Judge Richard Goldstone, who authored the controversial United Nations report criticizing the IDF for its conduct during Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip, has been removed from Hebrew University’s Board of Governors, the Jerusalem academic institution confirmed on Thursday.
While the UN-endorsed document attributed to the South African judge – the Goldstone Report – has drawn a firestorm from its critics over what they have labeled its “flawed accusations” regarding IDF “war crimes” committed during the three-week-long military operation, Hebrew University has denied that Goldstone’s removal from the board was connected to the report, and instead emphasized that his “inactivity” with the institution was reason for the change.
“[Goldstone] hasn’t been active for a decade or more,” Hebrew University spokesman Jerry Barash told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday. “He hasn’t attended any board meetings, nor has he shown any interest in its operations, and those kinds of people are eventually taken off the board.”
Barash added that Goldstone was not the only honorary governor to be removed from the list but part of a group of similarly “inactive” members.
“There was a rotation – which is not unusual – of members on and off the board,” Barash said. “And [Goldstone] is among those who are off.”
A statement from the university also referred to Goldstone’s lack of activity with the institution, and said that, “the purpose of this technical act is to enlist new, active members for the board in place of those who do not play any role on behalf of the University.”
Nevertheless, Goldstone himself expressed surprise at the news, telling the London-based Jewish Chronicle that he had been “unaware” of Hebrew University’s move until the Chronicle had contacted him.
“This is the first I have heard about my position as a governor of the HU,” Goldstone was quoted as saying. “I feel confident that it is not correct and such action would not be taken without notice to me or the South African Friends of the Hebrew University.”
However, Jerusalem lawyer David Schonberg, who had initiated the request to the president of Hebrew University several months ago that Goldstone’s honorary position be re-examined, told the Post on Thursday that he was satisfied with the end result but had some misgivings at the “evasive replies” he had received as well as what he termed the “questionable procedure that seemed to have been taken,” even though it brought about the desired result of Goldstone’s removal from the board.
“In my correspondence with the university, I requested that the removal of Goldstone be done on its merits,” Schonberg said. “But the replies that I received stated that ‘we have no procedure for removing honorary governors,’ ‘he has not anyway been coming to meetings of the board’ and ‘he has not got a right to vote.’
“While I welcome the university’s removal of Goldstone, I think it would have been preferable to do this openly on the merits, rather than attempt to construct a sort of legal-fiction, based upon his non-attendance of meetings – which is not anyway expected of honorary governors, who are appointed for life, and often live abroad – that has a questionable basis, from the point of view of the university’s own statutes and regulations.
“This, I think, of itself, tells a great deal about what has really occurred in the Goldstone matter,” Schonberg said.
Don Robertson said,
June 5, 2010 at 15:24
ALL academic accolades are hollow and degrading comments about doing things any honestly self-respecting person would find demeaning and pointless given the vastly brief perspective of an entire life. Its a grammar-school mentality is regressive of thought and freedom.
When you read of an adult’s academic credentials or achievements, often seeing these appended to their name, be suspicious of the character of that person, very suspicious.
They are pretending to be something -they are not. For all our knowledge is faulty and trespasses into what can be easily proved a lie and a fraud.
Few of these immoral human creatures who sold their souls to the false praise and accolade of academia will ever mature beyond the selfish, and greedy outlook on life they maintain -one that regularly ends in what will make them unbearably haughty, as Harvard University’s Alan Dershowitz and no doubt Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Elena Kagan.
A Jew nominated to sit on the Supreme Court with two others who already sit on the high court has no shame. This would make three of nine judges, Jews.
Now, – given the hideous international criminal character of the cancer, of so-called the “Jewish nation”, and its estranging entanglement in American politics- this is an unbearable insult to Americans of all creeds, -especially American Jews who will pay the common social price of such a rank transgression of propriety.
Being stripped of some honor by Jerusalem University then, has risen Judge Richard Goldstone up a notch for me. And I think very little of judges, very little indeed.
The Judeo-Christian ethic of “scholarship” that has so subtly entrenched itself with seemingly irrepressible hubris and gives rise to these false accolades is destructive of our humanity. Let me explain why.
I will say again -first- though, I am the most important moral philosopher alive today. And -I am not Jewish, let alone a rabbi.
The rabbinical philosophy I have come in contact with -speaks of a relative morality, -currently widely accepted in our societies. But it is wholly faulty. Notions of relative morality are somewhat akin to the some sort of relative mathematics we might expect to see used by Chimpanzees.
On to the logical proof.
Consider that IF, as I have posited, The moral imperative of life is to live a life that detracts not at all from the lives available to those who will follow us into this world.
THEN WHO has the moral right to put -the future world- at risk by the exercise of the intellectual curiosity?
No one does.
I have cleaved the heart of academic freedoms right in two with this question.
The depth of the moral imperative -no one knows. Nor will any know unless humanity survives the thousand years it will take to comprehend and embrace the Categorical Knowledge that arises from it.
Science is dead. That is for sure. But more importantly academia is dead until it recognizes that Empirical Knowledge has reached its distended limits.
Categorical Knowledge reigns supreme.
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June 5, 2010 at 17:55
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Big Joe said,
June 5, 2010 at 18:23
It has become quite clear that Israel is a nation of nazi wannabes.
Johnny said,
June 5, 2010 at 18:34
The Goldstone report was not opinion, theory nor political, it was a UN commissioned report reflecting the facts surrounding a series of events. Israel attacks the messenger, but cannot refute the facts, they are FACTS.
Israels actions are beyond reprehensible.
Goebels would be proud.
Toronto Lawyers said,
June 6, 2010 at 02:37
Too bad for Goldstone
The Progressive Mind » GOLDSTONE STRIPPED OF HONOURS AT JERUSALEM UNIVERSITY « Desertpeace said,
June 6, 2010 at 04:58
[...] GOLDSTONE STRIPPED OF HONOURS AT JERUSALEM UNIVERSITY [...]
HE HAS HIGHER HONOR THAN ANY ZIONIST JEW GANG COULD EVER IMAGINE said,
June 8, 2010 at 08:41
Mr. Goldstone has something that none of the people in Israel ever will have, nor could ever hope to achieve, and that is HONOR in the EYES OF THE NON-ZIONIST JEW WORLD.
you can’t buy that. you can’t bribe your way into it. You EARN IT by being a HUMAN BEING.
so, Mr. Goldstone, you earned yours. Unfortunately, the sniveling hyena’s in your homeland have no clue what it means to have HONOR in the EYES OF THE WORLD NOT DOMINATED BY ZIONIST JEWS.
that’s sad for them, but for you, you earned yours. Nobody can EVER take that from you!
Know that, Mr. Goldstone. Know that!
David Schonberg said,
June 9, 2010 at 13:03
You are very funny people.
To the best of my knowledge, your classification of me as “right-wing” is incorrect.
But why let truth, or facts to bother you- they just get in the way of blinkered people with an agenda.
desertpeace said,
June 9, 2010 at 13:12
Of course it’s an incorrect classification. It’s a known fact that all left wing and progressive lawyers grant interviews to Arutz Sheva.
David Schonberg said,
June 9, 2010 at 14:40
I was approached by media, in Israel & abroad, from every political persuasion- and I tried to answer according to my undestanding. I did not check their credentials & unfortunately, certain misinformation/ error on the topic exists, too. Believe me, there is much to say on the topic, which I refrained from doing… but your blog is very one-sided & incorrect.
David Schonberg said,
June 9, 2010 at 14:59
Oh, I just looked at some things that you wrote.. if you are Steve Amsel.
I do not want to get personal, but I noticed that you write that you hope to receive a fourth citizenship (in addition to American, Canadian & Israeli), a Palestinian citizenship.
Well, I see you talk a little about your background & your grandparents & the holocaust… I would not mention my background… but I wonder whether you’ll achieve your aspirations. My impressions have been that the Palestinian concept of statehood is very “judenrein”- so I have my doubts about your citizenship hopes.
Each to his own delusions.