Richard Goldstone Gaza Epiphany

Richard Goldstone is not exactly a household name in America. However, in Israel, Goldstone was well known until recently as a Jewish apostate, a label that has tried to shell when he issued a retraction of his previous accusations of Israeli atrocities committed during the Gaza war 2008-2009.

Briefly, Goldstone, a prominent Jewish South African judge, saw its name affixed to a UN report on the war in 3 weeks. Thus the Goldstone report, commissioned by the Human Rights Council of the United Nations, he was insulted in Israel and elsewhere by supporters of Israel as a jurist rebel suffer from an inversion of "moral" and "retained its judicial reputation while perpetrating a blood libel against Israel" and with the worst epithets because he had dared to expose the crimes Israeli war on Gaza.

The Goldstone report accused Israel IDF with a systematic policy of inflicting punishment official on the civilians in the Gaza Strip. Entitled "human rights in Palestine and other occupied territories: report of the United Nations Mission did find on the Gaza conflict," the English language pdf version can be read on my website in its entirety.

The final version issued by anti-Semitic HRC U.N. deleted multiple references to the atrocities of Hamas and focused on the disparity of Israel's retaliation. Fourteen Israeli settlers had been killed in attacks by Hamas unprovoked missile; some 700 enemy fighters were killed by the IDF, and 714 civilian in Gaza, including at least 412 children. (Hamas claimed 1200 children dead).

The Goldstone report concluded that Israel, which touts itself as having "the most moral army in the world", has committed the most heinous crimes against defenceless imaginable Gazan non-combatatants.

There was no doubt that the IDF was fighting against an enemy who had secreted grossly immoral weapons in mosques, hospitals and schools and had launched a missile atttacks from private homes, and Israel argues that it gave advance warnings, none of which mitigates the Israeli war crimes.

On April 1, 2011, to coincide with April Fools Day, Goldstone issued a retraction of the Goldstone report. While reiterating discoveries "possibly crimes against humanity" by Israel and Hamas, Goldstone now denies "deliberate" Israeli crimes the contending that his atrocities were the results of mistakes, no intent and that the refusal of Israel to cooperate in the investigation was merely incidental to the conclusions of the report.

Clearly see an epiphany, Goldstone argued that new information had come to light that forced him to change his mind. His retraction is a condemnation of Hamas unremitted tactics ' by which he diverged in condemnation of the United Nations silence on "the unforgivable and the recent massacre in cold blood of a young Israeli couple and three of their children in their bedsas if that massacre was an excuse for the actions of Israel.

See the retraction of Goldstone, who concludes with, "only if all parties to armed conflicts are held to these standards [the laws of armed conflict] will be able to protect civilians who, through no choice of theirare involved in the war. "

Nobody is disputing the barbarity of Hamas or the hatred of the terror organization of Israel and its commitment to eradicating the small nation off the face of the Earth. Israel and the IDF, however, should be above it all, more civilized, Mideast comparisons that legitimise the billions of dollars America sends annually to serve as a bulwark against the extreme, Arab regimes and movements.

Retraction of Goldstone has been hailed by many in the community they tepidly Jewish who considered him a "half-apology" which does not compensate for the aid and comfort of the report gave to Iran and other Muslim countries, exposing the crimes of war by Israel. Perhaps the most glaring defect retraction is Goldstone's failure to condemn the uncooperative approach to Israel for the investigation of HRC and its subsequent secret investigation of its own.

It's all very reminiscent of Israel's actions during and after his unprovoked attack on the USS Liberty in 1967. The Commander of the Liberty and his crew surviving to this day swears that the Israeli air force was fully aware that they were attacking an armed American vessel and was intent on it sinking and killing all aboard.

One must wonder whether Israel is as moral as innocent and claims to be.