Editorial, April 8, 2011
A double disgrace
DISGRACE,” screamed the front page of The AJN in the wake of the publication of the Goldstone Report in September 2009. “Disgrace,” screamed Israel. “Disgrace,” screamed Jewish leaders around the world.
The protestations, though, fell on deaf ears. The UN, the media, politicians, pundits and anti-Israel activists across the globe were far too eager
to brandish the tainted testimony of
the Goldstone Commission into Operation Cast Lead as irrefutable evidence supporting their pre-existing prejudices.
Eighteen months on, one man has had the courage to stand up and condemn the report. One man has publicly stated that the commission’s allegations of Israel deliberately targeting civilians were wrong; one man has claimed that the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC), which commissioned the report, has an “undoubted history of bias against Israel”; one man has admitted that many of the Gazan fatalities believed to be civilians were actually combatants; one man has revealed that Israel has done far more to investigate alleged war crimes than Hamas, and furthermore added that even asking a group hell-bent on the Jewish State’s destruction to conduct such investigations was “unrealistic” and “may have been a mistaken enterprise”.
In short, one man has had the courage to challenge Justice Richard Goldstone’s assertion in September 2009 that “it’s hardly fair for Israel to accuse the mission of ‘getting its facts wrong’.”
That man is none other than Justice Richard Goldstone himself, who confessed last week, “If I’d known then what I know now, the Goldstone Report would have been a different document.”
Some may see a certain poignancy in the fact that his Washington Post opinion piece was published on April Fool’s Day.
True, Goldstone didn’t use the word “disgrace” to describe the report, but his admissions as to its failings, as well as the endemic anti-Israel sentiment that infuses the UNHRC, undoubtedly underline the verdict passed on it by The AJN, Israel and Jewish leaders 18 months ago.
So Goldstone has confirmed what we already knew and that may give us some small sense of satisfaction, even victory. But when we consider what purpose his ‘mea culpa’ may actually serve, what difference it may actually make, the answer, sadly, is very little.
Full of heinous and factually flawed allegations, the Goldstone Report cast worldwide opprobrium on the Jewish State.
Playing into the hands of those who seek to make Israel a pariah state, it filled endless newspaper columns and TV news bulletins with the ammunition they needed to launch their delegitimisation and boycott campaigns.
In September 2009, Goldstone questioned the proportionate nature of Israel’s response to attacks on its civilian population. Today, when he himself admits that his assessment was wrong, where, we ask is the proportionate response by the world’s media that so readily seized upon the report 18 months ago?
Where are the endless newspaper columns publicising Goldstone’s change of heart? Where are the TV bulletins admitting that Israel was not the war crimes culprit they made it out to be?
And what action is the UN taking to condemn the findings of the commission to the dustbin of history?
Given their response to the report in September 2009, their response in April 2011 is truly and, unjustifiably, disproportionate.
Thanks to Goldstone, the damage has been done, minds have been made up, history has been written. And at most when it comes to public awareness of Operation Cast Lead, his recant 18 months on will merit little more than a footnote, if even that.
As Ehud Barak said, Goldstone’s volte-face is “too little too late”.
“Disgrace,” screams The AJN. “Disgrace,” screams Israel. “Disgrace,” scream Jewish leaders around the world.
But now, as then, the protestations fall on deaf ears.
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