In late December of 2008, the Israelis invaded the Gaza Strip. Hamas terrorists had been firing rockets into Israel from Gaza, killing and maiming Israeli civilians. There had been dozens of such attacks. The Israelis couldn't simply fire back because Hamas used schools and hospitals as shields.

So the Israelis invaded. They leveled entire neighborhoods which their intelligence (the best in the world, by the way) indicated had become centers of terrorist activity. Hamas commanders took refuge in hospital basements because they knew the Israelis would not destroy hospitals. In a twisted sort of way, this enabled Hamas to use the Israelis' humanitarian instincts against them.

In the end, however, an estimated 709 "terrorist operatives" were killed during the IDF's "Operation Cast Lead." The term "cast lead" refers to the making of bullets (by pouring molten lead into casts); hence, the purpose of the op was to strike at Hamas' offensive capacity in Gaza.

At the time, the IDF claimed that they were taking great care to minimize civilian casualties; nonetheless, the United Nations denounced the invasion (surprise, surprise!) and accused the Israelis of crimes against humanity.

After the invasion, the United Nations Human Rights Council asked a Jewish man named Richard Goldstone (a judge from South Africa) to head up a panel to investigate possible human rights violations by the IDF in Gaza.

The forthcoming Goldstone Report was scathing. Among other things, it concluded that the Israeli Army, as a matter of policy, targeted and killed civilians during the Gaza military op. Anti-Zionist groups the world over seized on this report, citing it as evidence that the Israelis indiscriminately murdered Palestinian civilians.

Now, however, there's been an interesting twist in the plot. Judge Goldstone says that subsequent investigations have confirmed the Israeli version of events on numerous key counts and that if his report were republished today, knowing what he knows now, it would be "a different document." Here's the report from the New York Times: click here

Now we'll wait and see if the UN Human Rights Council issues an apology for its careless and baseless accusations.

I'm not holding my breath.

Update (April 6, 2011): Wow, this judge from South Africa is a real piece of work. Now he's saying that there's no reason to retract the original report, even though its central theme (i.e., that the Israelis intentionally targeted innocent civilians in the Gaza operation) has been shown to be unsupported by the facts: click here