The Age goes into damage control over Goldstone

Having given prominence to the Goldstone Report on a number of occassions since it was first issued in 2009, the Melbourne Age is doing its best to keep it alive despite admissions by its author Richard Goldstone in a Washington Post Op Ed that 
"civilians were not intentionally targeted as a matter of policy" by Israel and that "if I had known then what I know now, the Goldstone Report would have been a different document."

Jason Koutsoukis today fashions an interesting spin on Goldstein's backtracking in Goldstone rejects Israeli allegation highlighting a disagreement between Israel's Interior Minister and Goldstone over whether the Judge said he would move to rescind his critical United Nations report on Israel's conduct of the war in Gaza two years ago.

"After writing last week in The Washington Post that new information had come to light that made him rethink some of his conclusions, Judge Goldstone said he still stood by most of the final draft that was published in September 2009".

"Further information as a result of domestic investigations could lead to further reconsideration," Goldstone said. "But as presently advised I have no reason to believe any part of the report needs to be reconsidered at this time."

We all know now that this is utter nonsense. Any reading of Goldstone's Op Ed makes it obvious that the creator of the Goldstone Report believes that it is now flawed beyond redemption and that it has cut the ground from under those who wrongfully allege war-crime charges against Israel.

Further, (and in true blank pages fashion Koutsoukis fails to mention this) Goldstone has categorically stated that his hopes, "even if unrealistic, that Hamas would" investigate the launching of rocket and mortar attacks into Israel have been unheeded and "that the crimes allegedly committed by Hamas were intentional goes without saying."

Hamas continues to be the benefactor of kindly reporting from the Fairfax organisation and one must ask "why"? It routinely ignores reports of the arrest of Hamas operatives for involvement in terror such as this one. In Actor-director mourned we are told for the second time in two days about the murder "by suspected militants" of of Israeli-Palestinian actor, theatre director and filmmaker Juliano Mer-Khamis but nowhere does it mention that the prime suspect was once a member of Fatah who subsequently defected to Hamas. Either way, it's good to know that the Age believes that assassins are mere "militants" and not "terrorists".

As far as Richard Goldstone’s Report is concerned, it clearly belongs in the sewers with The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Goldstone has discredited himself and the libels directed against the Jewish State in the wake of Operation Cast Lead have been exposed as lies.

Nothing will change that now.