report is Actually Counterproductive and an Obstacle to an Authentic Peace
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4 comments:
During World War II, the Allies used a disproportionate amount of force. They targeted civilians in the carpet bombing of Dresden and in the use of atomic weapons. Did Germany and Japan surrender earlier because of this? Probably, but we can never know with any degree of certainty. If the Axis powers surrendered earlier than they would have without these tactics, were lives actually saved by shortening the war? In the case of Japan in particular, this is quite likely, but again, we can never know. Be that as it may, a country fighting against a murderous enemy will use destructive weapons. The country that has been more careful than others in this respect is Israel. Israel probably could have liquidated Nasrallah in Lebanon had it been less careful about whom it bombed, although here too we can never be sure about the what-ifs of history. What we can always be sure of is that Israel is the most hated country on earth.
What amazes me in what concerns Israel’s supporters is their selective memory. It is as if this whole event only started when Hamas stared firing rockets. In your imaginative memory there is no proceeding context to this. Did you not and still do occupy their lands since 50 years, do you not control their water, their movement, make their lives difficult so they leave their country. They kill 13 Israelis under the justification of resistance and fighting for their country and then they are called terrorist (Which I agree does hold). But then look at you (Israel) you kill more than a thousand Palestinians under the justification of security. My God you are far more worse… far far more worse.
The Washington Post judged the Goldstone report as fundamentally flawed on account of its anti-Israel bias.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/14/AR2009111402279.html
Simple and sweet. I’m thinking of starting another blog or five pretty soon, and I’ll definitely consider this theme. Keep ‘em coming!
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