Inanity on the High Seas

There are reasons aplenty to debate the morality and efficacy of Israel’s partial blockade of Gaza. The infamous Goldstone Report is not one of them. Alas, Jane Hirschmann (“An American Jew Sails to Gaza”) is unaware of this. Hirschmann claims that it was Israel’s “war on Gaza” and South African judge Richard Goldstone’s report on Israel’s so-called crimes against humanity during that war that prompted her to co-found a group called Jews Say No! and to take part in yet another international flotilla to try to break the blockade. She apparently hasn’t read Goldstone’s retraction of his report, in which he concedes that “if I had known then what I know now, the Goldstone Report would have been a different document.” This is particularly important because, Hirschmann says, prior to the war and Goldstone’s sharp criticism of Israel’s prosecution of it, she “never questioned the relationship between the U.S. and Israel and their policies regarding Palestinians.” In other words, her decision to take part in a dangerous publicity stunt — the first of its kind led to nine civilian deaths — was sparked by a document its author won’t stand by. One wonders if Hirschmann is intentionally abusing the facts — she fails to hold the Mubarak regime responsible for its cooperation with Israel, without which there could not have been a blockade — or if she’s simply someone else’s puppet.