Goldstone/Gold Debate
By Ted Belman
Goldstone’s delivery was smooth and compelling. He went to great lengths to defend his report and blame Israel for not cooperating. I kept looking for his halo as it would have been in keeping with his saintliness.
Gold on the other hand gave a choppy defense of Israel that to my mind was not near articulate enough or competent enough. It was left to a tape of Richard Kemp’s to put Israel’s case as Gold should have put it..
When it came to the questions and answers, Gold still did not measure up. Goldstone was smooth and believable.
He kissed up to the Palestinians and to Hamas in particular, praising them for their humanity. He showed them great respect which to my mind gave voice to his bias.
Gold’s strongest point was that responsibility should have been placed on Hamas for the whole war and its destruction. Instead the report ignored this.
Gold pointed out that Israel’s choice was to destroy Gaza as Russia destroyed Chechnya or to avoid war entirely or to do the best she could do in separating the civilians from combatants. She choose the later.
The best questions was to Goldstone asking him what Israel should have done to stop the rocket attacks. He avoided the issue. Nevertheless he kept repeating that Israels response was disproportionate which means that the civilians deaths were excessive given the military target. This is a judgement call. How does one decide this without a bias.
Gold ended strong saying that the UN is so biased that Israel should never submit itself to its judgement.
Goldstone said that the the mandate was even handed and Israel should have welcomed it.
