NOVANEWS
Posted by: Sammi Ibrahem
Chair of West Midland PSC
Although I refrained from writing so, I always thought Goldstone the man was bad news. Nonetheless, he was a man who was going to get the Palestinians of Gaza some justice, and perhaps the Palestinians in general some breathing space, and for that reason I was happy that his report came out and that it has been popularized and gotten attention. Showcasing the single standard of international law — in this world, a tool of power — was helpful to the movement. Despite justifiable criticism, he helped us. Nonetheless, his re-iterated insistence, as he puts it in the Washington Post op-ed, that “I insisted on changing the original mandate adopted by the Human Rights Council, which was skewed against Israel,” made me suspicious from the outset, as did his insistence on judging jus in bello, the conduct of the war, rather than jus ad bellum, the reasons for the war — the latter never defensible. Adam has already done a good job of deconstructing Goldstone’s op-ed, pointing out that despite Goldstone’s denials Israel clearly targeted civilians, and in many ways, the report has already hit where it could have been expected to hit, the hearts of civil society and enlightened liberal thought.
Its publication also exposed the limits of this kind of enlightened long-run thinking that tries to overcome the materialist social logics of settler-colonialism and the Special Relationship. Furthermore, he was always treading a thin line: parlaying his reputation into visibility and attacking the Gaza massacre committed by the Zionist state in the long-run interests of preserving a Zionist state that in the long-run is unpreservable. I thought his appointment was part of the enlightened imperial strategy of turning the Palestine-Israel conflict into one of managed rather than unmanageable injustice — he has served the empire well in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia and could be expected to continue to do so in Gaza.
Again, this is not to invalidate his report: there are people whose hands we might grasp as allies even though they be bloodied as we try to rip apart Zionism and the Special Relationship. But it’s helpful to keep in mind that opportunists and liberal imperialists are flaky and unprincipled. And also to keep in mind that just because some like Goldstone can be our allies to this or that stepping-stone on the path to justice, they should not be our crutches.
Technorati Tags: Gaza, Goldstone, Israel, Palestine, Zionism
Related posts:
-
The Palestine Papers, or How Everything You Thought You Knew about the Peace Process Was Wrong Belatedly another Truthout essay on the Palestine Papers: Common wisdom…
-
come hear me speak in Brooklyn on Sep 19 Sunday evening, September 19, 2010 5 p.m. Brooklyn For Peace presents:…
-
No, I don’t care about the new “mall” in Gaza I did not see the new Gaza “mall” before leaving…
-
the war against Gaza continues My friend Adie Mormech reports from the Gaza Strip: When 91…
-
when our enemies are more honest than our friends: Ben Ami on Walt and Mearsheimer Here’s a reflection at Alternet (missing the point, but that’s…
