Goldstone: Waiting for Obama to specify flaws

Richard Goldstone called on the Obama administration to justify its claims against his findings in a United Nations report on the Gaza war.

In an interview Thursday with the English Arab news network Al Jazeera, Goldstone said he was still waiting to hear from the United States.

“I have yet to hear from the Obama administration what the flaws in the report that they have identified are,” he said. “I would be happy to respond to them, if and when I know what they are. The Obama administration joined our recommendation calling for full and good-faith investigations, both in Israel and in Gaza, but said that the report was flawed.”

Goldstone also told Al Jazeera that he is certain that most of his critics have not read the report, which was accepted by the U.N. Human Rights Council last week and sent on to the U.N. Security Council. Israel did not cooperate with the investigation into last winter’s military offensive.

“I’ve no doubt many of the critics—the overwhelmingly majority of critics—have not read the report,” he said. “And you know what proves that, I think, is that the level of criticism does not go to the substance of the report.”

Goldstone added that he regrets that the criticism has been so “personal.”