"Hey Congress: Grow a spine on Israel!"
Steve Walt in FP/ here
"Back in 2007, we wrote that AIPAC has an "almost unchallenged hold on Congress." Little has happened since then to alter that conclusion, and we will probably get another demonstration of Congressional spinelessness this week. On Tuesday, the House is scheduled to vote on H.R. 867 (see below story), an AIPAC-sponsored resolution denouncing the recent Goldstone Report on possible war crimes by Hamas and Israel during the Gaza War last year. You can read the resolution here. You should then read Judge Goldstone's response here, which points out the errors in the House resolution. And then read historian Tony Judt's eloquent statement here. If you're convinced that the resolution makes a mockery of America's professed commitment to justice and human rights, then you might express that sentiment here or here. Or just call your Congressman's office and tell him/her to grow a backbone and vote against it.
Meanwhile, over in Israel itself, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is completing the Obama administration's humiliating retreat from the principles set forth in the president's Cairo speech of less than five months ago...."
US House of Representatives: Goldstone is "irredeemably biased and unworthy of further consideration or legitimacy,..."
In the CABLE/ here"... The Congressional resolution, which simply expresses the opinion of Congress and has no actual force of law, deems the report "irredeemably biased and unworthy of further consideration or legitimacy," and "calls on the President and the Secretary of State to strongly and unequivocally oppose any further consideration of the [report] and any other measures stemming from this report in multilateral fora."
Sponsored by House Foreign Affairs heads Howard Berman, D-CA, and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-FL, the measure is expected to pass by a wide margin.
Justice Richard Goldstone, the primary author of the report, wrote a lengthy memorandum to the bill's sponsors criticizing the text of the House resolution. In a dear colleague letter circulated Monday, Berman and Gary Ackerman, D-NY, responded to each of Goldstone's complaints...."
Posted by G, Z, or B at 3:28 PM
Top US Lawmaker Blasts UN over Goldstone Report
03/11/2009 The US House of Representatives was expected to easily approve a sharply worded resolution Tuesday denouncing a UN report that Israel and Palestinian militants committed war crimes in the Gaza war.
With the UN General Assembly due to take up the Goldstone report on Wednesday, US lawmakers were set to vote on a non-binding resolution pushing President Barack Obama to repudiate and block UN approval of its findings.
"I'm going to vote emphatically for it," said Democratic House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer. "I think the UN report is unbalanced, and unfair, and inaccurate. "It's unfortunate that the United Nations deals with Israel, in my opinion, in a totally biased and unbalanced way. And it is the only country in the world, Israel, that has a special focus by the United Nations," he added.
The resolution, crafted by Republican Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, expressed support for the Obama administration's condemnation of the report and urges opposition to its findings in any international forum.
Named after former South African judge Richard Goldstone, who headed the inquiry committee, the UN report accuses Israel of war crimes during the 22-day conflict that flared up in late December 2008 and ended in January, killing some 1,400 Palestinians.
Hoyer claimed that rocket fire from Palestinian fighters in Gaza had placed Israel in "an unfortunate position" and stressed that Israel "is as careful a government as there is in terms of prosecuting its own defense" officials.
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