Goldstone: I was wrong on Israel’s intentions

Israel did not intentionally target civilians as a policy during the Gaza War, Richard Goldstone said, withdrawing a critical allegation in his report.

“We know a lot more today about what happened in the Gaza war of 2008-09 than we did when I chaired the fact-finding mission appointed by the U.N. Human Rights Council that produced what has come to be known as the Goldstone Report,” the South African judge wrote in an op-ed Saturday for the Washington Post. “If I had known then what I know now, the Goldstone Report would have been a different document.”

Goldstone withdrew what was, perhaps, his most damaging conclusion: That there was evidence suggesting Israel had deliberately targeted civilians during its war with Hamas.