Sostiene Richard Goldstone

After his opinion piece appeared in the 'Washington Post' [1 April 2011], expressing his 'if I'd known what I know now' about Israel's 'Cast Lead' targeting civilians in Gaza, the UN 'Goldstone Report' would have been less critical of Israel's undeclared war targets, Judge Richard Goldstone, not repudiating the totality of the report which bears his name, has lapsed into the silence of the sphinx.
His fellow judges on the UN panel upheld the complete findings which Goldstone departs from by downplaying Israel's defence forces blitzkrieg attack against Hamas and with the intention of visiting collective punishment on the Palestinians for having democratically Hamas, which refuses to recognise the Zionist state of Israel, and against whom Israel has conducted low level warfare, including targeted assassinations against its leaders. Hamas, for its part, has, under the dictum of 'Exodus 21:24' of giving an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.
The publication of the 'Goldstone Report' brought thunderbolts on the head of the South African judge. He was on the receiving end of the collective invective of his fellow Jews, good Zionist that he is; a daughter turned sour against her father; and on the eve of a grandson's bar mitzvah, rumblings among South African Jews caused concern that the boy's passage to manhood would be disrupted and you couldn't rule out violence. Cooler heads managed to calm matters so that the synagogue wouldn't turn into a 'Cast Lead' of Jew against Jew.
As GuamDiary suggested, time will out: we know now that the Zionist establishment got to the good judge. Israel refused to cooperate with him and his panel in investigating both Hamas and Israel for crimes of war committed during 'Cast Lead'. And after many months, the Zionist state provided evidence which is open to question,to the judge, who, as he told a rabbi, he would rejoice should 'evidence' be given him to prove him wrong as to Israel's designs against the civil population of Gaza.
Goldstone did rejoice in print in the 'Washington Post', without much explanation, other than saying 'had he known then what he knew now...', before lapsing into silence. His partial recantation bestowed on him a dusted off welcoming mat into the the hearts of the Israel and Jews in the diaspora. Suddenly off of Goldstone's shoulders slipped the mantle of pariah to almost a good member of the Tribe. Rarely, now, would he hear such condemnation that the 'ueber' Jew pronounced of Goldstone being a traitor to the Jewish people.
Here it would be useful to suggest that as a South African who opposed apartheid, Goldstone treasured the illusion that his experience in his homeland would find its mirror image in Gaza and Israeli conflict. It was not even though some parallels contributed to make him think so. And on that hook hangs another reason of his disavowal of a crucial point of the UN report.
Israel may feel vindicated in a perverse way, but in no way, looking at the evidence, does Goldstone's remarks, absolve the Zionist state from the crimes of war against the people of Gaza.
Goldstone has his own conscience to deal with; his opinion piece might bring him balm; he's a peace with an angry daughter; he's at one, more or less, with his fellow Jews and the Israeli elite, but his silence also suggests moral ill ease. And consequently, he endures in his adopted mutism.