Sullivan and Company Go on the Attack, and as usual, Blame Israel for the World’s Faults

Ron Radosh
Pajamasmedia.com
12 May '10

I have been called a lot of names in my life, especially since breaking with the political left of which I once was a part. Usually the accusations come with words such as “counter-revolutionary,” “renegade,” “traitor to the left,” “he went over to the right-wing to get their money,” “FBI or CIA agent,” etc. etc. etc. But Andrew Sullivan today comes up with a new charge: “pro-Israel fanatic.” Faced with a choice between all of those I list, I think I’ll live with this one. To be called this by Sullivan, who previously referred to those who defend Israel as a bunch of “Likudniks,” is a badge to wear proudly, especially when it appears on his own Hamasnik blog.

When he accuses me and others of engaging in the politics of “personal smear,” however, he misses our major point. It is a quite simple one, which Sullivan and some of those who have posted comments hostile to my blog post yesterday do not understand. We are not trying to “stifle debate” on the Middle East. Calling attention to the still rather unknown record of Justice Richard Goldstone as an apartheid era judge who ruled in favor of the Afrikaner state is not a smear; it speaks to Goldstone’s very credibility of his pose as a moral exemplar whose report critical of Israel is supposed to be taken seriously.

Moreover, in my case, I was not depending for my view on the newspaper investigation that appeared in Yedioth Ahronoth, but particularly on the report I linked to in a few of my blogs, the one written by a South African who knew Goldstone well in those days, Ayal Rosenberg. He documents how Goldstone had what he calls “an illustrious career in the service of apartheid.” My blog readers and Sullivan and anyone else can read this report themselves. I find it most instructive that to date, he and others have failed to comment on and analyze the very scrupulous and newsworthy analysis that Rosenberg gives in what he calls a “Critique of Self-Apotheosis.” He notes that Goldstone’s career dovetailed with the years of the worst repression, during the reign of P.W.Botha. He gives chapter and verse on how Goldstone portrayed himself as a defender and supporter of Both, his government, and the system of lawlessness known as apartheid.

(Read full article)

If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.
.