Valuing the Goldstone Report (Report‪)‬

THE GOLDSTONE REPORT had a politicized and emotional reception that has colored its evaluation to date. There have been so many attacks on the report, both before and after its release, that the campaign took on a life and logic of its own. Most of the attacks allege bias in some way without seriously contesting the actual findings of the report. Given that Justice Richard Goldstone revised the mission's mandate to apply equally to all sides, and found serious crimes on the part of both Hamas and Israel, these attacks are ill-founded at best and sometimes just efforts to change the subject. But calls of bias strongly resonate, given Israel's sense of continual siege and the mission's sponsorship by the UN Human Rights Council, hardly a neutral broker in the conflict. Another frequent contention is that the report passes judgment on Israel's right to defend itself, or pronounces standards that make effective self-defense impossible. This angle plays into both Jewish anxiety over the threat to the existence of Israel, and Western worries about fighting asymmetrical war. The few critiques that go to real substance tend to rely on the inadequately documented assertions of Israeli officials or reflect disagreements on the proper legal standards to apply to the conflict. So far, there has been virtually no well-sourced, transparent response by either side to the report's very serious allegations. The scuffling obscures a longer perspective: will the report accomplish its mission; namely, to impel the parties in conflict to examine their conduct and hold those responsible for violations to account? A functional assessment of the report on its own terms, compliance with human rights and international humanitarian law (IHL), is most relevant to those who suffered violations and to the development of law, practices, and institutions in this area. (1) From this vantage point, there is a mixed picture, with some success.