The irreparable damage to Israel is already done:
outh African judge Richard Goldstone has accepted an invitation to visit Israel, Interior Minister Eli Yishai told Army Radio
Tuesday. The minister said that Goldstone has also promised to work to nullify his U.N. report that accused Israel of deliberately targeting civilians during Operation Cast Lead in Gaza, the
Associated Press said.
Yishai said he phoned Goldstone on Monday to express his appreciation for his "courageous" article in the Washington Post, in which Goldstone admitted that the report he drew up for the UN's Human Rights Commission was flawed. In addition, the SHAS minister said he invited Goldstone to tour Israel's southern communities that have sustained years of rocket fire from Gaza.
Yishai said that "as a Jew," Goldstone "has a good understanding of the Jewish people's suffering ... and it is very important for him to come and see this."
The daily newspaper Yediot Aharonot said Goldstone had informed it Monday that he would visit Israel in early July as Yishai's guest.
Yishai said that Goldstone promised to take additional steps to retract the UN report that bears his name.
MK Otniel Schneller (Kadima) has written a letter to the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee's chairman, requesting that he invite Goldstone to address the committee. Schneller said that Goldstone's article has many ramifications for Israel's defense policy in the face of the "hypocrisy and evil" displayed by what Schneller termed "the United Nations Committee Against Human Rights."
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Report: South African Justice refutes Interior Minister's claims that he promised to seek nullification for his report on Operation Cast Lead in Gaza, says Yishai called him to thank him for Washington Post piece.
South African jurist Richard Goldstone denied Interior Minister Eli Yishai's claim that he planned to work to nullify his report on the the IDF's Operation Cast Lead in 2009, the Associated Press reported Wednesday.
Goldstone, in an interview with the Associated Press, said that Yishai had called to thank him for his Washington Post op-ed piece, but that the two never discussed the actual report. Goldstone said that he had responded to Yishai's thanks, telling him his utmost concern was for "truth, justice, and human rights."
On Tuesday, AP reported that the interior minister had saidthat Goldstone, “as a Jew understands well the story of the Jewish people’s suffering ... and it is very important for him to come and see this."Yishai added that Goldstone had made a promise to work towards an official retraction of the report.
Goldstone told the Associated Press that Yishai had invited him to Israel, and that he accepted the invitation but would not be able to come until July. He added that he ended his conversation with Yishai expressing his "love for Israel."
As for his report on the 2009 Gaza offensive, Goldstone reiterated that the "intentionality on the part of Israel" required review, and that "domestic investigation could lead to further reconsideration." The judge concluded, however, that no part of the report needed reconsideration at the present time.
On Monday, the UNHRC spokesman Cedric Sapey had told The Jerusalem Post that in order for the body to reconsider the report, that the judge would first need to write a formal letter to that effect.
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Stanford law debate and informal correspondence preceded ‘Washington Post’ op-ed.
Bar-Ilan University law professor Avi Bell said he can’t swear he was responsible for changing Judge Richard Goldstone’s mind. But Bell can’t help but note the timing of Goldstone’s opinion piece in Friday’s Washington Post, in which he said he erroneously accused Israel of targeting innocent civilians in Gaza in his infamous report to the United Nations Human Rights Council in September 2009.
On March 28, Bell was among a number of academics who participated in a debate withGoldstone at Stanford University Law School.
Five days later, Goldstone published his opinion piece.
However, he did that after The New York Times, on March 22, rejected an opinion piece he wrote which bore no relation to The Washington Post piece.
So, Bell said, something changed in that week.
Bell recalled for The Jerusalem Post how there was a moment in the debate whereGoldstone claimed he stood by the facts in his report. “I had cited contradictory evidence and I stared at him – a minute later he backed down,” Bell said.
He added that he would not say that the debate, which occurred in front of some 200 people, was the reason that Goldstone decided to rescind a critical allegation in his report.
“But it strikes me that it is reasonable to speculate that this was a factor,” he said.
Bell believes that as time has gone on, Goldstone has become increasingly concerned by the rejection of the report among his judicial peers and the Jewish community.
In his Washington Post piece, Goldstone stated that he was influenced by a follow-up report to his document, submitted to the UNHRC on March 18 by Judge Mary McGowan Davis.
“I do not think that has anything to do with it,” said Bell.
“He is using it as a ladder to climb down from.
“He is running into a hard time in audiences that are important to him, academics and Jewish groups. I suspect these encounters are making him very uncomfortable,” he added.
Peter Berkowitz, who chairs the Hoover Task Force of National Security and Law at Stanford University, and who debated Goldstone along with Bell, said that the March event was a follow- up to a debate with Goldstone held in January.
Unlike Bell, he did not want to speculate as to what changed Goldstone’s mind. But he said he spent time in the debate attacking the assertion in Goldstone’s report that Israel had deliberately targeted civilians.
While he said it was reasonable to conclude thatGoldstone could have been influenced by the McGowan Davis report, even in 2009Goldstone lacked the evidence necessary to reach the conclusions in his report.
Bell is not the only person to believe that he may have influenced Goldstone.
Maurice Ostroff – a South African-born industrial engineer who fought during Israel’s War of Independence in 1948 before making aliya in 1980 – began exchanging letters with Goldstone in 2009, when the judge began to prepare his report.
“When the Goldstone mission came to Gaza, I sent several memoranda to them, andGoldstone replied very courteously – even though I was highly critical of the way it went about,” he said. “I never attacked him personally; I never do that in my writing. We found an intellectual common ground... He started writing personal letters, but the understanding was that I don’t publish them, which I don’t,” Ostroff said.
“The newspapers have given the impression this has been a sudden epiphany,” he continued. “At one of the panels he was asked by a participant how would he feel if his report was proved wrong; his answer was that he’d be rejoiced. It’s been a gradual process, nothing sudden.”
