The United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict will issue a report today accusing Israel of “actions amounting to war crimes, possibly crimes against humanity” during its military incursion into Gaza from December 27 to January 18. The mission headed by respected South African judge Richard Goldstone is a major development in the controversy and could put the United States in a very difficult position.
The 400-page report was written without the cooperation of Israel, which insisted that the body should have considered “the thousands of Hamas missiles attacks on civilians in southern Israel that made the Gaza Operation necessary.” There is no question that those acts are crimes themselves and are relevant to any reviewing of the cause or justification for the invasion. However, this investigation focused on how the invasion was carried out — a separate issue.
Goldstone, who is Jewish, has previously indicated that the group found clear evidence of violations of international law in the invasion.
The UN found that Israel failed to minimize casualties, used white phosphorous in civilian areas, intentionally fired upon hospitals using high-explosive artillery shells, and did not effectively warn civilians of attacks. It also accused some Israeli soldiers of using civilians as human shields and attacking food supplies for civilians.
The mission does call on the Palestinians to investigate war crimes by their side and to release soldier Gilad Shalit.
In the most worrisome part for Israel, the mission calls for an investigation by the International Criminal Court for possible war crimes prosecutions. Goldstone previously denounced Hamas for war crimes.
If Israel defies such an investigation, it would be in the same position as Serbia and other rogue nations. This could further isolate the country at a time when it has allowed the controversial “natural growth” of settlements in occupied areas.
With the hardline government of Binyamin Netanyahu, there will be a considerable effort to oppose any war crimes prosecution and he will likely look to the United States to help block that effort. The government has already denounced the findings as “propaganda,” here. After dismissing the Obama Administration’s demands for a halt to the settlement construction, it will be an awkward moment for Netanyahu to demand the U.S. use its power to stop an investigation. However, there will be many in Congress who will likely assist in that effort.
Of course, Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder are already limiting any domestic investigation into war crimes committed by our government in its torture program.
For the story, click here.
“climb up past the clouds to the clearer skies of the apriori principles of a well grounded metaphysics of morals; a path you sadly reject out of hand.”
Bob,
Frankly that is nonsensical. You are extolling a belief system that appeals to you as if it is a clear path to higher understanding. So do fundamentalists of every stripe. I envision Kant followers hounding college students on campus with their leaflets and using that line and it typifies how you are, deep within the spell of your own pet moral system, treating me patronizingly. Or do you think that I haven’t used my brain all these years to have my own thoughts and conceptions of moral issues? Metaphysician heal thyself.
Just when I thought I was going to get out, they drag me back in. Here I am dreamily ready to read some SF and relax before watching the taped Ken Burns National Park series, I discover not one but two long posts by people I respect and so feel compelled to answer. I will do it manana and of course answer in depth. However, I’ve been slaving over a hot computer all day, writing here and doing my personal writing, but I would like to make one point clear. I consider neither of you to be anti-Jewish because of your stances about Israel.
The only person who was here for any length of time that I called anti-Jewish was bdaman for specifically his “Christ Killer” name calling and he claimed to be pro-Israel. Stop confusing me with people like AIPAC, which I’ve denounced on more than one occasion, who use that formulation to deal with Israel’s critics. Bob, specifically I’ve thought that at times you’ve confused me with that type of person. Argue with me if you will, not with an image of who you think I am.
“the more you move away from your vision of yourself as a moral man and towards a simple human being bereft of conscience; part and parcel of that ‘lying to yourself’ phenomena.”
Bob, you simply don’t get it. I’m quite comfortable with my morality and my ethics. I am also someone who has spent a lifetime of work on being honest with myself. Truthfully, you may disagree with my attitudes and beliefs, but who are you to lecture me on morality? Especially because I think your own preconceptions prevent you from even dealing with my arguments, which you’ve cavalierly dismissed as history you’re not interested in. Now I understand that your lack of interest comes because you deem to see this issue strictly on moral terms, your own terms of course. You also have a right to think my positions are immoral, but the holier than thou tone you adopt is frankly patronizing and insulting.
“Mike S.: “Bob, we really don’t know each other, but it’s my uninformed guess that I am at least as in touch with and honest with myself as you are.”
Bob, I was being charitable with you in response to your patronizing me and my beliefs. I wasn’t about to get childish with you in response, but I was saying to you “back off” and stick to the topic and stop your patronizing. This is not a threat, by the way, it is a plea to at least give me the benefit of realizing that I’m definitely in your league when it comes to discussion, logic and morality. Patronizing equates to smugness and is the refuge of the uninformed and/or unwilling to be informed. I’d prefer this discourse be carried on with vigor, but without vituperation. I fear that you have crossed the line somewhat. I’m not about to play Nyanh! Nyanh! with you but your remarks have been getting personal even if you are unable to see it.
I’m off to read Doc Smith, I’ll get back to you whenever.
Mike,
If I may . . .
This reminds me of a time when we were discussing the rights and responsibilities of nations. I forget the exact context – it wasn’t argument fatal – and we were quibbling on a point. But I recall you saying that your thinking on that particular point was colored by your (I think the wording was) “tribal relation”. Since it was not fatal to the argument and a certain amount of tribalism is (I think) wired in with the Savannah survival skill set in our genes, I didn’t begrudge or push the point as error but rather took it as a simple fact of human nature. I’m proud to be Irish (mostly) and will be until I become something else. I don’t expect you to feel any different about your tribe. That’s unrealistic.
However, I suggest in this instance that Bob may have a point.
In a de-nationalized, non-denominational analysis of the actions of one party against another, there is a fair case for war crimes against Israel. Their behavior goes beyond anything that can be blamed on a few bad actors. It’s systemic and rapidly becoming (if not already) chronic. You have no issue at rising above your sense of nationalism as an American to say that you think the US is guilty of war crimes using an a priori framework. I’ve seen you do it. The problems in the US have systemic roots too. In this instance it does indeed make it appear that you have taken your hand off your ethical rudder when it comes to looking at the actions of Israel. Rename all the parties and religions involved and tell me it doesn’t paint an ugly picture. Just as ugly as Gitmo. Yet you seem distracted(?) from your faculties in making that equivalent abstraction of the patterns of behaviors that I know you are capable of from discussion about torture. Could part of that distraction may be the tribal relationship itself? Is it not true in therapy that self-diagnosis frowned upon because the doctor is simply too close to the patient to be objective? Could there be a root of denial holding you back? Bias is only correctable if one first recognizes it but one cannot recognize it if one does not question apparent inconsistencies. Bias is not always a club that hits you on the head. It can be insidious. It can even be inadvertent and/or subconscious.
Most importantly, it can be corrected. Bare logic can be a skeletal creature, but it runs better lean.
I’m not saying anything more than maybe it’s something to think about.
Mike,
Sorry about the delay, but your last post on this topic contained enough ipse dixet to give me pause. While I enjoyed arguing a topic that’s considered taboo for non-Jews, I even had one person warn me of being accused of being a ‘Jew-hater’ for what I wrote, I made two of my points directly and the third (Lebanon) implicitly. So what was left to argue? As I thought about it off and on over the past few days, I kept hearing a recurring theme. Here it is:
Mike S.: “Why should I care what the world’s “vernacular” refers to if I think it is wrong and the product of a well funded PR campaign? I may not believe in philosophy Bob, but I do have a strong sense of my own morality and my own ethics and frankly it’s of no moment to me if the “whole world” sees it differently.”
Apparently you ignored this:
“As a psychologist, I’m sure you’re aware that minimizing the identity and objectifying a group of people, e.g. seeing them as nothing more than the result of a PR stunt, makes it far easier on the conscience to look the other way from said apartheid policies. I could give you examples in history from South Africa to 20th century Europe, but … oh, never mind.”
Which brings me to this:
Mike S.: “Bob, we really don’t know each other, but it’s my uninformed guess that I am at least as in touch with and honest with myself as you are.”
While I was reading your post, a song popped into my head; “I Me Mine” by George Harrison. Unlike your previous posts, your comments here bordered on the solipsistic. Bald assertion I hear you say. Actually no, and here’s why:
You’ve already assented to the resolution that Israel has been carrying out apartheid policies towards a group of people the world, ‘not you,’ call Palestinians. You’ve also assented to the resolution that the comparison between my sister’s said behavior and Israel’s. Yet you exhibit an inability to reconcile the foregoing with your beliefs & boilerplate arguments about Israel that normally suit you well. (See also your comment on needing to write a book) You appear so emotionally entrenched in your beliefs and stock arguments that the reasoning you offer for reconciling the positions you assented to above leads us to little more than ‘They reconcile because I say so.’
Telling yourself that you can reconcile the immoral acts discussed above by sweeping it under the ‘every nation has done it in the past’ and other self-deceptive stances ain’t working so well. And to be brutally honest, breaking up my similes regarding one issue on the basis of an entirely different issue isn’t the peak of intellectual honesty either.
How does that quote go?
“Above all, don’t lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others.”
Who cares “what the world’s “vernacular” refers to if I think it is wrong and the product of a well funded PR campaign?” The world does Mike. And as long as you stick to stock arguments and anecdotes like the one you use to describe the Palestinians as nothing more than the product of a PR stunt, the more you move away from your vision of yourself as a moral man and towards a simple human being bereft of conscience; part and parcel of that ‘lying to yourself’ phenomena.
The sad irony here is that your best hope of reconciling your own morality with that of those who rule Israel is to climb up past the clouds to the clearer skies of the apriori principles of a well grounded metaphysics of morals; a path you sadly reject out of hand.
Pardon me, Vice Premiere.
Israel’s Defense Minster afraid to travel, fears arrest for war crimes.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wires/2009/10/05/vice-premier-and-exidf-ch_ws_309358.html
FFLEO,
Thank you, but really did you expect less from Bob or me? We share many beliefs, but obviously too as you would expect from iconoclasts such as we, disagree strongly on other issues of substance. I’m somewhat tired of this, because to me the topic is so complex I would need a long book to completely explain my views and that is not the book I’m writing.
Admittedly though, it does cut down on my time of reacting to the rest of what’s going on here. While I can’t comment on Bob’s speed of preparing these rejoinders, I think he works and so it must take time. I’ve been running about two hours to prepare the individual posts to Bob, what with reading, quoting, contemplating and then writing. This is also a compliment to his skills in debate.
Who am I trying to kid, I’m just as “guilty” as well Mike. That was fun, we walk away, no “rancor” and I still value you as a spirited debator and blogger. Thats’ the name of the game.
Still love to read your posts though Mike. “Peace” on the blog…
Thats’ right Mike, make sure you get in the last word sport..
Mike Spindell & Bob (Frog) Esq.
This thread is a good example of how people can disagree without resorting to ad hominem attacks. Thanks.
However, we are missing your perspectives on the other important threads.
Mr. Spindell,
I wish to identify my horse in this race… I just want there to be peace in Jerusalem.
There’s this remnant within from my upbringing, a great deal of which didn’t stand the test of truth or time, to the effect of “pray for the peace of Jerusalem.” It seems to have grown considerable roots with the effect that it makes me sad to see the lack thereof.
“Mike, you are strarting to “spin off” into some real irrelevancies, and it is becoming a bit tedious.”
Billy,
Pot calling the kettle black.
“what matters is that you refused to acknowledge that I was challenging your objectification of an entire group of people.”
Is that what I was doing? Could have fooled me, where is your reasoning on that?
“Okay Mike, I give up. If the world’s vernacular refers to a conflict between Palestinians and Israelis, what purpose did your anecdote serve?”
Why should I care what the world’s “vernacular” refers to if I think it is wrong and the product of a well funded PR campaign? I may not believe in philosophy Bob, but I do have a strong sense of my own morality and my own ethics and frankly it’s of no moment to me if the “whole world” sees it differently.
“Gee Mike, be honest, would you accuse me of being smug & patronizing and full of hubris if I were using the same clarification tactic on the hammer-heads that followed Bush/Cheney in lock step?”
Bob, your premise equating the two is faulty in my opinion and if you’re implying that I’m lock step on Israel I believe you’re confusing me with someone else. Or in the alternative do you believe that to defend Israel in any manner equates the defender with those who would defend Bush?
“Did I summarily dismiss what you wrote or did I engage you by providing yet another counter-argument as to why I completely reject your premise regarding the term Palestinian?”
Obviously the former and I’m sorry the truth escapes you.
“but what was the object of the Nuremberg trials; to hold Germany morally and legally culpable for its actions, or certain people?”
Guess what Bob, you are hoisting yourself on your pre-suppositions of what I as a Jew should believe. I think the Nuremberg trials were an exercise in hypocrisy, especially with the Russians there, when Stalin killed as many people as Hitler, for just as ridiculous reasons. I don’t like the deaths of innocent people whether or not they’re Jewish. Plus my HS English Teacher was a marine in the South Pacific and used to talk of how much fun it was to napalm Japanese soldiers in their caves, even after a white flag was proffered.
“Resolved: Israel has and continues to act immorally and the countries of the world have wrongfully remained silent (…yada yada, cause she acts with an air of entitlement like my sister).” The opponent then rises and recites the opposing resolution. If it get complex, it’s only because I find comfort in certitude. After all, as any practical pig will tell ya, far better to build your house out of bricks of certitude than mere straw.”
Thank you for providing the proof of what I’ve been saying, debate is fine with you as long as it is on your terms. Nice deal if you can get it, I’m not buying.
“Mike, you’re forgetting the existence of past trauma creating the ‘walking on eggshells’ phenomena and thereby creating the illusion of moral immaculateness no matter what they do.”
Once again Bob, you postulate a phenomena for which you offer no proof, I did comment on that in my last post, other than you own beliefs. That’s fine, but when I disagree with that premise and those beliefs that is also my right and just as much an exercise in logic.
“What the fu(k does Howard Zinn, someone I don’t know and is not family, have anything to do with my better ability to empathize with you to the extent that I can?”
You offered up having Jewish family to make what point? Have I once called you or implied you are anti-Jewish? My point with Zinn is that Jews are anything but homogeneous in thought
so being friends or family with some proves nothing, least of all empathy.
“Furthermore, you, as a former therapist, should acknowledge that arguing from your fear leads to argument from emotion; and that Mike is an informal fallacy”
Bob, you don’t think it’s patronizing to say that I’m arguing from fear, when I clearly believe that not to be the case? You’re trying to help me. How special. Bob, we really don’t know each other, but it’s my uninformed guess that I am at least as in touch with and honest with myself as you are. This is not about fear, but truly not being Jewish you are incapable of understanding that. It is really like saying to a Black man that their distrust of police and the law is unfounded.
“You don’t want the compliment, don’t take it.”
When it’s inserted at the end of a long, patronizing post, it seemed barbed. My apologies and thank you.
“BTW, about that Lebanon thing, and why it pisses me off:
You want smug, I give you the Israeli ambassador and his defense of Israel regarding the war crimes in Gaza. Same tripe used to defend the invasion of Lebanon.
And I’m still waiting on your proportionality assessment.”
I’ve stated countless times that I don’t like Bibi or Israel’s current government and like their policies less, so why would I defend any statement they make? As to the proportionality assessment I fear you’ll have a long wait. I’ve made far too many statements on this site condemning Israeli actions and if that hasn’t given me credibility about where I’m coming from, then so be it. I told you I refuse to play your game. On a much less grandiose level this is like President Obama being asked to make a statement about Reverend Wright’s comments, much of which I personally agreed with, and I prefer to let my voluminous previous comments on the Mid East situation speak for themselves.
This thread may have a serious unresolved issue at heart, but I’ve had a ton of laugh-out-loud moments from it.
Mike, you are strarting to “spin off” into some real irrelevancies, and it is becoming a bit tedious.. I would like to express my pleasure at reading your many posts. You are a very bright and “articulate man”. And this is not an attempt at mollification or being passive aggressive. I am being sincere..
“By the way, that earlier “Mike Length post” was in fun.”
Gyges,
Everyone who knows me knows and has commented upon my long windedness verbally even my family, so why should my writing be any different. I am congenitally long in the tooth and long winded in my writing. Another way of saying it is that i’ve got a big mouth. As my maternal Grandmother used to put it in a yiddish I’ve long forgotten “Moishie, you have more nerve than brains.” It was sad affectionately of course
I’m touched Nate.. really I am..
Billy,
“…I of course don’t believe in the tenets of Judaism, in light of the fact I am a Catholic…”
I’m on a search to discover where life is most beautiful for me. Along that journey, I’ve discovered the necessity of making life more beautiful for them.
All of them.
“I am a bit surprised though Mike, that you could attend mass at St. Patricks Cathedral and spend Christmas day at Catholic friends’ of the family, in light of the fact “they” persecuted and tormented “your people” throughout history. What you “say” now, in light of your “past experiences” seems strangely incongruent. But what the heck, that is the “paradox” of man, he dosn’t always do the logical thing.”
Billy,
There is nothing illogical about it. I’m not a believer in Catholicism and don’t like some of the activities of the RCC, but I don’t hate it and can name at least as many good things it has done in its’ history, as bad things. As for Catholics themselves why should their religious beliefs cause me to hate them if theirs don’t cause them to hate me? Secondly, as you well know, especially at St.Patricks, the mass is a mighty impressive and moving ritual. I like ritual. I’ve also attended Black Baptist Churches, Greek Orthodox services and Episcopal services. Love gospel music as much as I love Gregorian chants. If I’m bigoted and in this respect I probably am, it is against religious fundamentalism, or indeed political fundamentalism of any stripe, that include Judaism as I’ve previously stated.
I actually find your remarks fairly incongruous and remarkably naive. Incidentally, although I spent Christmas Day many times in Catholic homes we all respected each other enough to know that we wouldn’t be exchanging presents, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t get in to the fun of watching other people open their. I’ve also pleasurably spent many an evening helping friends trim their Christmas Trees, but have never wanted one of my own. Friendship of people with different faiths should be normal and a true friend shares the joy of their friends celebrations. Most of the seders my father ran and that I’ve run and that my son-in-law now runs have had non-Jewish guests, though admittedly none that I’ve known of have had Egyptians. That could be a problem.