Rice: Goldstone report should simply ‘disappear’

Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, says the Goldstone report is probably beyond fixing and should simply disappear.

Rice, speaking to a hearing Thursday of the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, was reacting to congressional calls on Richard Goldstone to amend the 2009 report on the Gaza War that was based on an investigation of a panel convened by the U.N. Human Rights Council.

The panel, chaired by Goldstone, concluded that Israel had targeted civilians as a matter of policy. Goldstone, a former South African judge, recently withdrew that conclusion.

“I’m not sure it can be amended,” Rice said of the report. “What we want to see is for it to disappear and no longer be a subject of discussion and debate in the Human Rights Council or the General Assembly or beyond.”

Rice has led the effort to stymie the advance of the report through the U.N. system.