Judging Goldstone
By Ted Belman
If you haven’t seen the movie Judgement at Nuremberg, you should. It was a movie of the trial of 16 Nazi Justices. One Judge in the dock, Schlegelberger, played by Burt Lancaster, was a good man who had reluctantly served the Nazi Regime until he resigned for reasons of conscience in 1942. He was found guilty. And in the end he agreed the verdict was a just one.
This case is referred to by Ayal Rosenberg in GOLDSTONE : A CRITIQUE OF SELF-APOTHEOSIS. He begins with this introduction of it,
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The criminal culpability for crimes against humanity of judges enforcing law within an “organized system of injustice” was established in The Justice Case of the Nuremberg Trials
and quotes from the Judgement
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“The prostitution of the judicial system for the accomplishment of criminal ends involves an element of evil to the State which is not found in frank atrocities which do not sully judicial robes”
“Schlegelberger resigned. The cruelties of the system which he helped to develop was too much for him, but he resigned too late. The damage was done. If the judiciary could slay their thousands, why couldn’t the police slay their tens of thousands? The consequences which Schlegelberger feared were realized. The police, aided by Thierack, prevailed. Schlegelberger had failed. His hesitant injustices no longer satisfied the demands of the hour. He retired under fire”
“We are under no misapprehension. Schlegelberger is a tragic character. He loved the life of the intellect, the work of the scholar. We believe he loathed the evil he did, but he sold that intellect and that scholarship to Hitler for a mass of political pottage and for the vain hope of personal security. He is guilty under counts two and three of the indictment.”
Then comments
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The legal principles arising from the Nuremberg Justice Case were codified in the Rome Statute which is the founding document of the International Criminal Court. The culpability of a willing judge within an inherently unjust system is covered by the Statute’s declaration that “individual criminal liability will be incurred in crimes against humanity and war crimes by a person…who knowingly aids, abets and otherwise assists, directly and substantially in commission of such a crime, including the means for its commission.”
After pointing out how Goldstone is presented as a man of virtue, an eminent jurist etc, he condems him as follows
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Goldstone claims, over and over (the scale and frequency of self adulation in itself should set off alarm bells) that his report is all about accountability for crimes against humanity and the integrity of international humanitarian law. This is a subterfuge coming from a subtle and fraudulent apartheid judge. As far as Goldstone is concerned the report, as everything else in his life, is about self: self-conceit; self-aggrandizement; self-praise; self-righteousness; self-worth; self-adulation and, most importantly, self-promotion.
You see, Goldstone was one of those culpable judges, who served an evil regime, apartheid South Africa and now serves another evil regime, United Nations.
Need I say more.
I did not feel empathy for Schlegelberger when I watched that movie, & I do not feel empathy for Goldstone now. Their choices were deliberate.
Comment by soren — October 21, 2009 @ 9:42 am
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As usual I agree with Soren, no empathy, no pity, no compassion.
Judgment at Nuremberg: defense and verdict
Whose Guilt?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRNX-kdHLXQ&feature=related
Spencer Tracy (Judge) reading the Verdict:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3BwK51YFgQ
Comment by yamit82 — October 21, 2009 @ 10:34 am
[...] Judging Goldstein By sofarhu 2009-10-21 08:17 JMTBy Ted Belman If you haven’t seen the movie Judgement at Nuremberg, you should. It was a movie of the trial of 16 Nazi Justices. One Judge in the dock, Schlegelberger, played by Burt Lancaster, was…Read more [...]
Pingback by Judging Goldstein « JewPI — October 21, 2009 @ 10:46 am
Yes, Ted. Either you need to say more or need to have said less. I fail to see your point. You are discussing three highly disparate things here, and fail to make a clear connection:
1. The UN report, submitted by Richard Goldstone;
2. Goldstone’s record as a judge under the Nationalist government; and
3. The Nuremburg trials of former Nazi war criminals.
Let me discuss the last first:
The Nuremburg trials were a political event, staged by the victorious Allies to put “teeth” into their wartime threat to prosecute “war criminals”. The results were nebulous: Most of those tried obviously felt they were unjustly accused, as they were unquestioning patriots who were simply “obeying orders”. It’s interesting to see these trials even mentioned on Israpundit, which attracts fanatical patriots of every strip who would gladly zap Moslems by the shipload if ordered to do so. The main targets of Allied wrath, namely Hitler, Goebbels, Bormann and Himmler and Goering, all cheated the hangman by committing suicide; so the trials mainly dealt with subordinates. Prima donnas such as Werner Von Braun were spared from the trials altogether because they were useful to the Allies.
Comparing South Africa under the Nationalists to Nazi Germany is an incredible travesty. They were not striving to eliminate an unresisting populace, but warring against a Communist-supported insurgency that was trying to overthrow the government; and the number killed — and especially the humaneness of their deaths (or lack of it) paled in comparison with more dictatorial regimes througout Africa. What’s more, the Nationalist leaders were not tried as war criminals, but participated in the new government.
Now, we come to the UN resolution, which puts that world body, a club of dictators, in judgment of Israel for its attack on a terrorist enclave that had been harrassing its citizens for several years. The purported “crimes” do not even compare with South African standards; yet here, unlike South Africa, the leaders of Israel are being made accountable for the presumed crimes.
The comparison of these three situations is laughable, and I fail to see how you are painting Richard Goldstone in all this. Concerning Nazi Germany, I expect that Goldstone wholeheartedly supports the idea of having prosecuted the Nazis. In South Africa, you seem to indicate that he was on both sides: first participating in the Nationalist government, and then opposing it. You even compared him with a Nazi who was being tried, putting Goldstone on the side of those he was clearly against. In the case of the UN, it is Israel that is being called upon to defend itself, not the World Body. I don’t see a clear, logical thread in any of this.
If you want my OPINION, I will offer it: All three “war crimes” scenarios are equally ridiculous. The Nuremburg trials had nothing to do with “war crimes”, and everything to do with the victors asserting their authority. If the Germans had won the war, I don’t think anyone here would suggest that the ensuing “trials” would have anything but the diametrially opposite verdicts. The South African leaders were not put on trial, and rightly so. Mandela served time in prison for breaking South African laws; and when the Nationalists saw that they couldn’t prevail, they successfully struck a deal with him. In the current situation, Israel is obviously being used as a whipping boy for political reasons; again, no “war crimes” have been committed.
Goldstone was called upon to write up a report, and he did so based on a utopian, medieval Talmudic understanding of justice — the same understanding that causes one Israeli administration after another to give terrorists a slap on the wrist instead of hanging them, and to release convicted murderers by the hundreds and thousands in exchange for the return of dead bodies. In all this, Richard Goldstone is not singularly any more crazy or immoral than most Jews; he has simply had a more damaging effect than most of the othres. Fortunately, most of his damage has been done to the phoney “peace process” and those who advocate it, rather than to Jews themselves. In this, he may actually have done the Jews a favor.
Comment by BlandOatmeal — October 21, 2009 @ 2:14 pm
Bland
You refuse to draw the obvious conclusions. This article is about judging Goldstone as a judge.
Schjegelberger worked for the Nazi Regime and was a good man. Guilty. Goldstone worked for another immoral regime, South Africa and failed to own up to his crimes,
After the demise of apartheid the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was set up. During October 27th to 29th 1997 the TRC held its Legal Enquiry which also investigated how the apartheid judiciary buttressed, “aided” and “abetted” the crime of apartheid. The TRC requested that the Judges, especially the apartheid era judges, appear before it in order to account to the nation for their actions during apartheid. While a few judges made a joint written submission no judge appeared before the TRC in person. The written submissions were made by the judges of the new South Africa and not by any judge from the apartheid era. Notably, the foghorn of accountability, Goldstone, did not account.
And now he works for the UN which is evil in its own ways.
The author’s point is that no judge should legitimate such regimes by giving them an aura of respectability and legality.
I think the analogy needs no explanation and certainly no defense.
Comment by Ted Belman — October 21, 2009 @ 2:53 pm
The Goldstone report number close to 600 pages. I am making no comments since I have not read the report. Intellectual integrity suggests that those who are critical should first read the report before making judgements. Without reading the report your criticisms are based on the accounts of others who just might have their own axe to grind. what has happened to intellectual honesty?
Comment by h peskin — October 22, 2009 @ 2:09 am
Peskin, your asking for intellectual integrity is a stupid anomaly coming from you.
Comment by Ed D — October 22, 2009 @ 4:14 am
I think Canada should also be indicted for War crimes for the mass murder of innocent civilians in Afghanistan.
Comment by yamit82 — October 22, 2009 @ 8:46 am
Yamit, I think you understand my perspective here better than Ted does. Indeed, the “war crimes” designation has become ludicrous, along with labelling countries as “immoral”. No international issue has ever been solved by winning “morality” contests. If South Africa under the Nationalists wass an “immoral” country, I suppose Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe is the prime example of morality. There are certainly far fewer protests against the latter than there were against the former. And as for the Canadians, they actually ARE an “occupying power”, occupying someone else’s land — as opposed to Israel (and the Afrikaaners), which is occupying its own. If Goldstone is to be disqualified as a judge in these matters, so should every Canadian be disqualified.
Comment by BlandOatmeal — October 22, 2009 @ 9:35 am
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