Why Did Richard Goldstone Throw the Goldstone Report Under the Bus?

By Ian Williams, April 5, 2011

GoldstoneI spoke to Richard Goldstone several times after his eponymous Report c
ame out, and it was obvious that the personal slander and vilification from so m
any in his own community was wearing him down. He was certainly naive and did no
t expect the excreta storm that would head his way.
He had always been a person of integrity and his editorial in the Washington Pos
t, allegedly “retracting” the Report named after him is saddening. If it had appeare
d the day before, one would almost suspect it of being an April Fool’s parody.
Indeed, the wording of the editorial, while confused and evasive, was eloquently
indicative of heavy pressure -- not least since only two days before at a debat
e at Stanford University, he is reported as maintaining that “all the investigatio
ns showed that, thus far, the facts were as they were reported.”
One cannot help wondering what happened in the next two days to change his mind.
Did his daughter, ex IDF and self-confessed Israeli patriot, pull the family ch
ains? It certainly betokens a personal tragedy, since it will detract from his r
eputation and integrity in the human rights and international law field, with no
chance at all of earning the forgiveness of the rabid and vindictive Zionists w
ho have been hounding him mercilessly for two years.
Indeed, reading the editorial reminded me of Comrade Rubashov in Arthur Koestler’s
“Darkness At Noon” -- a true believer doing one last duty for the group he had live
d with for so many years. It reads like a “confession” rung out from someone trying
to free hostages near and dear to him by giving the kidnappers what they want wh
ile trying to hold on to one’s own integrity and dignity. Sadly, of course, those
who attacked his morals and probity before, will never, ever forgive him for tel
ling the truth originally -- and like Rubashov, he will be shown no mercy once h
is confession has served its purpose for the cause.
It suited the Lobby to highlight Goldstone, a Zionist and judge whose internatio
nal reputation made it even more difficult than usual to bury the message especi
ally among Jews. However, those other members are distinguished jurists in their
own right who were commissioned by the United Nations Human Rights Council and
whose report became the property of the UN General Assembly, neither of whom are
likely to drop the report just because complicit Israeli ministers misinterpret
Goldstone’s editorial with the same liberty that they misinterpreted the original
report -- which after all simply asked the parties to conduct credible investig
ations.
The core “retraction” in the editorial is the sentence, “If I had known then what I kn
ow now, the Goldstone Report would have been a different document,” which is about
as retractable as a rubber band. It certainly does not substantiate Netanyahu’s r
eaction “Everything we said was proved true,” although it does raise suspicions that
Avigdor Lieberman’s attribution of the editorial to “diplomatic efforts on behalf o
f Israel,” might conceal some heavy advocacy conveying difficult-to-refuse offers.
Goldstone is a lawyer, and this imprecisely flexibly wording of “different documen
t,” could mean almost anything. If he knew about the ferocity of the tribal scapeg
oating that was to follow? If he knew that the report was going to spur Israel i
nto mounting a series of pseudo-independent investigations into events that they
refused to look into earlier? It certainly is far from an unequivocal retractio
n of the original, which is not “his” to retract since it was, after all, the produc
t of a team including three others, commissioned by the United Nations Human Rig
hts Council.
His claim that Israeli investigations “also indicate that civilians were not inten
tionally targeted as a matter of policy,” does not contradict his early report, wh
ich never suggested that. The My Lai massacre, for example, was no less a war cr
ime because the Pentagon did not directly order it.
His most wrenching default is when he says “the most serious attack the Goldstone
Report focused on was the killing of some 29 members of the al-Simouni family in
their home. The shelling of the home was apparently (my italics) the consequenc
e of an Israeli commander s erroneous interpretation of a drone image, and an Is
raeli officer is under investigation for having ordered the attack. While the le
ngth of this investigation is frustrating, it appears that an appropriate proces
s is underway, and I am confident that if the officer is found to have been negl
igent, Israel will respond accordingly.”
Looking at the abysmal track record of Israeli investigations -- and bearing in
mind that it was the original Goldstone Report that brought about the apology fo
r an investigation he refers to here, Judge Goldstone really has to explain to h
is own conscience on what grounds he is “confident” of an appropriate response, let
alone how the finding of “negligence” came about.
Throughout, he is upsettingly equivocal. “While I welcome Israel’s investigations in
to allegations, I share the concerns reflected in the McGowan Davis report that
few of Israel’s inquiries have been concluded and believe that the proceedings sho
uld have been held in a public forum. Although the Israeli evidence that has eme
rged since publication of our report doesn t negate the tragic loss of civilian
life, I regret that our fact-finding mission did not have such evidence explaini
ng the circumstances in which we said civilians in Gaza were targeted, because i
t probably would have influenced our findings about intentionality and war crime
s.”
But then later he says “McGowan Davis has found that Israel has done this to a sig
nificant degree.” How significant is “significant” if after two years, “few of Israel’s in
quiries have been concluded” and if the proceedings, conducted by the same militar
y body that defends the military, are carried out in private?
In the face of that, his second thoughts about calling upon Hamas calling for it
s own inquiry are totally gratuitous. Surely he never expected them to. But they
did let him and his colleagues in to investigate themselves, which Israel did n
ot, and which, as he reiterates, refused to present evidence to his committee.
Even though it is unlikely that the UN bodies will drop the report, Goldstone’s ps
eudo-retraction has provided the opportunity for Israeli “Hasbara” to trumpet its mi
sinterpretations. It does a disservice to international justice and humanitarian
law and tries to accord to Israeli leaders the impunity which he had spent his
career fighting, in South Africa, Rwanda, the Balkans and Central America.
It is a tragedy that such a career should end this way, generating as much sorro
w as anger. Sorrow for the damage it has done to the universality of justice, an
d anger at the unscrupulous manipulation of familial and tribal loyalties that l
ikely brought it about.
For more by Ian Williams visit Deadline Pundit.