Israel Matzav: Israel produces another 1000-page response to Goldstone

Israel produces another 1000-page response to Goldstone

The IDF has prepared another 1,000-page report to the Goldstone Report accusations, but the report has to be 'converted' from diplospeak to legalese.

Its release will be delayed for an opportune moment, probably when UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon issues his next report in about four months. The completion of the paper comes fast on the heels of a 500-page report, first revealed by the Post last week, that was written by the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center and that documents how the Goldstone Commission whitewashed the way Hamas waged its battle against Israel.

While that report dealt with Hamas and its tactics, the still-unpublished IDF report examines the sections of the Goldstone Report on how the IDF operated, and refutes Goldstone’s allegations of war crimes on a case-by-case basis.

Another integral part of the IDF’s counter-Goldstone Report is the chapter on the humanitarian efforts the IDF made during the three-week operation.

While this report is expected to go a long way toward battling the Goldstone Commission findings, it will probably not be published until there is some Goldstone-related development, perhaps the report that UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has to present to the General Assembly in some four months on progress Israel and the Palestinians have made on investigating the Goldstone findings.

“We don’t just want to take this report and throw it into the air,” the diplomatic official said. “We want to peg it to something concrete.”

I hope none of you believes that any of these reports are going to stop the UN from condemning us. They won't. In a best case scenario, the report might make a difference to countries that might be predisposed to look more objectively at what happened in Gaza. But given that the last time a Goldstone-related motion came up for a vote in the General Assembly, countries admitted to voting against us because of allegations that we participated in the al-Mabhouh liquidation, I look upon the production of reports like this one as an expensive but necessary exercise in futility.

Israel Matzav: Israel produces another 1000-page response to Goldstone