Who is Goldstone to judge?

21 October 2009

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Why has Richard Goldstone, a self-professed Zionist, accused Israel of war crimes in Gaza? Douglas Davis suspects opportunism

Closer to home, a long-standing family friend of Goldstone wrote to him in blunt language: the report, she said, ‘did not arise from ignorance or naivety’. ‘I am trying so hard to resist the conclusion that your role and report might represent a self-serving desire to ingratiate yourself for a more senior position in the… United Nations. If true — and one hopes that this is not the case — at what price?’

That is a deeply troubling question. As Goldstone’s former colleague told me last weekend: ‘Richard has always exercised an exquisite sense of judgment — he has always known precisely what was in his own self-interest.’

Meanwhile, I am left with my own very personal question: where exactly was Richard Richard, paragon of human rights, when my human rights were being comprehensively trashed in an interrogation room at the Security Police headquarters in Pretoria? This was not Rwanda, Yugoslavia or even Gaza. My interrogation room was less than a minute’s walk from Judge Goldstone’s Supreme Court.

Douglas Davis, who was exiled from apartheid South Africa, is a former senior editor of the Jerusalem Post.

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Merlyn

October 30th, 2009 8:13am Report this comment

I think that all here on the Speccie, have seen this coming, but how can we make this known more widely?
This man needs to be busted!

Neb Femi

October 30th, 2009 4:45pm Report this comment

This is a dreadful article. The author slams Goldstone with largely unattributed innuendo none of which has anything to do with the investigation in Gaza. The "Goldstone report" is in fact the work of four very eminent human rights lawyers and advocates, and not only Mr. Goldstone. Its findings are very similar to the findings of other, entirely independent inquiries, including a UN Board of Inquiry commissioner by the UN Secretary-General, by Amnesty International, by Human Rights Watch and by Israeli human rights NGOs such as Betselem. If the author had been to Gaza, as I have, one would hope he would talk a little more sense. Indeed, one wonders why he is so against achieving peace for Israelis and Palestinians. Justice, as sought by the Goldstone report is a key element of such peace and a more constructive response to its findings would be in the best interests of people in the region.

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