The New York Times on Monday said that Justice Richard Goldstone, who compiled the Goldstone Report probing Israel’s actions during Operation Cast Lead, never submitted an op-ed regretting his findings.

In an opinion piece published Friday in the Washington Post, Goldstone said he now questioned his own conclusions regarding the Gaza war, and regretted accusing Israel of perpetrating war crimes during the military campaign.

It was later published that before approaching the Washington Poet, the South Africa judge approached the editor of the New York Times opinion page, but was rejected.

The New York Times told Yedioth Ahronoth that Goldstone never submitted the opinion piece in question to its op-ed ditor. Nevertheless, the newspaper did confirm that Goldstone had “submitted another piece,” which was rejected, some two weeks ago.

Goldstone himself told Israel-based New York Times journalist Ethan Bronner that the piece submitted to the Washington Post was not sent to any other publication.

In an official response to the claimes, NYT’s Elaine Murphy said that Goldstone had indeed submitted an opinion piece to the newspaper on March 22, which was rejected. Nevertheless, she stressed, the piece did not resemble the one published by the Washington Post.

Still, the New York Times refused to subject the original pieces sent by Goldstone to any comparison with the one published by the Washington Post; claiming they had no right to forward an unpublished submission to a third party.

(Source: Ynet)