Richard Goldstone has done Israel a huge favor, he has helped save it from itself. I doubt there are any Israelis who have read the FULL 575 page report and not wept uncontrollably for what their country has become. I know it made me tear up several times. That coupled with millions watching it unfold live on satellite TV that Israel could not censor completely changed the equation. Shooting the messenger for upholding the rule of law that he was dealt is a cheap shot and yet another example of Israel undermining itself. I have not yet seen Yedioth send out journalists to start covering the myriad allegations made in the report. Only this constant character assassination as others around the world flesh out and learn that Goldstone's report actually held a lot back. Israel's press knows all about holding things back. For the good of the state's "security" of course.

and then dares to say "I was only following the law". Guess what, Goldstone, you were interpreting/enforcing apartheid laws and you had no problem with that. Cry me a river, miserable phony.

i find it quite ironic when a supposedly-free newspaper, in a supposedly-democratic supposedly-civilized society, would go in a witch hunt against a single man who worked according to his fair conscience, while looking the other way when it comes to an entire institution that's built on oppression & brutality.

You don't have a problem with the targeted assassinations of "terrorist scum" - then you shouldn't have a problem with Goldstone having sentenced to death what was probably thought of in South Africa as "terrorist scum". The knee-jerkers brain-washed by the urgent need for hasbara at all costs reach for utterly false statistics in their justifications "terrorist scum with the blood of hundreds of their hands..." Wow. A bit of exaggeration here. Perhaps you are reading from the Sarah Palin Book of Psalms. As for Judge Goldstone having been a "toady of the apartheid regime" - no more than any Israeli judge is a toady of the zionist regime. Illiberal, hysterical reactions are really not worth responding to, because the strength of the statements in # 15 are that they pull the rug from under their own feet, are so blatantly hatred-filled that they are almost beneath the dignity of a human being.

The Israelis' problem with Goldstone is that he is a hypocrite, a fact proven by his services to apartheid. Today the British newspapers report that a UK soldier killed 5 Afghans in 30 seconds while they were walking and not in combat. According to Goldstone, this is extrajudicial execution and a war crime. It is far worse than the Israelis in Gaza because no Afghan ever attacked the UK. Yet no Brit is concerned.

Wasn't it Goldstone's Judicial decisions in South Africa that the U.N. saw him Qualified him to Judge Israel?

Yoel Hasson says: " "It's puzzling and disappointing that the Foreign Ministry did not check and know in real time about the man's past." A real pity that nobody here seems to know anything about the "Goldstone Commission" in South Africa in the 1990s and how he "misinterpreted" the evidence of the pre-independence political violence which saw more than 10 thousand dead when the ANC went to war against the Inkatha Freedom Party. He did something similar in ignoring evidence of one side in his Gaza Commission. A book "People's War: New light on the Struggle for South Africa" by the head of research at the South African Institute for Race Relations explains it in much detail.

The only problem is that the criminal justice system in South Africa at the time Judge Goldstone served was a most unequal system. The police force, entirely white and largely Afrikaaner, was suspect, too. I don't think that black people received justice in South Africa at the time, and I am fairly sure that many innocent black people went to the gallows.

israelis calling the regime of south africa racist and cruel? hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

I wonder how Richard Goldstone sleeps at night, knowing that as he parades around the world accepting honors, he has a terrible secret in his background. He had to know that one day, the truth about the 28 Black South Africans he sent to the gallows would emerge. He has no credibility amongst the people of Africa.

his report should be weighed in its own right. I think he should have refused to serve as a judge in the unjust system, but how many of us would do such thing. I am certainly not a judge of Judge Goldstone. However, I think that to maintain the honour of the Jewish people and the state of Israel we must be tireless in pursuing justice even at the price of recognizing our own mistakes. In this respect Judge Goldstone represents the best in the Jewish people.

actually, i though a lot like you before i lived here. then i was confronted with reality and an enemy that has complete contempt for everything moral and decent. if one would like to characterize what israel did during the war as "immoral", i'm fine with that as long as there is equivalent and proportional outrage at what hamas does/did day in and day out (which there isn't). until then, you keep defending the cause of genocidal terrorists and i'll defend this democracy which reluctantly has to defend itself against such perverted life forms.

Marwan, Do you want to condemn Haffez Al Assad for walling off the Syrian city of Hama, sending his airforce to bomb and strafe the people in Hama, and then sending in troops and tanks to crush and kill over 40,000 Syrians? In all of the Israeli-Arab wars put together, nowhere close to as many as those 40,000+ Syrians have died. If you don't want to talk about that Marwan, it shows your lack of a moral compass. And I say this as someone who visits Jordan each year and I know that most Jordanians disagree with you.

I think given the fact that South Africa was an Aparthied Regime, Goldstone as a judge, took a position where he would enforce South Africa's racist policies to its fullest extent, as described in the article. A man like this, who would so willingly sacrifice his morals for position is a poor choice for an appointed judge on the war, unless your the one granting the position.

You began your missive piously with, "BS"D" and ended, "With an early Shabbat shalom." There is nothing much worse than pious man or woman who says, 'Keep to yourself, do not come near me, For I am holier than you!' "These are smoke in My nostrils, A fire that burns all the day....." See the book of Yeshahah (Isaiah) chapter 65, verse 5

relation and military cooperation with the apartheid regime of South Africa till the last minutes of its existence .Look who is speaking about racism !!!

About black people's treatment as a group in South Africa, I don't doubt you one bit

Merely following the law was he? If he didn't believe or agree in the laws he was enforcing he could have quit, he could have been doing something else. Nobody pointed a gun to his head and forced him to uphold immoral and racist laws.

No, shame on all of you and your kind, John. What the hell do you think the "Goldstone Report" was other than a smear campaign? Since when are we supposed to take 8 years of rocket attacks without finally defending ourselves? You must have loved "Shylock" but don't forget that he asked "do we not bleed"? Get your mind cleared from the Pali propaganda and learn, at minimum, how to be fair.

World wide Jewish lobbies will dig under each stone to find something that COULD compromise this honest judge just because he criticized Israeli actions in Gaza. Wait, they will invent for him a sex scandal or bribery here or there to undermine him .They are professional in these dirty games The whole Israel is Apartheid State. I am disgust

The US justice system is just as unequal as the south african apartheid one. How many black people in USA have been sentenced to death by an all white court? Too many to count, i would say. And it continues to this day, unlike south african apartheid that ended 15 years ago. The overrepresentation of blacks in american prisons and on death row is so grotesque that even the higher crime rates in the black community can't explain it. It's unlikely every judge like all the laws they have to uphold, but they still have to do it because it's the law. If liking every law was a requirement for the job, there would not be any judges anywhere in the world.

Shame on you. How would you characterize eight years of daily missile barrages? Post-traumatic stress disorder is a very real problem in Sderot and environs. Do you have any idea how many people incurred heart attacks? Shock? How many children have been damaged? Israel had to put a stop to it, because no one else would. Much the way Israel put a stop to the wholesale massacres of Christian Phalange in Lebanon at the hands of Palestinian terrorists. Here, too, no one else paid attention to their plight. And you cannot fault Israel for carrying out a meticulous operation that minimized loss of life. You CAN fault Hamas for storing weapons in hospitals, mosques and schools -- thereby turning them into legitimate military targets -- and for firing upon Israeli troops from the cover of hapless civilians. By the way -- I seem to recall that when the Indonesian military got nasty in East Timor, the Australian army shelled them mercilessly. What was it, 12,000 dead civilians that Australia is responsible for? Please do not pompously lecture Israel about war crimes. Australia has enough to answer for in that regard -- just ask the aborigines, who were massacred in the millions. Shame on you. Clean up your own filthy house.

Thank you very much for your post.

"and like the journalists who "revealed" this with such glee" So facts that you don't like should NOT be revealed, I guess, right? If those FACTS are revealed, it is scurrilous journalism, right?

Nasty, that the US has a long history of white pride, now isn't it? It is reported, that segregation on a voluntary basis is daily routine in your United States of America, apart from work and high end sophisticated TV-Series. No hit for you here. Talking about cruel, there ain't no lack in recent US-history, either. Or did you forget Cheney talking about "the dark side" and his henchmen acting accordingly in Guantanamo, the Balkans, the Czech Republic or Rumania?

Couldn’t the same argument be used against the official policy of the State if Israel with regards of their treatment of the Palestinians? Would it be allowed to slam some of the Israeli officials (especially right-wing) politicians whom exercise the same policies towards the palis, the same crap they accuse Goldstone of? Talk about a classic double standard, expected from an Apartheid State !!

Like Jimmy Carter you call the "whole" of Israel an Apartheid state - well even Carter does not call the whole of Israel apartheid; thus you out-did Carter - then you go on to commend Goldstone as an "honest judge," when in point of fact, he maintained and fought for the principles of a truly apartheid state.