Back in November 2009, the United Nations approved the Goldstone Report that probed the IDF’s counter-terrorism offensive in Gaza known as Operation Cast Lead. Goldstone, a Jew, came under attack for biased report that left Israel is an even more difficult position as the international community accused IDF soldiers of human rights violations in the fighting.

In 2011, Goldstone issued a retraction, stating the error of his ways when the report cited Israeli soldiers targeted Gaza civilians. Nevertheless, the damage was done and Goldstone’s scathing report compromised the integrity of the State of Israel, and even more so, the IDF.

Seeking to continue his tshuva process, in a New York Times op-ed Goldstone addresses the use of the term “apartheid” to describe Israeli policy vis-à-vis its Arab citizens.

“It is an unfair and inaccurate slander against Israel,” Goldstone wrote in an opinion article appearing today in Independent Newspapers. It is designed to “isolate, demonize and delegitimize” Israel, he said.

While “apartheid” can have broader meaning, its use is meant to evoke the situation in pre-1994 South Africa. It is an unfair and inaccurate slander against Israel, calculated to retard rather than advance peace negotiations.

Some other key quotes from the op-ed:

In Israel, there is no apartheid. Nothing there comes close to the definition of apartheid under the 1998 Rome Statute…

Israeli Arabs – 20 percent of Israel’s population – vote, have political parties and representatives in the Knesset and occupy positions of acclaim, including on its Supreme Court. Arab patients lie alongside Jewish patients in Israeli hospitals, receiving identical treatment.

South Africa’s enforced racial separation was intended to permanently benefit the white minority, to the detriment of other races. By contrast, Israel has agreed in concept to the existence of a Palestinian state in Gaza and almost all of the West Bank, and is calling for the Palestinians to negotiate the parameters.

The mutual recognition and protection of the human dignity of all people is indispensable to bringing an end to hatred and anger. The charge that Israel is an apartheid state is a false and malicious one that precludes, rather than promotes, peace and harmony.

Sadly, this may be a case of too little too late, since the Goldstone Report resulted in sanctions in the form if divestment, boycotts, and an increasing anti-Israel sentiment. It also fueled the anti-Semitic Amnesty International machine, which is always all too ready to spew its anti-Israel hatred in the international community.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)