No Angels

Members of the House are up in arms about the Goldstone report which notes that both sides of the Gaza War committed crimes.  So I wrote to Congressman Peter Welch:

I was pleased to see that you are not among the co-sponsors of H.RES.867 (Calling on the President and the Secretary of State to oppose unequivocally any endorsement or further consideration of the "Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict" in multilateral fora.).  

I suspect you and your too-few colleagues who actually took the time to go to Gaza understand the real issues at stake and appreciate the balanced approach taken in the Goldstone Report.  There are no angels in this conflict, and to refuse to consider how each side contributes to the continuing violence is to guarantee the peace process cannot work.  I hope you will cast a Nay vote and perhaps educate your fellow Members during debate on the Floor.

Peter and I disagree about Congress' role in the process--he thinks Obama has to take the lead and the Legislature really can't kibitz--but he does really get a lot about the Israeli-Palestinian mess.  I suspect he'll vote the right way on this typical symbolic resolution.  I'd better follow up with his office by phone, though...

ntodd