On November 24, I met with Justice Richard Goldstone in his office in New York. Ours was an academic discussion that at times turned to the political and the personal. During the hour of our meeting, we talked about the effect the Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict - aka, the Goldstone Report - would have on Israel's ability to fight terrorism. Goldstone affirmed his belief - and the report's accusation - that Israel "acted disproportionately in its attacks on Gaza in Operation Cast Lead" and said that Israel "needs to conduct an investigation into its actions."
But the report's accusation that Israel intentionally and disproportionately targeted civilians is insufficiently substantiated, and unsupported by international legal standards. Goldstone himself has previously stated that the report would never be able to serve as evidence in a court of law. Nonetheless, the report is deeply injurious, the damage it has done is irreparable, and Goldstone will be unable to walk away with clean hands, regardless of the outcome.
Dore Gold, Israel's former UN ambassador, has called the Goldstone Report "the most serious and vicious indictment of the State of Israel... since the UN General Assembly adopted the infamous 'Zionism is racism' resolution in 1975." The late senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan was the US ambassador to the UN when that resolution was adopted. A majority of the world's nations condemned Israel, claiming there was an "unholy alliance between South African racism and Zionism." Moynihan fearlessly countered their bigotry by pronouncing that "[t]he United States... does not acknowledge, it will not abide by, it will never acquiesce in this infamous act."
The US remains a friend to Israel, and has once again supported it with a congressional resolution urging President Barack Obama to oppose the Goldstone Report.
As I told Goldstone, not only do I believe his report to be the worst indictment of Israel since 1975, but it far surpasses the Zionism = racism resolution in its ability to harm Israel.
While equating Israel with an apartheid regime, the Zionism = racism resolution was merely an expression of sentiment. The Goldstone Report, however, goes further by instructing the nations of the world to criminally charge Israelis via two particularly pernicious methods - universal jurisdiction and the International Criminal Court.
States exercise universal jurisdiction out of a perceived "moral obligation" to prosecute those who allegedly commit genocide, war crimes or crimes against humanity outside the state's borders, even if the person has no relation to that state. In recent years, several countries have criminally charged Israelis by invoking universal jurisdiction. As part of a strategy called "lawfare," universal jurisdiction has become a means of combat against Israel that is exercised under the guise of a pursuit of justice.
The Goldstone Report also recommended that the UN Security Council "refer the situation in Gaza to the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court" if Israel would not conduct its own investigation.
When the ICC was created in 2002, states were not obligated to submit to its jurisdiction. Understanding that it presented a potential for abuse, Israel deliberately rejected participating in the ICC out of fear that hostile nations would initiate politically-motivated lawsuits. However, the Security Council may request that the ICC prosecute citizens of nonparticipating countries. The Goldstone Report specifically intended to ignore Israel's concerns, circumvented its authority and disregarded the historical bias of the international community against Israel in making its recommendation.
The legacy of the Goldstone Report is also far more damaging than that of the Zionism = racism resolution. Although the resolution was repealed in 1991, Israel's enemies continue to use it to denounce the Jewish state. And while the Goldstone Report claims to provide findings of fact, and that it merely asks the parties involved to conduct their own investigations, the report also gives instruction for criminal charges and reaches several malicious and damning conclusions. Even if Israel refutes every accusation in the report, those who seek to demonize it will not care about the refutation - they will focus only on the condemnation.
The Goldstone Report, in claiming without proof that Israel deliberately targeted the civilian population of Gaza, is essentially calling the IDF a band of murderers. It is an accusation that the enemies of Israel will invoke for decades, if not for generations to come. They will be especially thrilled that the claim is made by a Jew who is also a self-proclaimed Zionist, lending even greater weight to their arguments. And their proof is not in a brief UN resolution, but in 575 pages of distortions and half-truths.
After I stressed to him the catastrophic legacy of this report that would forever carry his name, Goldstone remained firm in his belief that history would vindicate him, saying he believed "that in time it will become clear that the arguments made in the report are justified."
But the Goldstone Report may go down in the annals of history as one of the greatest acts of infamy against the State of Israel.