The accusation was that Cast Lead was an operation that purposefully targeted the infrastructure of Gaza to the point where it was 'Collective Punishment'.
The findings were that, on the basis of the evidence before him, Israel had a case to answer. Not that it was proven. That is the job of a court, Goldstone's commission was not a court it could not and did not decide guilt. This has been explained many many times.
Israel initially refused to co-operate and was not going to answer the case. Israel changed its mind. When Israel finally agreed to and conducted acceptable investigations it was found to have answered the case. Goldstone pointed out that if Israel had done this in the first place and not stonewalled it was likely that he would not have concluded they had a case to answer....this now is being misrepresented as goldstone "retracting" his findings which is bollocks.
For example Goldstone thought the deliberate targeting of a School required investigation. Turns out this claim had no substance.
thats correct, thats what he was asked to do....thats what he did. If he had the results of the Israeli inquiry into the targeting of the school before him in the first place he has said it would be likely he would not have concluded it needed to go to a court to determine. What is your problem with that? Many people here seem to be annoyed that goldstone did not take into account information that was not available to him. When the IDF says to stop asking questions they did nothing wrong...Israel apologists may line up to accept it on face value but a competent Jurist surely can't. When Israel finally agreeed to acceptable more open investigations.....blow me down, goldstone announced that if he had that info earlier he would probably have mad a different finding. Amazing isn't it.
Perhaps he made his baseless claims first, then demanded the IDF account for them? But Israel played ball and turns out Goldstone was blowing smoke.
why do you constantly refer to "baseless" claims. They were not baseless. They were based on all the information he had.....which was all the information less any input from Israel as they were refusing to co-operate.
when Israel eventually did "play ball" a better conclusion was possible. If they had "played ball" in the first place a better conclusion may have been reached in the first place. Is it Goldstones fault that Israel would not co-operate?
And you are happy to attack anyone/everyone when your position falls out from beneath you. We are talking about Goldstone, not me.
My position has not fallen out from under me. My position has been misrepresented so has a lot of stuff to do with the goldstone commission.
and we are talking about you....it is not goldstone who is constantly misrepresenting his own findings or failing to understand the point of his enquiries.
