by Joshua Lapide

Richard Goldstone, a South African Jew, retracts his conclusions, saying that Israel’s “possible war crimes” in Gaza were not “intentional. A Palestinian family that had 28 members killed by Israeli soldiers responds to the judge. In the past few years, Goldstone was ostracised by world Jews, banned from praying in his synagogue.

Jerusalem (AsiaNews) – For the United Nations Human Rights Council, the original Goldstone Report on the Gaza War of 2008-2009 (operation ‘Cast Lead’) is still legitimate despite second thoughts expressed by one of its authors, Judge Richard Goldstone. "UN reports are not canceled on the basis of an op-ed in a newspaper," Council spokesman Cedric Sapey said.

He was referring to an article published last Friday in the Washington Post signed by Richard Goldstone (“Reconsidering the Goldstone Report on Israel and war crimes,” in The Washington Post, 1 April 2011) in which he said that he had changed his mind about the report’s conclusions as first released (See Joshua Lapide, “UN: Israel and Hamas guilty of war crimes in Gaza,” in AsiaNews, 16 September 2009) and which he later defended (“Goldstone challenges US over Gaza crimes, China sides with Israel,” in AsiaNews, 26 October 2009).

According to the report, Israeli troops and Hamas probably committed “crimes against humanity” for targeting civilians.

At the time, humanitarian organisations said that “Cast Lead’ had killed 1,400 Palestinians, mostly civilians and children. Three Israeli civilians and ten soldiers died during the war.

In the wake of the report, the United Nations General Assembly called on Israel and the Palestinians to launch investigations on possible war crimes.

Both Israel and Hamas rejected the Goldstone Report, claiming it was biased. Goldstone himself defended it as honest.

In his article, Judge Goldstone said that his change of heart was based on the fact that Hamas’ possible crimes were “intentional”, meant to strike at civilians, whilst those by Israeli forces were “unintentional”, caused by mistakes in processing information.

Goldstone did express regret that Israel refused to cooperate with the commission of inquiry, which, in his opinion, meant that the latter did not have all the facts to reach a conclusion.

Israel refused to cooperate with the inquiry because it does not accept outside interventions in what it considers an internal matter.

In the article, Goldstone cites as an example of mistake in processing information, the killing of 28 members of the Samouni family. In fact, he acknowledged that the Israeli military had launched an inquiry into the massacre.

Contacted by a journalist, the survivors of the Samouni family said they were shocked. “How could this action be an accident, [. . .] a mistake, while they put women, kids, men [. . .] and they start to shoot at them [. . .] (see Ken O'Keefe, “Samouni Family Responds to Justice Goldstone Backtrack on Israeli War Crimes,” in SalemNews, 4 April 2011)

Conversely, Israeli newspapers are full of praise for Goldstone’s “change of mind”. After the report was released, the South African judge, who is also an Orthodox Jew, endured heavy-handed criticism, with some calling him a “traitor”. Jews around the world turned against him and even his synagogue banned him from praying.

Now with Goldstone’s retraction, Israel wants the report squashed. However, the UN Human Rights Council still considers it valid. For it to be cancelled, Goldstone would have to submit a written request.

• israel
• palestine
• gaza
• war
• war
• crimes
• 2008-2009
• cast
• lead
• richard
• goldstone
• human
• rights
• council