ROUNDUP
U.S. Backpedals
On Goldstone
Washington/JTA The
White House says an
official "misspoke" when
he said the administra-
tion would not allow the
Goldstone report recom-
President
mendations on Israel's
Obama
conduct in the Gaza war
to reach the International Criminal Court.
The official had told Jewish organiza-
tional leaders in an off-the-record phone
call Sept. 23 that the U.S. strategy was to
commis-
"quickly" bring the report
sioned by the U.N. Human *ights Council
and carried out by former South African
Judge Richard Goldstone — to its "natu-
ral conclusion" within the Human Rights
Council and not to allow it to go further,
Jewish participants told the JTA.
Tommy Vietor, a White House spokes-
man, said Sept. 24 that policy on the
Goldstone report remains as articulated by
Susan Rice, the U.N. ambassador.
Rice described the UNHRC mandate
as "unbalanced, one-sided and basically
unacceptable. We have very serious con-
cerns about many of the recommendations
in the report. We will expect and believe
that the appropriate venue for this report
to be considered is the Human Rights
Council and that is our strong view."
She did not mention what the U.S.would
do were the report to be referred to the
U.N. Security Council — a necessary
step were the matter to be referred to the
International Criminal Court.
The report said the U.N. fact-finding mis-
sion investigating Israel's conduct during the
January 2009 war found evidence of Israeli
war crimes. Israel has denied the allegations
and said the report's mandate was biased
—a view echoed by U.S. officials.
—
Gadhafi At U.N.:
Israel Killed JFK
New York/JTA
Libyan
leader Muammar
Gadhafi insinuated
that Israel was behind
the assassination
of President John E
Muammar
Kennedy. Speaking
Gadhafi
Sept.23 at the United
Nations General Assembly, Gadhafi
implied that Israel may have plotted to
kill Kennedy in 1963 because he allegedly
wanted to launch a probe into its clan-
destine nuclear program.
Jack Ruby, an Israeli, killed Lee Harvey
Oswald, the Libyan leader was quoted by
the translator as saying. "Why did this
Israeli kill Harvey? Ruby later died myste-
riously. The whole world should know that
Kennedy wanted to investigate the actions
—
of the Israeli nuclear reactor in Dimona."
Ruby, a local nightclub owner who was
Jewish, shot Oswald, the only official sus-
pect in the Kennedy slaying, just days after
Oswald's arrest. Despite persistent conspir-
acy theories, numerous investigative com-
mittees have pointed at Oswald as plotting
and carrying out the murder by himself.
During his speech, Gadhafi also blamed
Israel for the 1982 Sabra and Shatila
massacre (in which Lebanese Christian
militiamen murdered hundreds of
Palestinians in a refugee camp in an area
under Israeli control) as well as for the
2008 conflict in Gaza.
The firebrand leader added that the
Arabs had historically been friends of the
Jewish people and blasted Europe for mis-
treating the Jews.
You are the ones that brought on them
the Holocaust, he said. "We gave them
havens during the Spanish Inquisition.
We are not enemies of the Jews. The Jews
will one day need the Arabs, and then the
Arabs will give them protection."
On the topic of the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict, Gadhafi said the two-state solu-
tion was impractical geographically
because Israel and Palestine overlapped.
Instead, he called for the creation of a
single democratic state in which both Jews
and Arabs lived together.
The Ariel Sharon and Yasser Arafat
generation is over, he said, referring to the
now comatose former prime minister of
Israel and the late leader of the Palestinian
Authority. Look at the Palestinian and Israeli
youth; they want to live under one state.
This is his first presidential visit to the
United States.
'Obama Is Not
Israel's Friend'
The
Washington/JTA
only Jewish Republican
in Congress said
President Obama does
not seem to be a "true
friend" of Israel.
Eric Cantor
In an interview with
Politico, House Minority Whip Eric Cantor,
R-Va., said he was opposed to Obama's
"disproportionate focus" on a settlement
freeze instead of dealing with the "existen-
tial threat" to Israel from Iran.
"If you look at the policy that this White
House has followed, it certainly does not
seem as if we are dealing with a true friend"
of Israel, Cantor said in the interview.
Politico reported that White House
spokesman Tommy Vietor declined to
respond to Cantor's remarks, but said that
achieving a peace deal between Israel and
the Palestinians is "how you can be a true
friend to Israel:'
Rep. Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., called on
—
Cantor to apologize.
"The last time Mr. Cantor criticized the
administration's Middle East policies, he did
it from foreign soil — in Israel;' said Lowey,
chairwoman of the House Appropriations
State and Foreign Operations Subcommittee.
"This time he did it the very day President
Obama hosted a trilateral meeting between
Prime Minister Netanyahu and President
Abbas, an important step on the road to
peace negotiations. These criticisms appear
to be timed deliberately to weaken the
administration's ability to lay the founda-
tions for peace negotiations."
Benjamin
Netanyahu
Bibi Blasts U.N.,
Iran
New York/JTA —
Benjamin Netanyahu
told the U.N. General
Assembly that the
Goldstone report on the
Gaza war presents the
United Nations with a
choice: Support Israel or
terrorists.
"The jury's still out on the United
Nations, and recent signs are not encour-
aging," Israel's prime minister said
Thursday in his speech, the last of the
General Assembly addresses by world
leaders.
"Rather than condemning the terrorists
and their Iranian patrons, some here in
the United Nations have condemned their
victims. This is exactly what a recent U.N.
report on Gaza did, falsely equating terror-
ists with those they targeted."
Netanyahu was referring to the report
by South African jurist Richard Goldstone
on the 2009 Israel-Hamas war in Gaza,
which accused both Israel and llamas of
war crimes for targeting civilians.
Israel said it went to great lengths to
spare the Palestinian civilian population
in Gaza during the war.
Noting that the United Nations failed to
issue a resolution condemning Palestinian
rocket fire from Gaza after Israel withdrew
from the territory in 2005, Netanyahu said
U.N. members must dismiss the Goldstone
recommendations if Israel is to take fur-
ther risks for peace.
"This biased and unjust report provides
a clear-cut test for all governments: Will
you stand with Israel or will you stand
with the terrorists?" Netanyahu said.
"We must know the answer to that
question now, not later. Because if Israel is
again asked to take more risks for peace,
we must know today that you will stand
with us tomorrow. Only if we have the con-
fidence that we can defend ourselves can
we take further risk for peace."
The Palestinian representative in the
plenum walked out midway through
Netanyahu's address. Someone else yelled
at Netanyahu after he concluded his
speech, as he was exiting the General
Assembly.
During his address, Netanyahu garnered
applause when he said Israel wants to live
beside the Palestinians in peace, prosper-
ity and dignity.
"As deeply connected as we are to our
homeland, we also recognize that the
Palestinians also live there, and they want
a home of their own. We want to live side
by side with them',' he said.
The Israeli prime minister also used
his speech to press U.N. member nations
to take a stand against Iran, calling the
"marriage between religious fundamental-
ism and weapons of mass destruction"
the most dangerous threat the world faces
today.
Referring to the Iranian regime as
the "tyrants of Tehran" and "dictators
who stole an election in broad daylight,'
Netanyahu concluded, "The question for
the international community is whether
it's prepared to confront those forces or
accommodate them."
2 Jewish Justices
On New Stamps
Boston/JTA The
images of Jewish U.S.
Supreme Court justices
Louis Brandeis and Felix
Frankfurter are included
in a new series of post-
Louis
age stamps.
Brandeis
The series of 44 cent
stamps released by the U.S. Postal Service
also includes 19th-century Justice Joseph
Story and Justice William Brennan from
the latter half of the 20th century. The jus-
tices in the stamp series are noted for their
significance and longevity on the court. All
four attended Harvard Law School.
Brandeis, the nation's first Jewish jus-
tice, was appointed to the high court in
1916 by President Woodrow Wilson and
served 23 years. The Kentucky native first
achieved national prominence promoting
business regulation, fighting corruption
and championing workers' rights.
"It's important that we reflect on the life
of a man who was committed to the ideals
of intellectual inquiry, social justice and a
fully functioning democracy',' said Brandeis
University President Jehuda Reinharz.
Frankfurter, whose family emigrated
from Austria in 1894, rose from the tene-
ments of New York to attend City College
and on to Harvard Law, where he gradu-
ated first in his class. He was appointed
in 1939 by President Franklin Delano
Roosevelt and served until 1962.
—
Roundup on page 30
October 1 • 2009
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