Britain hardens line in support of Goldstone Report, not one EU member state votes against it at latest UN resolution
Professionals at work
The resolution was a follow up to last November’s vote in the General Assembly calling for Israel and the Palestinians to mount credible investigations into allegations contained in the Goldstone Report that both sides, but particularly Israel, had committed war crimes against civilians. Britain abstained in that vote having absented itself entirely at the original vote in the Human Rights Council the previous month. Britain has therefore moved in three stages: absence, abstention, and now support.
Technically all three votes were slightly different in that the first asked participants to endorse the report’s findings, the second called for investigations on the basis of the report and the third provided for an extension of the time period in which those investigations should take place. However, as the United States — which voted against Goldstone on all three occasions — made clear after yesterday’s vote the key principle at issue is whether such a deeply flawed report should be given any legitimacy at all. That, said US Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN, Alejandro D. Wolff, was why the US continued to have no truck with it.
The Goldstone report is not only blatantly biased against Israel — it takes the testimony of Hamas supporting Palestinians at face value — it amounts to a full frontal attempt to criminalise self-defence operations mounted by democracies confronting terror groups.
The fact that the British foreign office remains wilfully blind to this reality is not only shameful, it also threatens to undermine Britain’s own national interests in places such as Afghanistan. If Israel is to be pilloried and criminalised over its attempts to deal with terror groups which use the civilian population as human shields, how will these new precedents in international law be subsequently used against British attempts to deal with groups such as the Taliban which use the same abominable tactics?
But if Britain is now prepared to stand shoulder to shoulder in the same voting group as Iran on this issue it may be that blind prejudice against Israel is now so deeply entrenched that arguments resting on logic and reason are completely ineffectual.
For the record, here are the official results of the vote reproduced in full from the United Nations website:
Vote on Follow-up to Report on Gaza Conflict
The draft resolution on the Follow-up to the report of the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict (document A/64/L.48) was adopted by a recorded vote of 98 in favour to 7 against, with 31 abstentions, as follows:
In favour: Algeria, Andorra, Argentina, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belgium, Belize, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Chile, China, Congo, Costa Rica, Cuba, Cyprus, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Denmark, Djibouti, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Estonia, Finland, France, Gabon, Greece, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Libya, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Madagascar, Malaysia, Maldives, Mali, Malta, Mauritania, Mauritius, Monaco, Mongolia, Morocco, Mozambique, Nepal, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Paraguay, Peru, Portugal, Qatar, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Singapore, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, Tajikistan, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, Uruguay, Venezuela, Viet Nam, Yemen, Zimbabwe.
Against: Canada, Israel, Micronesia (Federated States of), Nauru, Panama, The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, United States.
Abstain: Albania, Australia, Belarus, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Colombia, Côte d’Ivoire, Croatia, Czech Republic, Georgia, Germany, Guatemala, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Liberia, Lithuania, Mexico, Montenegro, Netherlands, Papua New Guinea, Poland, Republic of Korea, Republic of Moldova, Romania, Russian Federation, Samoa, San Marino, Slovakia, Ukraine.
Absent: Afghanistan, Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Armenia, Bahamas, Barbados, Benin, Bhutan, Botswana, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Fiji, Gambia, Ghana, Grenada, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Kiribati, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Lesotho, Malawi, Marshall Islands, Myanmar, Namibia, Palau, Philippines, Rwanda, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Sao Tome and Principe, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands, Somalia, Suriname, Swaziland, Timor-Leste, Togo, Tonga, Tuvalu, United Republic of Tanzania, Uzbekistan, Vanuatu, Zambia.
February 27th, 2010 at 1:24 pm
http://www2.lse.ac.uk/publicEvents/events/2010/20100308t1830vLSE.aspx
LSE is holding a debate on Goldstone on 8 March. The Panel is completely biased. Please come and give your verdict. You have to be online at 10am UK time on Monday to book a ticket (no charge though).
February 27th, 2010 at 3:40 pm
If Goldstone were living in the 1930′s and 1940′s, he would have taken the data collected from the Nazis at face value and used it against the Allies (which includes Britain).
What a shame that now Britain is on the side of the Islamists and a Jewish judge, who happens to be a self-hater, and using this flawed report as a weapon against the principals, morals and interests of the free world.
Obviously, Britain has been affected by the disease of political correctness and infiltrated by enough Islamists to give those who sympathize with them an upper hand in deciding the fate of all British and European citizens.
Brits, it is time to speak out and it is now or never.
February 27th, 2010 at 6:15 pm
Well there is an election coming up, and the Labour party needs those Muslim votes.
February 27th, 2010 at 6:22 pm
It’s not political correctness.
February 27th, 2010 at 11:50 pm
Eventualy I just hope that these coutries are sawing the branches of the tree under themselves. If Dhimmi Israel were not just that, dhimmi and crawling, it would have loooong ago issued a one-page piece of official declaration that from now on all these nations’ intervention in any shape or form in the “peace process” is unwelcome and the conutries named in it. But dhimmi Israel is afraid to do that – to stick it to Britain and all the others politely, diplomatically, but firmly, although I don’t know what the hell it could lose.
Perhaps my comment will not be published but I see one extremely intriguing phenomenon between the UK and the USA. Call me a conspiracist but I have the feeling – Obama, how to say gently, dislikes Britain and the British. Of course this is just an impression of mine but if one is alert enough they can read between the lines. Obama is staying strictly neutral between Britain and Argentina in their mini-spat. (While it’s true that Reagan also was unfavorable toward Thetcher’s war then, the actual situation now is totally different. In October when I was in London, all the press had their fit about the fallout btw Brown and Obama and the cooling of the two countries.) The Churchill bust in the WH according to gossips (?) was offered back to London. Again, I have the feeling that Obama is unsymphatetic to or, quite simply – who knows, might even harbors ill-will toward England for some reason. (And this is perhaps the only one thing among the many that he managed to get right…)
G. Fränkl
Budapest, Hungary
February 27th, 2010 at 11:53 pm
Sorry for the misspell of the ONE Englishwoman (from Cambridgeshire) I actually LIKE (almost “love”) – correctly: Margaret Thatcher.
February 28th, 2010 at 11:32 am
Couple of observations … 1) the divide between South Korea and North Korea is one litmus test of where ‘right and wrong’ lie. The UK now sides with North Korea. 2) Good of the Russian Federation to abstain. Probably keeping future campaigns in Chechnya in mind. Was there a Commission of Inquiry there ? 3) The Brits and Americans will never get hammered in the UN the way Israel has been. Why ? Anti-Zionism / anti-semitism. Israel should withdraw unilaterally from the UN. It won’t represent a defeat, as Israel is now permanently defeated within that body.
February 28th, 2010 at 1:02 pm
“In effect, Israel has become the geopolitical version of the European Jew who’s allowed to operate a store in the town but not to exercise full ownership rights: in the old days, Jews faced property restrictions; now they face sovereignty restrictions.” — Mark Steyn
Source: Do Syria and Jordan Have a Right to Exist?
http://tinyurl.com/ybdy6rz
February 28th, 2010 at 6:17 pm
Thank you, Mr. Shepherd for your support for Israel. I cannot adequately express how much it means to me and other Jews who love Israel. These are dark times for Israel, with most of the world turning against her. It’s like Alice Through the Looking Glass. But support like yours helps us stand strong. So, thank you.
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February 28th, 2010 at 11:31 pm
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March 1st, 2010 at 3:38 am
Australia announced point blank they supported Goldstone BECAUSE of their supposed and utterly unfounded outrage about that death in Dubai. I sincerely, sincerely hope and pray that UK and Australia take in as many Hamas ‘activists’ as possible.
March 1st, 2010 at 7:44 am
I notice that some of the hypocrites who voted in favor of the resolution nevertheless turn to the Israelis to learn how to be more like them in combatting Terrorism – India and Kenya, for example.
Also, many supporters of the resolution make grisly company
* Sudan, which slaughtered 300,000 of its own civilians in and around Darfur;
* Sri Lanka, which slaughtered 10,000 civilians last year while wiping out the Tamil Tigers;
* Yemen, which has killed thousands of its own people, including a number of civilians that it won’t let anyone investigate;
* Syria, which murdered 30,000 of its civilians in Hama;
* Algeria, which engaged in absolutely brutal repression to stop its insurgency;
* North Korea (need I even start?); Iran and Syria, whose attempts to control others via terrorism have led to more deaths in the middle east than any factor besides Saddam Hussein in the last 30 years;
* Pakistan, which slaughtered an unspecified number of its own civilians while retaking the Swat Valley and which sponsored the Taliban in the first place; … and on … and on … and on … .
March 1st, 2010 at 2:26 pm
Re: # 8 – Joshua. Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat? Steyn is not a JEW????? Shock & Awe! I ALWAYS thought! Now I doubly LOVE him!!!
March 1st, 2010 at 3:38 pm
Gary Dean wheels out that cliched abuse of ‘self-hatred’ to describe Goldstone. It is outbursts like his which have rendered the term ‘self-hater’, which is a truly dreadful condition exhibited by a fortunately tiny minority of Jews through the ages, into a virtually meaningless insult that reflects far worse on the person saying it than on his target. If Gary Dean wanted to make himself appear to be a frothy-mouthed hysteric without a clear understanding of the issues involved then he’s done a good job going about it.
The fact is that Goldstone is in no way a ‘self-hater’. The tragedy here lies in that fact: Goldstone, whether out of supreme vanity or mind-boggling naivite, really thought he could be a force for good by making the resultant report worthy of respect. It is quite clear that he failed miserably and his good intentions have paved another stretch of the road to hell.
March 1st, 2010 at 8:18 pm
Impressive…..Haiti, at least, at the courage to absent itself from the vote.
March 2nd, 2010 at 5:54 am
It has to all play out but in the end Israel WILL WIN. The Jews are God’s chosen people and as a Christian I am thankful to them for what they have given us. And as an American I will do everything in my power to help them..Christians United for Israel….
March 2nd, 2010 at 1:29 pm
“It is outbursts like his which have rendered the term ’self-hater’, which is a truly dreadful condition exhibited by a fortunately tiny minority of Jews through the ages”
As Anthony Julius once remarked, they don’t hate themselves at all. They actually love themselves beyond measure.
And it isn’t such a tiny minority.
“The fact is that Goldstone is in no way a ’self-hater’”
How do you know what he is? Have you supped with him (with or without a long spoon)? Have you worked closely with him over many years? Have you ever called him “friend” and “colleague”? I prefer to go with the judgement of a man who has done and been all those things. Here’s Alan Dershowitz on Goldstone:
“The Goldstone report is a defamation written by an evil, evil man”
Source: Dershowitz: Goldstone is a traitor to the Jewish people
http://tinyurl.com/y8mhejx
March 2nd, 2010 at 1:39 pm
“Joshua. Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat? Steyn is not a JEW????? Shock & Awe! I ALWAYS thought! Now I doubly LOVE him!!!”
Mark Steyn on his origins:
Espying the Jew
[Extract]
“Someone asked me on the radio in Australia, two-thirds into a long, long discussion, about how Jewish I was, and I answered that the last Jewish female in my line was one of my paternal great-grandmothers and that both my grandmothers were Catholic. I then filled in a bit of remaining family background for the two or three Aussies who hadn’t yet expired from total boredom.”
http://tinyurl.com/hlan4
Incidentally, the rest of the piece is well worth reading.
March 2nd, 2010 at 6:40 pm
Thank you Mr Sheperd your blog is a breath of fresh air amongst the poisonous air we breath in Europe.Person like you is a real inspiration it gave me the strenghts to continue to stand up for my beloved Israel.
Hat tip to Duvidele the great POET for posting the link on the CiF watch.
Iva
Rome /Telaviv
March 3rd, 2010 at 1:04 am
Joshua, thank you. I enjoyed every word of the article – as usual with everything this man writes. Indeed, his humour itself is such a great prize to be familiar with his work! As a side remark, wrt good news from Ontario (still it has more than a fare share of haters there, don’t forget!), let me quietly state here that in sharp contrast Quebec, Montreal is the dark (antisemitic) heart of Canada. It always were and will probably stay that way. Sigh..
March 16th, 2010 at 6:20 am
je trouve cet article tres interresant. je reviendrai suremenent sur ce site. bon courage
June 20th, 2010 at 11:26 pm
I’ve been thinking the exact similar point myself recently. Glad to determine another person for the exact wavelength! Wonderful guide.