Goldstone’s about face on Israel is welcome but the damage is done

NOTHING in the recent history of the Arab-Israeli struggle had done more damage to Israel’s standing of Israel than the Goldstone report.

It served as Exhibit A in the political arsenal of Israel’s many foes. Its allegations of war crimes besmirched the Jewish state’s name in the court of world public opinion.

In April 2009, Richard Goldstone, a retired South African judge, was appointed to preside over a United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) “Fact Finding Mission” to probe claims of war crimes committed during the Gaza fighting in 2008. The Goldstone Commission held hearings and eventually issued a report that found Israel’s incursion into Gaza to have been “a deliberately disproportionate attack designed to punish, humiliate, and terrorise a civilian population” — a war crime.