UN investigator Richard Goldstone says that says both Israel, and the Palestinians should be referred to UN Security Council for war crimes during Cast Lead. (Jerusalem Post)
Richard Falk, a retired Princeton professor and a U.N. monitor in Gaza, says the Goldstone Report has spooked Israel so much because it is a loss for Israel in the “Legitimacy War,” which is actually more important than the armed conflict. (Mondoweiss)
Alan Dershowitz, saying that Richard Goldstone “will forever be linked in infamy with such distorters of history and truth as Noam Chomsky, Norman Finkelstein and Jimmy Carter,” asserts that the report was “in effect … drafted by Hamas extremists,” and that it has Orwellian “newspeak” conclusions. (Jewish Press)
Supporters of Israel believe that the report will get an early burial. (Forward)
Says Yossi Alpher: “The Goldstone commission applies laws of war that ignore the necessities of fighting a terrorist enemy that attacks civilians from bases in non-sovereign territory, hides behind its own civilian population, then displays its own civilian casualties in order to appeal for international support.” (Forward)
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak says the report “undermines every other democracy struggling to defend itself against terrorism…the actions our government took are equal to or exceed actions taken by the armed forces of any other democratic nation.” (Wall Street Journal)
Retired Hebrew University professor Zeev Sternhell says “all the decision makers knew in advance that a terrible catastrophe would ensue in Gaza” so that, although unbalanced, “The Goldstone report was inevitable” and moreover, “the moral stain will not be erased and the repercussions are yet to be seen.” (Ha’aretz)
