Goldstone Report: Report? What Report!? (Updated)

Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.
The Wizard in The Wizard of Oz

In this case, we are being advised to pay no real attention to the Goldstone Report--by the very man for whom the report is named, as Judge Goldstone himself backs away from his report and its conclusions.

A lot of attention has been paid to the Forward in their interview with Judge Goldstone, where we find:

For all that gathered information, though, he said, “We had to do the best we could with the material we had. If this was a court of law, there would have been nothing proven.”

This of course fits another Goldstone quote:

“Ours wasn’t an investigation, it was a fact-finding mission,” he said, sitting in his Midtown Manhattan office at Fordham University Law School, where he is currently visiting faculty. “We made that clear.”

The problem of course is that the terms fact-finding and investigation are used as loosely as the more serious terms "war crimes" and "crimes against humanity". The fact remains that the report did not just find facts--it came to conclusions and made recommendations.

Judge Goldstone appears nonplussed at all of the commotion resulting from the strong accusations and condemnations that are contained in the Report, and the demands for it to be discussed in the UN. Thus Goldstone goes so far as to say:

“If I was advising Israel, I would say have open investigations,” he told the Forward. “In that way, you can put an end to this. It’s in the interest of all the people of Israel that if any of our allegations are established and if they’re criminal, there should be prosecutions. And if they’re false, that should be established. And I wouldn’t consider it in any way embarrassing if many of the allegations turn out to be disproved.”

Read the whole thing.

Of course if Goldstone himself admits the Report contains "allegations", then it was a bit more than a mere fact-finding mission. Apparently Judge Goldstone has a different standard for proof of war crimes than the rest of the world if he can so cavalierly suggest that much of what his report states is untrue.

And if Goldstone treats his own Report so lightly, why shouldn't everyone else?

As Alan Dershowitz writes:

Goldstone went so far as to tell the Forward that he himself “wouldn’t consider it in any way embarrassing if many of the allegations turn out to be disproved.” This is total nonsense. Goldstone has put his imprimatur—and his reputation—behind the reports’ conclusions. The only reason anyone is paying any attention to yet another of the serial condemnatory reports by the United Nations Human Rights Council is because Richard Goldstone—a “distinguished” Jew—allegedly wrote it and signed on to its conclusions. If he really doesn’t stand by its conclusions—if he doesn’t care one way or another whether they are true or false, proven or unproven—then no extra weight should be given to its findings or conclusions because of the “distinguished” reputation of its Jewish chairman.

Read the whole thing.

No extra weight?

Some might suggest no weight at all.

UPDATE: Noah Pollak writes:

So let’s get this straight: Judge Goldstone led a “fact-finding mission” to Gaza and then produced a 575-page report that contains “nothing” that could be “proven in a court of law.” It may not contain facts, in other words. Despite his lack of confidence in his own claims, he insists that “the burden is now on Israel to counter these findings through its own probe” — “these findings” being his charge that the IDF intentionally killed civilians and committed sundry war crimes.

It is good to see that Judge Goldstone is living up to the highest standards of the UN Human Rights Council, which appointed him. We have now emerged on the other side of the rabbit hole.

Technorati Tag: Goldstone Commission Report.