BICOM

Israeli officials opted yesterday to initiate a series of diplomatic steps aimed at securing official UN recognition of the points made by Judge Richard Goldstone in a recent opinion piece in the Washington Post. In the article, Goldstone withdrew claims that Israel had deliberately targeted civilians during Operation Cast Lead. This decision was made following a meeting convened by National Security Adviser Yaacov Amidror. The meeting, which brought together officials from the foreign ministry and from a number of other relevant ministries, elected to avoid a major public campaign to secure the rescinding of the Goldstone Report – which foreign ministry officials regard as a goal without serious chances of success. Instead, the UN will be lobbied in an effort to have it adopt the article by Goldstone as an official position paper, or as an appendage to the original Goldstone report.

Since the publication of the article, Israeli officials have been seeking the halting of legal proceedings commenced as a result of the original claims in the Goldstone report. Goldstone, for his part, yesterday in an interview with the Associated Press denied claims that he now sought the nullification of the report, though he repeated that subsequent information meant that ‘one correction’ should be made – with regard to ‘intentionality’ on the part of Israel.