Time For Judge Richard Goldstone To Come Clean (Updated)

 Justice Goldstone said no one had been able to show any error of substance in the report nor to repudiate any of its findings.
Interview with South African Sunday Times, November 15

It is one thing for Judge Goldstone to dismiss the numerous analyses of the mistakes in the report that bears his name; it is another thing entirely to ignore the existence of those analyses altogether.

Yet that is what Goldstone has been doing all along, and did again just 3 weeks ago, exploiting his greater exposure to public opinion to claim that the Goldstone Report is above reproach.

It isn't.

Yesterday, in a post about the Arab funding of the Goldstone report and the subsequent biases in the entire fact-finding process, I linked to some of the letters and posts that have done exactly what Judge Goldstone has claimed could not be done--they have shown errors of substance and repudiated its finding. In addition to a website that is dedicated solely to rebutting the claims of the report--Understanding the Goldstone Report--here are some links that deal with the content of the report head-on:

• Trevor Norwitz's Open Letter to Judge Goldstone
• CAMERA's A Formal Letter to Judge Goldstone
• CAMERA's The Goldstone Report: A Study in Duplicity
• Israel's Initial Response to Report of the Fact Finding Mission on Gaza
• Israel's The Operation in Gaza: Factual and Legal Aspects (Israel's analysis of the Operation itself)

I bring this point up again because Judge Goldstone has responded to one of these critiques, CAMERA's Formal Letter to Judge Goldstone--as noted in the update at the end of the letter:

UPDATE: Justice Goldstone "Answers" CAMERA's Letter

Dec. 7, 2009 — Justice Goldstone has consistently tried to defend his eponymous report from criticism by claiming that "no one has been able to show any error of substance in the report nor any of its findings" (see, for example, South Africa's Sunday Times, Nov. 15), but when faced directly with the above questions, how did he respond?

In answer to a follow-up call by CAMERA on Dec. 7th about whether he had received our letter, Justice Goldstone responded:

Dear Ms. Hollander,

I confirm receipt of your letter. I have no intention of responding to your open letter.

Sincerely,
Richard Goldstone

In the same type of double standard that typifies the report, Justice Goldstone refuses himself to answer questions or provide clarification about the substance of his mission's findings, yet slams Israel for having refused to cooperate with or answer the questions of his investigating team.

The real question now is how long can Justice Goldstone continue to hide behind the deceptive argument that no one has addressed the substance or findings of the report?

Is it too much to hope for that Judge Richard Goldstone will finally stop claiming there are no criticisms of his report, even though he refuses to answer them?

UPDATE: Of course this is not the first time that Goldstone has avoided his critics. He recently declined to debate Alan Dershowitz--at Fordham University where Goldstone is teaching. Dershowitz went ahead without him.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad

Technorati Tag: Goldstone Report.