If anyone is interested in reading the actual legal analysis of the Gaza war. This is an excellent primer. It's from an Israeli perspective. Feel free to prove it wrong if you can.
http://www.jcpa.org/text/puzzle1.pdf

The fact that the UNHCR has been overly concerned with Israel in the past is regrettable”

That is the understatement of the year. It has condemned Israel more than all other countries in the world combined

"Because Goldstone demanded that the original charge be modified to cover both sides' conduct before he accepted the job"

A semantic change at best. For example, report colcuded that there was no evidence that Hamas used human shields or hid weapons in mosques when there is video proving that they did. You can look it up on youtube. The report concluded that Israel was guilty of deliberately targeting civilians (with no proof) and hamas did not eventhough it is obvious Hamas targets Israeli civilians in Sderot with its rockets

In addition, the very framing of the report adheres to the Palestinian narrative - just looking at the table of contents, we see that he chooses to start the "military operations" section with the "blockade," not with the rocket fire that preceded it by years. Similarly, he chooses December 27th - the day Israel attacked - as the start of "military operations" and ignores Hamas' declaration of war three days beforehand altogether.

"Second, although the report contains damning evidence that both Israel and Hamas committed war crimes"

Other than Goldstone accepting everything every Hamas spokesman said to them, what damning evidence against Israel is there. Have you even read the report?

An example is Hamas spokesman Islam Shahwan's account of "innocent Palestinian Policemen" being killed who were just handing out food. The accusation is accepted as fact. Goldstone doesn't even bother to check that his source also created and spread the story that Israel was tainting chewing gum with an aphrodisiac to "destroy the Palestinians' social infrastructure " A very credible source!

UNHCR didn't do the investigation and write the report; a distinguished international panel with impeccable credentials did. And other respected human rights organizations, such as Amnesty International, have endorsed the report's recommendations too.

Whether they had "impeccable credentials or not" the absolute demoloshing of the report's substance over the last few weeks is more important than "credentials."

Amnesty international has been proven in the last several months to one the most anti Israel NGOs in the world. Whether it is it's middle east branch fundraising in Saudi Arabia--a gross violator of human rights, its directors flatly saying they do not like Israel, or it's director with a Nazi fettish, etc... The same group that condemned an Israeli investigation before it was even released.
http://volokh.com/2009/08/04/more-on-human-rights-watchs-sarah-leah-whitson/
http://volokh.com/2009/08/17/joe-stork-of-human-rights-watch/
http://volokh.com/2009/07/15/jeffrey-goldberg-on-human-rights-watch/
http://volokh.com/posts/1252419984.shtml

as are Israeli human rights organizations like B'tselem.

The reason B'tslem wants Israel to investigate claims of abuse (there are 100 investigations going on right now). is because it believes the Goldstone report is utterly biased against Israel. If you know anything about B'tselem you know it is the first to criticize Israel at the slightest whiff of impropriety. Yet, it says the Goldstone report has no credibility on its gravest accusations.

[The Goldstone Report] mistaken in some of its gravest accusations against Israel, she believes. These include the claim that Israel intentionally targeted the civilian population rather than Hamas, and the "weak, hesitant way that the report mentions Hamas's strategy of using civilians [in combat]."

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1254163545977

Even mary Robinson, the force behind the Israel hate fest Durban conference thought the report was biased.

Never mind that the occupation is itself a violation of human rights and international law

Says someone who obviously doesn’t know a thing about international law. Let’s look at what the writers of Resolution 242 actually said. It did not say Israel had to leave all the territories. And the occupation is perfectly legal when gained during a defensive war until all hostilities stop, which it was. You may argue that all settlements are not (as the below quotes disprove), but not the occupation.

As George Brown, British Foreign Secretary in 1967, said:
I have been asked over and over again to clarify, modify or improve the wording, but I do not intend to do that. The phrasing of the Resolution was very carefully worked out, and it was a difficult and complicated exercise to get it accepted by the UN Security Council. I formulated the Security Council Resolution. Before we submitted it to the Council, we showed it to Arab leaders. The proposal said 'Israel will withdraw from territories that were occupied', and not from 'the' territories, which means that Israel will not withdraw from all the territories.

Lord Caradon, chief author of the resolution

I would defend absolutely what we did. It was not for us to lay down exactly where the border should be. I know the 1967 border very well. It is not a satisfactory border, it is where troops had to stop in 1948, just where they happened to be that night, that is not a permanent boundary...[26]

Once again, U.S. policy inadvertently encourages Israeli intransigence: by driving a hard bargain with us on settlements and other key issues

You are living in bizarro world. The idiocy of the settlement issue was what stopped all peace negotiations. Once Obama drew his settlement line, the Palestinians would not negotiate. Now once the line has been removed, suddenly settlement negotiations are back on track.

Well, ok, but he'd better produce something tangible for this latest Palestinian concession.

Are you serious? It wasn’t a concession until Obama made it a condition. It would be as if Obama told the Palestinians that they had to completely forgo any claim to Jerusalem before negotiations began, then took that requirement away, and you called that an Israeli concession.

Hamas's hard-line approach will gain more adherents

Hamas’ hard line approach already has millions of adherents who voted for them. Why not say it is THEY who are the obstacle to peace. It is THEY who could stop any peace deal even if the Israelis and the PA agreed to one.

You can judge how wrong people are when they have to contort themselves in huge posts (e.g. see above by little Dave).

Here is the bottom line:

Israel: We don't want to make peace with you because you are bringing up the fact we committed war crimes.

The question is why is the US still giving military aid to Israel AFTER it is known that Israel committed war crimes with US arms? This is in contravention of our Arms Export Control Act.

http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/oct/02/president-obama-has-reaffirmed-a-4-decade-old-secr/#

President Obama has reaffirmed a 4-decade-old secret understanding that has allowed Israel to keep a nuclear arsenal without opening it to international inspections, three officials familiar with the understanding said.

The officials, who spoke on the condition that they not be named because they were discussing private conversations, said Mr. Obama pledged to maintain the agreement when he first hosted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House in May.

Under the understanding, the U.S. has not pressured Israel to disclose its nuclear weapons or to sign the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which could require Israel to give up its estimated several hundred nuclear bombs.

Israel had been nervous that Mr. Obama would not continue the 1969 understanding because of his strong support for nonproliferation and priority on preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons. The U.S. and five other world powers made progress during talks with Iran in Geneva on Thursday as Iran agreed in principle to transfer some potential bomb fuel out of the country and to open a recently disclosed facility to international inspection.
Mr. Netanyahu let the news of the continued U.S.-Israeli accord slip last week in a remark that attracted little notice. He was asked by Israel's Channel 2 whether he was worried that Mr. Obama's speech at the U.N. General Assembly, calling for a world without nuclear weapons, would apply to Israel.

"It was utterly clear from the context of the speech that he was speaking about North Korea and Iran," the Israeli leader said. "But I want to remind you that in my first meeting with President Obama in Washington I received from him, and I asked to receive from him, an itemized list of the strategic understandings that have existed for many years between Israel and the United States on that issue. It was not for naught that I requested, and it was not for naught that I received [that document]."

The chief nuclear understanding was reached at a summit between President Nixon and Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir that began on Sept. 25, 1969. Avner Cohen, author of "Israel and the Bomb" and the leading authority outside the Israeli government on the history of Israel's nuclear program, said the accord amounts to "the United States passively accepting Israel's nuclear weapons status as long as Israel does not unveil publicly its capability or test a weapon."

There is no formal record of the agreement nor have Israeli nor American governments ever publicly acknowledged it. In 2007, however, the Nixon library declassified a July 19, 1969, memo from national security adviser Henry Kissinger that comes closest to articulating U.S. policy on the issue. That memo says, "While we might ideally like to halt actual Israeli possession, what we really want at a minimum may be just to keep Israeli possession from becoming an established international fact."

Mr. Cohen has said the resulting policy was the equivalent of "don't ask, don't tell."

The Netanyahu government sought to reaffirm the understanding in part out of concern that Iran would seek Israeli disclosures of its nuclear program in negotiations with the United States and other world powers. Iran has frequently accused the U.S. of having a double standard by not objecting to Israel's arsenal.

Mr. Cohen said the reaffirmation and the fact that Mr. Netanyahu sought and received a written record of the deal suggest that "it appears not only that there was no joint understanding of what had been agreed in September 1969 but it is also apparent that even the notes of the two leaders may no longer exist. It means that Netanyahu wanted to have something in writing that implies that understanding. It also affirms the view that the United States is in fact a partner in Israel's policy of nuclear opacity."

Jonathan Peled, a spokesman for the Israeli Embassy in Washington, declined to comment, as did the White House National Security Council.
The secret understanding could undermine the Obama administration's goal of a world without nuclear weapons. In particular, it could impinge on U.S. efforts to bring into force the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and the Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty, two agreements that U.S. administrations have argued should apply to Israel in the past. They would ban nuclear tests and the production of material for weapons.

A Senate staffer familiar with the May reaffirmation, who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue, said, "What this means is that the president gave commitments that politically he had no choice but to give regarding Israel's nuclear program. However, it calls into question virtually every part of the president's nonproliferation agenda.The president gave Israel an NPT treaty get out of jail free card."

Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, said the step was less injurious to U.S. policy.

"I think it is par for the course that the two incoming leaders of the United States and Israel would want to clarify previous understandings between their governments on this issue," he said.

However Mr. Kimball added, "I would respectfully disagree with Mr. Netanyahu. President Obama's speech and U.N. Security Council Resolution 1887 apply to all countries irrespective of secret understandings between the U.S. and Israel. A world without nuclear weapons is consistent with Israel's stated goal of achieving a Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction. Obama's message is that the same nonproliferation and disarmament responsibilities should apply to all states and not just a few."

Israeli nuclear doctrine is known as "the long corridor." Under it, Israel would begin to consider nuclear disarmament only after all countries officially at war with it signed peace treaties and all neighboring countries relinquished not only nuclear programs but also chemical and biological arsenals. Israel sees nuclear weapons as an existential guarantee in a hostile environment.

David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, said he hoped the Obama administration did not concede too much to Israel.
"One hopes that the price for such concessions is Israeli agreement to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and the Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty and an acceptance of the long-term goal of a Middle East weapons-of-mass-destruction-free zone," he said. "Otherwise, the Obama administration paid too much, given its focus on a world free of nuclear weapons."

hahahahahaha!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/01/israel-threatens-palestin_n_306748.html

Israel should investigate so that it enhances its functionality as an effective and confidently legal military. It should determine if there were lapses in policy, implementation of policy at senior officer level, proper definition of rules of engagement on the ground, proper training of personnel in what are legally acceptable from unacceptable practices and in what specific circumstances.

By doing so, it will be a more confident and credible military.

It will also likely further distinguish itself from Hamas, which is extremely unlikely to conduct a similar review.

It will also further highlight the odd and opportunistic differences in standards of international accountability of a state versus a party versus an extra-legal militia.

That conflict in status (state vs party vs militia) is a LARGE objective component of the argument to continue the blockade of Gaza. Hamas' chameleon approach diminishes its assertions that it is a responsible political entity, that can legally supercede the PA or Palestinian constitutional law in development.

Review is the right path, the legal path for Israel to take.

I am trying to provide sources for this, but one of Denmarks leading newspapers, Berlingske Tidende has been reporting, that the Israelis have threatened to cancel a badly needed extension of the Mobile phone network on the Westbank, if the Palestinians does not cancel all efforts to bring the case about Israeli Human Rights abuses any further. And given that the PA is notoriously corrupt, it is entirely possible that a deal could be worked out between the parties along these lines. The same newspaper article reports, how Israel frantically has tried to deter US and Europe to bring the matter up in the UNSC, but that Turkey, which currently is a member , will.
»Whoever are responsible, they shall be identified and will have to face the necessary sanctions« the prime minister of Turkey, Tayyip Erdogan, said

If you are going to used a website, may I suggest one that doesn't hate Israel. The Huffington Post is well known for its pro Palestinian and anti-Israeli positions.

So Israel is perpetrating the worlds "only" violent "colonial settler occupation"

I guess China in Tibet and Russian in Chechnya don't count because well, no one quite hates the Chinese and the Russians like they do the Jews...

But more to the point, Israel is the ancestral homeland of the Jewish People.

Jews lived, worked and prayed in the kingdoms of ancient Israel and Judea over 1,800 years for the birth of Mohammad.

Indeed, the earliest reference outside the Hebrew Bible to Israel is from the funerary stela of the Egyptian Pharoah Merneptah from 1209 B.C.

Just because our Temple was destroyed and our ancestors were violently kicked out by the Roman Army under Titus and Vespasian, condemning us to a 2,000 year exile filled with persecution does not mean we forfitted our national rights to our land.

Nor does it mean they are less then the admitted rights of the Arabs who came with the Muslim Conquest centuries later.

Oh, yes and in terms of Goldstone...Is anyone going to file a report on U.S. "war crimes" in Iraq or Afghanistan? Or on any other country? No just Israel.

Hamas sent over 10,000 rockets into poor border Israeli towns, hitting schools, playgrounds and homes and Israel is expected to do nothing.

This is after Israel fully withdrew.

I guess we Jews are simply not allowed to defend ourselves...

Well, sorry we value our lives and our children too.

The UNHCR is the UN refugee agency. What you're referring to is the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, or the OHCHR.

Also, the UN Human Rights Commission does not exist anymore. It was replaced by the Human Rights Council a few years ago.

...was that ending violence against innocent civilians in the Middle East rests upon holding the culprits accountable.

He seemed to conclude we can't abide impunity residing alongside the rule of law.

If Pres. Barack Obama or anyone else holds that impunity is a necessary element of their Middle East Policy, then they should admit they are not opposed to violence against innocent civilians.

Thank you, Justice Goldstone, for a clear analysis of what's wrong in the Middle East: we're wasting our time ignoring the crime.

As a Palestinian American I believe it is necessary to push forward with the Goldstone report. It is necessary that the world understand what happened in Gaza. Israel must learn that their actions have consequences. The killing of 1400 lives is a disproportionate response to rockets and today's standards of human rights and morality will not tolerate it.

Peace is important but when Israel is allowed to murder 1400 people without consequence they have no motivation to compromise on a lasting peace