While Goldstone defends his controversial report on many counts, he concedes to his critics on the central issue of whether the Israeli Defense Forces intentionally killed Palestinian citizens in its efforts to suppress Hamas missiles aimed at Israeli civilian areas. At a time when Israel feels besieged by democratic revolution in the Arab, Goldstone’s mea culpa will provide a measure of vindication. In Washington, it will disarm critics of the Israeli government and discourage those in the Obama administration who have doubts about the wisdom of the U.S.-Israeli alliance.

Just as his report had impact, so too will his change of mind.

Goldstone writes:

“We know a lot more today about what happened in the Gaza war of 2008-09 than we did when I chaired the fact-finding mission appointed by the U.N. Human Rights Council that produced what has come to be known as the Goldstone Report. If I had known then what I know now, the Goldstone Report would have been a different document.”

You can’t see he was misquoted or pressurized to change his tune. He seems to have been persuaded by the work of another U.N. commission, tasked with following up on his report.

Our report found evidence of potential war crimes and “possibly crimes against humanity” by both Israel and Hamas. That the crimes allegedly committed by Hamas were intentional goes without saying — its rockets were purposefully and indiscriminately aimed at civilian targets.

Goldstone blames lack of Israeli cooperation for his initial mistake.

The allegations of intentionality by Israel were based on the deaths of and injuries to civilians in situations where our fact-finding mission had no evidence on which to draw any other reasonable conclusion. While the investigations published by the Israeli military and recognized in the U.N. committee’s report have established the validity of some incidents that we investigated in cases involving individual soldiers, they also indicate that civilians were not intentionally targeted as a matter of policy.

Like it or not, this seems like the honest conclusion of a fair-minded man, and a vindication of the Israeli Defense Forces tactics. It doesn’t change the reality of the situation on the ground where Palestinian survivors can take little comfort in the conclusion that Israel did not intended to kill their loved ones. It   doesn’t change reality of Washington where pro-Israeli forces are dominant. It changes the reality of Israel’s critics.

Jersualem Post: Ship proves Goldstone Report encourages terror.

Asharq Alawsat: Israel’s fear of Goldstone.

“Any legitimate criticism is immediately labeled here as anti-Semitism, including Richard Goldstone, the Jewish Zionist. We are pushing everyone into a corner roughly and hope they will change their opinions and suddenly be filled with a deep understanding for the killing of children in Gaza. Now America too, even its Jews, are no longer immune to this aggressive Israel mad with grandeur.”

In the Palestinian press, Abbas’s intervention to persuade the UN to put off its response has been greeted with fury, even in papers normally loyal to the president’s Fatah faction.

“This was a humiliating capitulation in the face of US and Israeli pressure”, Hani al-Masri fumed in the pro-Fatah daily al-Ayyam.”

“Whilst certain incidents remind us of others, as we are in the midst of uproar over the Goldstone report on the Gaza war, then why haven’t we seen Arab reports informing us of how these armed groups use innocent residents as shields in their own wars and how they obtain finance and weapons? !”

When it comes to armed Shiites, Sunni Arabs tend to side (quietly) with Israel.