Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Goldstone: Damage Control

"The Goldstone Commission Report is a grave blow to the State of Israel on 3 significant fronts: diplomacy, media and the military-legal spheres," warns Israeli analyst Ron Ben-Yishai on ynetnews.com (quoted in The Australian Jewish News, 25/9/09).

Ben-Yishai's piece is as you'd imagine from a Zionist source ("The report is a boon for terror groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas, and has implications that affect the ability of western powers to fight global Jihad terrorism...") but the following paragraphs caught my attention:

"We can debate now whether the Israeli government was right to decide not to cooperate with the commission. It is possible that had Israel cooperated, it could have prompted a more balanced report, and more importantly, it could have dragged on the discussions to the point of blurring the impression of the operation in public opinion." Dragging on the discussions until the world has lost interest. Now ain't that the Israeli way!

"All hope is not lost if the campaign [of damage control] is managed intensively and with determination on 3 fronts simultaneously - the diplomatic theatre, the media front, and the military-legal area - while enlisting all the support Israel can get from the United States and from European states. These countries surely realise the Goldstone report will directly hurt their military interests as well." Is this where Major General Molan (see last post) comes in?

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