Jon Chait Doth Protest Too Much Posted by Michael Cohen

Let me start off by saying that Jon Chait is one of my absolute favorite writers and bloggers on American politics. His material is almost uniformly insightful, witty and well-argued. In addition, I, as a general rule, take great effort to write as little as possible on Arab-Israeli issues.

But having made both those caveats I felt the need to weigh in on what has been a rather raging debate between Chait and Matt Yglesias over recent allegations by the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Aronoth that Richard Goldstone (author of a critical UN report on Israeli and Palestinian human rights abuses in last year's Gaza war) was complicit in the crimes of the apartheid regime in South Africa.

Chait in citing the report claims that "it certainly adds some texture to the portrait of Goldstone as a man. (He privately called the UN Human Rights Council "hopeless," then wrote a report vindicating its geopolitical prejudices.) Goldstone seems to be disinclined to make a brave, lonely stand against the prevailing currents."

Yglesias argues that in fact much of this reporting has very little to do with Goldstone the man:

I find it a bit curious that strident defenders of Israeli foreign policy take a harder line on Richard Goldstone’s apartheid-era conduct than does Nelson Mandela and the leadership of the African National Congress. It’s almost enough to make you think that some of these attacks on Goldstone are offered in bad faith, and are more motivated by dislike for his conclusions about Israeli conduct during the Gaza war than genuine concern about his past conduct.

As the kids like to say, Duh! While I would defend Chait against the charge that he is a strident defender of Israeli policies (over at TNR, the odious Marty Peretz wins that award), of course this is why an Israeli newspaper - and supporters of Israel - are making hay out of Goldstone's supposedly checkered past. It's a fairly clear effort to mark Golstone as an individual lacking in credibility . . . thus making his report on Israeli behavior in Gaza that much less credible. This sort of guilt by association is practically standard operating procedure on both sides in the Arab-Israeli conflict and elsewhere (the Clinton White House raised this sort of thing to an art form). And seeing how Chait is one of the savvier writers of American politics out there I'm quite sure he knows this, which makes statements like these very difficult to swallow:

Part of the controversy around Goldstone has dipped into questions of his character -- supporters paint him as a fearless truth-teller, critics as a man who molds himself to the ideology of whatever institution he's attached to. I think his Apartheid history has some relevance to this small but non-trivial question.

Come on. The reason this has "dipped into questions of character" is because Goldstone has come under serious attack from Israel supporters for the conclusions of his report. And Chait is absolutely right that we should debate its conclusions (as TNR did here); but let's please not pretend that the attacks on Goldstone are anything but an attempt to disparage the messenger and thus in turn the message of his report.

In addition, I fail to see how Goldstone's background (which by the way Sasha Polakow-Surlansky provides more nuance to here) provides much guidance in assessing the veracity of his report on Gaza. Indeed, one might be inclined to argue that an individual who is willing to be complicit in apartheid-era policies in South Africa might be more sympathetic with the most conservative elements of Israeli society (Avigdor Lieberman comes to mind) - not the most dovish.

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