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since Wed, 26 Dec 2007 20:04:17.
[Followup]
[Followup]
It was vile. Goldstone and the sponsoring organizations at Brandeis and the Brandeis administration allowed a representative of the Zionist occupation regime - Dore Gold, the former Zionist regime ambassador to the UN - to speak at the event to rebut Goldstone. Goldstone himself is a self-professed Zionist. His report makes accusations against Hamas and other Palestinian groups as well as against the Zionist regime. Pro-Palestinian students at Brandeis objected in advance to the format of the event and requested that Goldstone be the sole speaker at the event or that a Palestinian speaker be invited as well. These requests were denied.
During his speech Goldstone said that "Israel" was defending itself and had a right to do so and was only guilty of using disproportionate force. Goldstone only spoke briefly about Zionist war crimes in Gaza. He did mention the Zionists' killing of tens of thousands of chickens in the Gaza Strip. Most of Goldstone's speech was about the mandate of his investigation and about his support for "Israel", and he of course did make accusations against Hamas. Goldstone did speak at slightly greater length about Zionist war crimes during the question period. Dore Gold spoke for twice as long as Goldstone and falsely accused Hamas of breaking the truce or refusing to renew the truce (no one corrected him). Gold claimed that "Israel" went to great lengths not to harm civillians. Gold had all sorts of slides and little movies to vilify Hamas. Some pro-Palestinian people inside did disrupt Gold briefly by standing up with names of murdered Palestinians taped to their clothes. But a large portion of the audience were rightwing Zionist and applauding Gold during the question period, a young Palestinian woman managed to ask a question. One of the moderators tried to shut her up after her first sentence saying that it was a comment rather than a question. The moderators had allowed all the other audience questioners to speak at length giving background to their questions. The Palestinian woman then turned it into a question - 'How did Goldstone feel about there being no Palestinian voice speaking at the event' - and the moderator said that that question wasn't allowed because it should really be a question for the organizers of the event rather than for Goldstone or Gold. Goldstone answered anyway and said that he thought there should have been a Palestinian speaker. However Goldstone is the chair of the advisory board of Brandeis' International Center of Ethics, Justice and Public Life. This is the organization at Brandeis that organized this Goldstone event. So I blame Goldstone himself for the format.
I didn't get into the main room. I watched on screen in the overflow room. I had a "Let Hamas Speak" sign.
I would appreciate hearing other people's impressions of the event too.
