MRN

The aspiration of the Media Review Network is to dispel the myths and stereotypes about Islam and Muslims and to foster bridges of understanding among the diverse people of our country. The Media Review Network believes that Muslim perspectives on issues impacting on South Africans are a prerequisite to a better appreciation of Islam.

Where now for the goldstone report?

by MRN
January 1, 2013July 25, 2013

By John Dugard

(source: www.newstatesman.com)

In short, there are no new facts which could possibly have lead Richard Goldstone to change his mind.

In an op-ed in the Washington Post Richard Goldstone, former South African Constitutional Court judge and Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, expresses misgivings about the central finding of the UN Human Rights Council Fact Finding Mission Report on the Gaza Conflict of 2008-9 (named after its chairman, “the Goldstone report”) that Israel’s indiscriminate attacks on civilians were intentional.

The op-ed makes strange reading.

It states that the Goldstone report would have been a different document “had I known then what I know now” but fails to disclose any information that seriously challenges the findings of the Goldstone Report.

It claims that investigations published by the Israeli military and recognised by a follow-up UN Committee Report chaired by Judge Mary McGowan Davis, which appeared in March, “indicate that civilians were not intentionally targeted as a matter of policy”, but the McGowan Davis report contains absolutely no such “indication” and instead seriously questions Israel’s investigations, finding them to be lacking in impartiality, promptness and transparency.

Lieberman hints that Isarael exerted pressure on goldstone to recan’t his un reports findings

by MRN
January 1, 2013July 25, 2013

(source: Middle East Monitor.org.uk)

Israel’s Foreign Minister – Avigdor Liberman

Israel’s Foreign Minister has hinted that his country pressurised Richard Goldstone to recant the findings of the UN Report he wrote following the 2008-2009 Israeli attack on Gaza. The Goldstone Report included accusations that the Israel Defence Forces committed “war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity” against the Palestinians.

Avigdor Lieberman made his comments to Israel’s Channel 2 TV news. Goldstone’s latest implied regret of the accusations he made against Israel, he said, was no surprise: “I want to congratulate Goldstone’s new conclusions, but I am not surprised by them… We knew the truth and we had no doubt that it would come out eventually.”

Lieberman added that following the release of the Goldstone Report, Israel’s Foreign Ministry, Judiciary and Military exerted huge efforts behind the scenes toward achieving that end; the public were left unawares of the campaign.

Goldstone retractions vs facts

by MRN
January 1, 2013July 25, 2013

By Ben White

(source: Mondoweiss.net)

The publication of Richard Goldstone’s op-ed in The Washington Post on Friday heralded a weekend of frenzied hasbara. Goldstone’s “retraction” (though ‘qualification’ is more accurate) of the report into Operation Cast Lead was welcomed by Israeli leaders, Israel advocates in the USA, and others. Ha’aretz columnist Aluf Benn described Goldstone’s op-ed has “a major public relations coup”, claiming that Goldstone had “retracted his allegations that Israel had committed war crimes and crimes against humanity during Operation Cast Lead”.

These responses ironically paralleled the fallout to the Report itself, with sound and fury (and in this case, delight) preferable to cold facts. Since the Israeli government and its propagandists have a track record in establishing certain ‘myths’ and ‘truths’ that are then repeated for years to come, here are five points about the Goldstone op-ed and the fallout.

1. The Washington Post is not the United Nations.

Or, in other words, an opinion column in a newspaper does not have the same weight – to say the least – as a UN-commissioned report stretching over 500 pages, written by four respected international jurists. Sounds obvious I know, but you wouldn’t think it, to see some of the Israel lobby responses. Oh, and just to reiterate a point – the Report was written by four jurists, not Goldstone by himself.

2. What the Report actually claimed about the targeting of civilians.

In his op-ed, Goldstone wrote that Israel’s own investigations (see below) “indicate that civilians were not intentionally targeted as a matter of policy”. This in particular has been seized on as an indication that a core element of the Report has been ‘retracted’.

This is misleading. The Report never claimed that Israel set out to intentionally murder civilians, but said that Cast Lead was “deliberately disproportionate” and intended “to punish, humiliate and terrorize”. Kenneth Roth, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch, has been making this point on Twitter. He commented, that the “crime of indiscriminate warfare” – not “deliberate killing” – was indeed “state policy”, and that there had been “no retraction” on that part.

There is no shortage of evidence regarding Israel’s deliberately disproportionate use of force. Even during the attacks, Israel was preparing for the ‘day after’, under “the working assumption” that “Israel has suffered a blow to its image in the West in the wake of heavy civilian casualties” –a “negative sentiment” that would “only grow as the full picture of destruction emerges”.

Obituary mf choonara 3 11 1949 to 9 04 2011

by MRN
January 1, 2013July 25, 2013

By Iqbal Jassat – Chairman, Media Review Network

The Late MF Choonara

Saturday, April 9 marks the day South African Muslims shared their grief as the country’s foremost humanitarian activist was laid to rest at Avalon cemetery, south of Johannesburg.

Mohamed Farid Choonara, a doyen of relief aid work across Africa and pioneer of Islamic Da’wah (outreach) breathed his last following a short spell of illness.

Known to many as MF, his contribution to the development of Islam embraced a multifaceted approach. Having emerged as a youth leader in the early ’70s when he played a crucial part in the formation of the Muslim Youth Movement (MYM), the young lad enthusiastically consolidated MYM branches in most parts of the old Transvaal.

This period and later years when MF was elected as the Movement’s national director was characterised by frequent clashes with the apartheid state’s security thugs. His position as the voice of Muslim youth included the responsibility of ensuring that state organs of repression didn’t succeed in shutting down MYM’s monthly paper ‘al Qalam’ which was frequently raided and banned.

It was during this period – in the prime of his youth – when MF relocated to Durban with his family and directed a host of national MYM initiatives that snowballed into hugely successful projects. Some of these dot the national landscape of Muslim life such as South African National Zakaah Fund (SANZAF), Islamic Movement Press (Impress), Islamic Dawah Movement (IDM) and the landmark of education & training in Braemar, KZN known universally as As-Salaam.