RSS
Home
U.S. must not block U.N. debate on Goldstone Report
Print
Email
RSS
Subscribe
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak with former U.S. Secretary
of State Condoleezza Rice
Richard Goldstone, chief author of the report on the Gaza War of last winter that found Israel and Gaza guilty of war crimes, has challenged the Obama administration to indicate where his report is flawed or biased.
It is expected that at least three of the five permanent U.N. Security Council members may agree to debate the report and, if they agree, suggest sanctions against Israel, the Palestinians, or both. The U.S. may, conversely, veto the suggestion to do that.
This would be a grave error on the part of the Obama administration. Andrew E. Mathis
The U.S. can ill afford to coddle Israel any longer on issues regarding the occupation of the Palestinian Territories. The occupation is now in its 42nd year — far too long and far too bloody.
This is not to say that the U.S. should not push for a fair debate on the report. If resolutions are passed against Israel, then resolutions should also be passed against the Hamas government in Gaza.
In 1982, when news of the massacres of Palestinian refugees in the West Beirut camps at Sabra and Shatilla by Israeli-allied Christian Phalangist militia members reached Israel, and it was clear that the massacres had taken place with, at the very least, tacit knowledge by Israel, if not outright help, fully 10% of the Israeli population marched on Tel-Aviv to demand an investigation into the war crimes.
They got their investigation. It led to the firing of then Defense Minister Ariel Sharon and, ultimately, to the fall of Prime Minister Menachem Begin.
Current Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu wants to hold onto his job, quite obviously. But it isn't as if Israelis are pressing him or Defense Minister Ehud Barak on this issue. So the U.S. has to. And if that means that Netanyahu's government falls, then so be it. Nothing, frankly, would be better for peace prospects than an Israeli government sans Netanyahu.
And Israeli Defense Minister Barak should be let go as well, if the result of a Security Council debate is what is predicted. The Israeli Labor Party, of which Barak is head, desperately needs new blood anyway.
Related Articles:
Comments
