Goldstone Retracts U.N. Human Rights Council Mission's Findings on Gaza War

In an opinion article in The Washington Post entitled "Reconsidering the Goldstone Report on Israel and war crimes" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/reconsidering-the-goldstone-report-on-israel-and-war-crimes/2011/04/01/AFg111JC_story.html) published on Friday, Richard Goldstone has belatedly retracted the principle findings of his UNHRC mission's September 2009 report on Israel's Cast Lead operation in Gaza and claims, "If I had known then what I know now, the Goldstone Report would have been a different document."

Goldstone further writes:

"That the crimes allegedly committed by Hamas were intentional goes without saying — its rockets were purposefully and indiscriminately aimed at civilian targets.

. . . .

While the investigations published by the Israeli military and recognized in the U.N. committee’s report have established the validity of some incidents that we investigated in cases involving individual soldiers, they also indicate that civilians were not intentionally targeted as a matter of policy.

. . . .

Israel’s lack of cooperation with our investigation meant that we were not able to corroborate how many Gazans killed were civilians and how many were combatants. The Israeli military’s numbers have turned out to be similar to those recently furnished by Hamas.

. . . .

I had hoped that our inquiry into all aspects of the Gaza conflict would begin a new era of evenhandedness at the U.N. Human Rights Council, whose history of bias against Israel cannot be doubted.

. . . .

Indeed, our main recommendation was for each party to investigate, transparently and in good faith, the incidents referred to in our report. [Former New York judge Mary] McGowan Davis has found that Israel has done this to a significant degree; Hamas has done nothing.

. . . .

At minimum I hoped that in the face of a clear finding that its members were committing serious war crimes, Hamas would curtail its attacks. Sadly, that has not been the case. Hundreds more rockets and mortar rounds have been directed at civilian targets in southern Israel."

It took Goldstone a year and a half to retract the manifest falsehoods of his report, and he could not recant without blaming Israel for his mistakes.

Needless to say, Goldstone's Washington Post article is barely making a media ripple, compared with the publication of his original report, i.e. the damage to Israel cannot be undone.