Author of Goldstone Report Admits the Report is Wrong: Israel Did Not Target Civilians Deliberately

In a bombshell op ed piece in the Washington Post the author of the Goldstone Report, which accused Israel of deliberately targeting civilians in its Operation Cast Lead against Hamas terrorists in Gaza, has now recanted. Mark Russell summarizes this stunning turn of events:

"The author of a UN report on Israel's 2008 Gaza invasion has retracted the explosive accusation that Israel deliberately targeted citizens, reports the New York Times, sending shockwaves through Israel. "Everything we said has proven to be true,” says PM Benjamin Netanyahu, calling for the report to be completely scrapped. “Israel did not intentionally harm civilians. Its institutions and investigative bodies are worthy, while Hamas intentionally fired upon innocent civilians and did not examine anything.” "If I had known then what I know now, the Goldstone Report would have been a different document," wrote Goldstone in the Washington Post."

Israel is not guilty of crimes against humanity or war crimes. Were civilians killed? Yes. Was it deliberate? No. Does Israel investigate specific incidents and punish anyone in its armed forces who breaks the rules of civilized warfare? Yes. Was Israel was telling the truth all along? Yes. Do those who were so quick to condemn Israel look bad? Yes.

Goldstone also says in the article that Hamas has utterly failed to investigate any of its own serious incidents of targeting civilians. This is not surprising, seeing as Hamas is a terrorist organization that targets civilians as a cornerstone of its strategy. Was Goldstone naive to think they would cooperate? Yes. Has he admitted the truth? Yes.

Here is Goldstone in the Washington Post:

"Some have suggested that it was absurd to expect Hamas, an organization that has a policy to destroy the state of Israel, to investigate what we said were serious war crimes. It was my hope, even if unrealistic, that Hamas would do so, especially if Israel conducted its own investigations. 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. That comparatively few Israelis have been killed by the unlawful rocket and mortar attacks from Gaza in no way minimizes the criminality. The U.N. Human Rights Council should condemn these heinous acts in the strongest terms."

Wait, he is saying the UN Human Rights Council should condemn these crimes. Does he mean to suggest that it hasn't? No, it has not condemned them. That gives you some idea of how biased the UN is. Goldstone again:

I insisted on changing the original mandate adopted by the Human Rights Council, which was skewed against Israel. I have always been clear that Israel, like any other sovereign nation, has the right and obligation to defend itself and its citizens against attacks from abroad and within. Something that has not been recognized often enough is the fact that our report marked the first time illegal acts of terrorism from Hamas were being investigated and condemned by the United Nations. 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.

There is no good reason to trust anything the UN says about Israel. It is dominated by Arab countries and their European colonies and they, with the help of the radical Left in the West, have turned the UN into an anti-Israel and anti-America body. The UN has all sorts of political agendas but they all have one common thread: they are anti-Western. Israel gets the brunt of it because they are considered to be the most vulnerable, but don't think that the West will be spared if it offers Israel up as a blood sacrifice. That is what makes the European subservience to Islamofascism so horribly ironic and pathetic. The best they can be hoped for is to be killed last - not exactly the sort of courage and conviction that made Europe great.

Israel is a democracy. Is it perfect? No, but what country could be perfect in the face of the hatred, fanaticism and prejudice of the militant Islam that drives Iran, Syria, Hizbullah, Hamas, and the Muslim Brotherhood? We should stand with Israel and pray for peace. But we should be leery of anything coming out of the UN.