Israel buries the Goldstone report with Goldstone's approval

The Goldstone report has infuriated Israel who launched a sustained attack on the report and on the south African judge (read also 'Anatomy of a smear campaign').

Finally, this sustained attack has come to bear fruit and make Goldstone discredit his own report by retracting some of his most damaging accusations against Israel.

Goldstone has caved to pressure and he should not have been appointed in the first place but we know that his appointment must have been decided because as a Jew and a lifelong zionist Goldstone might have spared the UN the accusation of anti-semitism or anti-Israel bias. And because he is a south African Jew, and south African Jews and Israel are known to have collaborated with the Apartheid regime, the UN has introduced, intentionally or unintentionally, the possibility for the report to be questioned based on the moral grounds of his main author.

Israel can now dream of restoring its credibility through a PR campaign but I am not anxious about that because the only purpose of the backtracking of the report is to make Israel's leaders and soldiers immune to international prosecution, not to change the image of Israel.

Angry Arab has commented this news item and he makes two interesting points:
- Goldstone as a man is different from the Goldstone report who was made by a team. And so even if Goldstone retracts, its does not mean that the report should be retracted. It only tell you that Goldstone is morally corrupt, hence his initial appointment by the UN with the full knowledge of his ambiguous moral status: Jew to be credible and south African Jew to become less credible when time comes
- Israel has come to exist because of war crimes committed by zionists and Israel continues to commit war crimes. It is not only in this instance covered by the report that Israel committed war crimes.

UPDATE: The NYTimes refused to publish Goldstone's retraction which he submitted to the Times before publishing it in the washington post.

UPDATE: Goldstone's Gaza report stands according to a UN lawyer who sat with Goldstone on the committee investigating war crimes in Gaza.

More on Goldstone:
Paving the way for more Cast lead style operations by Israel: but will they find another Apartheid era judge to endorse the Israeli Apartheid state in its crimes?

Alain Gresh on Goldstone (in French).

UN human rights council backs the Goldstone Report

Just in...

Goldstone's report accused both sides of war crimes and possible crimes against humanity and said there may even be individual criminal responsibility over the killing of civilians. Around 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis died in the three-week war.Goldstone's recommendations were that the human rights council should endorse his findings and then pass his report to the UN security council, the general assembly and the prosecutor of the international criminal court. He said both Israel and Hamas should be given six months to conduct their own "appropriate investigations that are independent and in conformity with international standards". If either side failed to investigate properly, he said, the security council should pass the case on to the prosecutor of the international criminal court.

From NYT's Roger Cohen:The ordinary Israel

Israel threatening the international community with war unless the Goldstone report is discarded by the UN

Zionists are quick to blame others for the lack of peace prospects in Palestine. They blamed Arabs, Palestinians, terrorists, the UN, and now they are blaming a 575 pages report for the UN on Israeli war crimes in Gaza. They wanted to bury it with the help of Mr. Nobel peace prize 09 and the collaboration of the illegitimate Mahmoud Abbas but they did not succeed. Palestinians were so angry with Abbas that he had to reverse his position in order to retain a semblance of legitimacy among his people.
Palestinians' thirst for justice can only be measured by the amount of injustice that was inflicted upon them by the zionist state and its acolytes. This time they are determined and hey want a clear condemnation from the international community of war crimes. A Jewish south african judge wrote a report for the UN on war crimes in Gaza with one concern, justice, not politics. But this is precisely what is infuriating Israel. Israel's attitude toward war and peace has become so extreme that it is alienating many in the Jewish diaspora and creating fracture lines. I can't wait to see these Israeli soldiers, commanders, politicians, judged for what they have done to the people of my region...And I don't care if Hamas has to be judged too. I have never been for any party, I am only for those who were dispossessed and are being daily oppressed by Zionists...

Israel says that if the case against it gains steam, the Jewish state will not be able to make the wide-ranging concessions necessary for any peace deal.

This is a bad argument since everybody can argue, based on the history of the Jewish state, the contrary: that Israel was never interested in peace. However, if Israel is genuinely determined to make peace, which comes with land concessions, so let them deliver first and then see what to make of the report.