This is how Israel’s biggest newspaper, Yediot, conducts its “journalism”. Smearing and in the service of the state. Here’s the lead:
Yedioth Ahronoth investigation reveals man preaching human rights, who authored scathing report against Israel’s operation in Gaza, sent at least 28 black defendants to gallows as South African judge under Apartheid regime.
He asserted that Israel committed war crimes and came out against the Israel Defense Forces, whom he claimed violated basic human rights. Judge Richard Goldstone forgot just one thing – to look long and hard in the mirror and to do some soul-searching before he rushes to criticize others.
And the final section could have been written by the Israeli Foreign Ministry:
Following the revelations, prominent American lawyer Alan Dershowitz compared Goldston’e defense to that of Nazi war criminals. “Goldstone took a job as an apartheid judge. He allowed dozens of black people who were unfairly tried to be executed,” Dershowitz told Channel 2 TV.
“You know, a lot of people say we just followed the law, German judges”¦ That’s what (German SS officer and physician Josef) Mengele said too. That was Mengele’s defense and that was what everybody said in Nazi Germany. ‘We just followed the law.’ When you are in an apartheid country like South Africa, you don’t follow the law,” Dershowitz added.
Israeli politicians and the Foreign Ministry on Wednesday welcomed the Yedioth Ahronoth investigation, which revealed Goldstone’s dark past as a cruel judge in South Africa under the Apartheid regime.
A Foreign Ministry official referred to the investigation as “explosive PR material”. Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman plans to instruct his office to send the information published in the newspaper to all of Israel’s representatives in the world to be used in their PR activities.
Both right-wing and left-wing Knesset members slammed Goldstone and his “problematic past”.
“The judge who sentenced black people to death and supported what he defined as a ‘reward for crimes’ is a man of double standards,” Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin (Likud) said during a meeting with his Cypriot counterpart, who is visiting Israel.
“Such a person should not be allowed to lecture a democratic state defending itself against terrorists, who are not subject to the criteria of international moral norms,” added Rivlin.
“Although he was involved in clear racist activity, he had no problem writing such a report,” said MK Hasson. “It’s puzzling and disappointing that the Foreign Ministry did not check and know in real time about the man’s past. Had this been done, it would have greatly helped us in our activity against the report.”
MK Yoel Hasson (Kadima), chairman of the Knesset’s State Control Committee, said the investigation revealed that Goldstone was a hypocrite not just towards reality, but also towards himself.
Of course there’s nothing here to examine Goldstone’s findings over Israel’s conduct during Operation Cast Lead.