It must have been an unenviable challenge for the Israel Foreign Ministry to endeavor to try to discredit the report of the eminent South African Jurist, Judge Goldstone, who has an impeccable record in the field of human and civil rights, both at home and abroad.  

The first insuperable problem was that he is not only a recognized authority on international human rights legislation and convention, but he is Jewish!   So the standard allegation of anti-Semitism, was impossible.  Furthermore, it is recorded that he is also a Zionist!  So a charge of anti-Zionism was also out of the question.

They could not attack his professional record, which was impeccable.  So what action could be taken in damage limitation?

The matter had, and has, suddenly become urgent.  If the world fully accepts the report, then Israel is branded a human rights violator and a perpetrator of war crime.

The Israeli government and its Foreign Ministry went into overdrive.  'Goldstone's opinion was already made up before the investigation began and that is why we refused to co-operate in establishing the facts', they said.

Contemporaneously, they issued urgent instructions to thousands of (usually paid) pro-Israel, Hasbara correspondents to refute, deny, rebut, disprove, counter, contest, contradict, reject, invalidate or otherwise attempt to obscure the evidence reported by Goldstone to the UN, on comment on internet sites, worldwide.

Unfortunately for the Foreign Ministry, but fortunately for the truth, the international community has been shocked at the allegations of gratuitous killing of hundreds of innocent children and over a hundred women in three weeks of unchecked violence, together with the wholesale destruction of Gaza's infrastructure including 'houses, factories, wells, schools, hospitals, police stations and other public buildings'.

The Report alleges 'an overall and continuing policy aimed at punishing the Gaza population, and a deliberate policy of disproportionate force aimed at the civilian population.'   That, the Report states, 'could lead a competent court to find that the crime of persecution, a crime against humanity, has been committed.'

The Israeli Government is in deep trouble as the allegations become more widely known, because there are few who now believe its denials and fewer still, its continuing propaganda. And there is a palpable sense of shock as the evidence unfolds as to what transpired in those three weeks of state-sponsored killing and destruction, under the pretext of self-defense.