...When it was released four months ago, the report was vigorously condemned across the political spectrum. The Obama administration's Special Envoy for Middle East Peace, George Mitchell, called it "one-sided and deeply flawed." United Nations ambassador Susan Rice called it "unbalanced, one-sided and basically unacceptable." The State Department expressed "very serious concerns" with the way the investigation was conducted and the conclusions it reached. The ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee declared: "In addition to its endemic anti-Israel bias, the Goldstone Report contains ominous implications for the future right of the U.S., Israel and other sovereign democracies to defend themselves."

The Wall Street Journal condemned the Goldstone Report as "a new low" for the United Nations while the Economist called it "deeply flawed" and "a thimbleful of poison." The Washington Post editorialized that the Goldstone Report made a "mockery of impartiality" ("War Unchecked," Nov. 15). The Post also noted that the Report concluded, "on scant evidence, that 'disproportionate destruction and violence against civilians were part of a deliberate policy' by Israel [while] at the same time, it pronounced itself unable to confirm that Hamas hid its fighters among civilians, used human shields, fired mortars and rockets from outside schools, stored weapons in mosques, and used a hospital for its headquarters, despite abundant available evidence." Even B'Tselem, the left-wing Israeli human rights organization, denounced Goldstone's claims of Israeli targeting of civilians.

We could go on, but it is unnecessary: The Goldstone Report is viewed as neither legitimate nor scrupulous by serious scholars, lawyers, politicians or activists...[More.]