It is wrong to portray the opinion piece written in the Washington Post last Friday by Judge Richard Goldstone as a retraction of his whole report. A lot of Israeli propagandists have jumped on the opportunity created by Goldstone's article and are using it to justify the full miserable story of Israel's attack on Gaza during 2008 and 2009.
This is not what Goldstone said in his article. He was very clear: he queried the specific issue that Israel intentionally targeted civilians during its long siege of Gaza in 2008-09. The Goldstone Report said that Israel did target civilians, but Goldstone now accepts new evidence from the Israeli investigation that certain instances of civilian targets being hit were a mistake, and that proceedings are being initiated against the officers in charge.
Goldstone's article does not query his earlier finding as expressed in the Goldstone Report that Israel used force far in excess of what was required, that it used illegal weapons such as white phosphorus, and that Israel's military assault on Gaza was designed to "radically diminish its local economic capacity both to work and to provide for itself, and to force upon it an ever increasing sense of dependency and vulnerability." The report also detailed another war crime of "wanton" destruction of food production, water and sewerage facilities by Israeli forces.
Golstone remains furious that Israel refused to cooperate with his investigation, but his eccentric acceptance of new evidence on the precise issue of Israel deliberately targeting civilians means that Goldstone now has to spell out exactly what he thinks about all the other charges he listed in detail.
Anything less from Goldstone means that Israeli propagandists will be able to rubbish the whole report, and work backwards to try and justify the appalling assault on Gaza.
