News

The
Israeli government has it in for Richard Goldstone. Ever since
Goldstone, a
Jewish South African judge, issued a report in September charging Israel
(and
Hamas) with war crimes during the January 2009 invasion of Gaza, Prime
Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu has attacked him -- and his report -- as a grave
threat to
Israel's legitimacy.

On
Thursday, leading Israeli government officials escalated their campaign
against
Goldstone, accusing him of sending 28 black South Africans to
their deaths
while serving as a judge during the apartheid years.

"The
judge who sentenced black people to death … is a man of double
standards,"
Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin proclaimed. "Such a person should not be
allowed
to lecture a democratic state defending itself against terrorists."
Israeli
Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon insisted, "This so-called respected
judge is using this report in order to atone for his sins," likening
Goldstone's statement that he was forced to uphold the laws of an unjust
regime
to "explanations we heard in Nazi Germany after World War II."

And
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