No, I haven't read the report, except for Sayed's quotes. If Sayed want to tell me that he read these 576 pages, I will not believe him. And I won't read the report for EXACTLY the same reasons that I won't read any kind of bible, but prefer a history book or a scientific article.
I really hate to play your game clanko and sayed but yea.. why not. It was clear to me without going too deep into detail that this report has a place only in the trash bin of History. Reason: I was a soldier myself. I know my countrymen and after 6 years of service, I know the IDF VERY WELL. But ok, for the sake of hypothetical discussion, maybe the report exposes severe crimes. But then, before I go to read it, I need to know how much I can trust this report to have any kind of credibility. For this, I put my skills as a scientist and made my own small online research (no more than 20 minutes, would have been nice - and very surprising - if you would have done the same, dear Sayed and clanko).
In my research I am treating just one issue, and this is not the Israeli actions in Gaza. The Issue is "Is the report worth readind? Is it trustworthy? can I trust anything written there to be an accurate representation of the truth?". ONLY that. This is the topic of the thread.
Here are my findings:
1) I found the resolution who started the whole Goldstone affair on the website of UNHCR - The UN Refugee Agency.
The "Human Rights Council" called in its original January 12 resolution for an investigation of "Israel's human rights violations" - and only Israel's. Wikipedia quotes the resolution better than me with my lousy english:
On January 12, 2009, the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHCR) adopted Resolution S-9/1, calling to "dispatch an urgent, independent international fact-finding mission, to investigate all violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law by the occupying Power, Israel, against the Palestinian people, particularly in the occupied Gaza Strip ( 
chaostrivia) , due to the current aggression, and calls upon Israel not to obstruct the process of investigation and to fully cooperate with the mission."[3]wikipedia
This is the title of the resolution:
S-9/1 The grave violations of human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, particularly due to the recent Israeli military attacks against the occupied Gaza Strip.
(sounds pretty much like a book title, or a final verdict, no?, what about the words "alleged", "suspicions", "possible"?)
In the voting in favor or against the resolution these were the results:
In favour: Angola, Argentina, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Chile, China, Cuba, Djibouti, Egypt, Gabon, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Madagascar, Malaysia, Mauritius, Mexico, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Qatar, Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, South Africa, Uruguay, Zambia.
Against: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cameroon, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Republic of Korea, Slovakia, Slovenia, Switzerland, Ukraine, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Abstaining: Canada
So, point (1) demonstrates how in favour of the resolution we have all of the world counties which stand in the front line fighting for human rights, esp' of their own citizens!, and against the resolution we have a list of the world's biggest consciousless criminal countries known for their everyday violations of human rights, and this is why they rejected this kind of fair and unbiased resolution!!, just to protect another criminal friend ....
2) Given this one-sided mandate, many were mystified when Goldstone agreed to head up the probe. Lets not forget that in 1980 Goldstone accepted the racist South African government's offer of a Transvaal Supreme Court judgeship (the juristic arm of the apartheid). He later claimed that it was "the most difficult decision of his career". When South Africa was on transit to a democracy he was offered a place in the Constitutional Court in South Africa. But errrrr oops, the human rights warrior declined the offer, and preferred instead to start working for the War Crimes Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Also for the latter case, in an interview I found with the "The Human Rights Brief" he said, quote: "It was a difficult decision". Allow to me guess that in one not too distant day, judge Goldstone will say that accepting the job of leading this disgraceful mission was "a difficult decision"
(
source1,
source2,
source3)
so now that we saw who are the real protectors of human rights in the world...let examine another one
3) Before Goldstone, former UN high commissioner for human rights
Mary Robinson was offered by the UN to head this mission. She declined the job, describing the council as
"guided not by human rights, but by politics" and specifically citing the resolution's
exclusive focus on Israel (
source1 source2)
4) Israel boycotted the Goldstone mission. Israelis officials and soldiers were not allowed to cooperate with it. This is only due to its one-sided nature. Israel have co-operated with previous such UN inquiries, where the Truth and not political advantage were the real goals of the missions. This include for example the "
jenin massacre" mission, which declared black on white that the Palestinian allegation of a deliberate massacre are
One Thousand and One Nights.
Therefore, all of the content of the report of this "fact finding mission" is just the writing down of Palestinian allegations on paper without any interaction with the other side. The members of the committee were not present in Gaza during or before the fightings, and didn't get to hear the other side. I simply DO NOT UNDERSTAND how could they possibly for each specific event tell truth from fiction?.......?
5) The UN mandate for the Goldstone mission was required to file its report by the end of September. But hmmm...the report was already finished two weeks before that and released just 3 days ahead of the UN general assembly. Coincidence? depends on who you ask
Goldstone just did the job for those who paid his salary, delivering them what they expected him to deliver.
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Side comment for point
(4):
I think that despite all of the above, Israel should not have boycotted the "facts finding" mission. Israel's lack of cooperation was interpreted as admittance of guilt. It was a stupid, untypical mistake. This time we should have behaved against any principle of self-respect, humiliate ourself and co-operated with the tainted committee.
Unlike the arabs, our goal is to survive, and not just have foolish pride, and to achieve this hard goal of maintaining the existence of our democratic liberal oasis in this desert of backwardness called the ME, we have to continue to outsmart them, and not to think like them.
Instead of boycotting the committee, Israel should have bombarded Goldstone with the
overwhelming amount of evidence gathered during the operation, proving that it was first of all the Hamas who committed crimes against the Palestinian population, and not Israel. I heard stories from 1st sources: my friends who took part in the operation. Too bad I couldn't.
Here is a drop in the ocean:
(look at the magic of the UAVs, Israeli-made, I took part in the development of some of these incredible machines)
It takes no more than two brain cells to understand that without abusing the civilian population and hiding behind it, the Hamas wouldn't stand a chance against the IDF and in particularly not require 21 days of battle! The fire powers are so unmatched!! David vs. Goliath. If Israel and Hamas were fighting in a "civilian-free" region, as Israel called Hamas to do (just for the protocol....), Israel would have crushed even 10,000 Hamas warriors in 10 minutes. You don't have to have a fancy military education to understand this kind of ABC! If the Israeli Airplanes/Tanks/Soldier don't have to think twice before they hit the trigger ("is this one from the good or bad guys?") the game is over in 10 minutes!
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
This reports brings the UN back to its dark ages. It is not better than the UN resolution equating Israel and Racism. My god. It is also not much better than the denouncement of the Israeli attack on the Iraqi nuclear reactor built by Saddam Hussein, aka
biggest murderer of muslims in human history. Because of the Israeli bombing of the Iraqi reactor a country called "Kuwait" still exists today (oh.. and they didn't bother to thank us, instead they continue educate for jew-hatred like the rest of the Arab world. Naturally, they also denounced the bombing...). The Goldstone report is a shame for "international law" or whatever is left of this meaningless term and worse of all:
this report is a legitimization of terror, effectively meaning that terrorizing civilians with 8,600 rockets can bring political rewards!
I know that Sayed would find my reasoning above not sufficient, and keep presenting the Goldstone report as his new bible. His quotings from the Goldstone report remind me pretty much of the Muslims and Christians having "verse fights" in another forum about religions where I am also active. I imagine his state of mind when he quotes Goldstone : "eh...jew...gottacha... now this is the ultimate proof!, school this!"
...... The Goldstone report was written by people like Sayed, for people like Sayed.
All I say clanko is that if you want to convince us that Cast Lead was part of "a long-term military, economic, and geographical practice whose political aim is nothing less than the liquidation of the Palestinian nation" you just have to bring something better than this report whose mandate is ill to start with and due to the above has no chance to be able to tell truth from fiction.
So you can either make the Goldstone report your 2nd bible like Sayed, and by thus make every other good argument you make against Israel have a strong scent of bias, or you could just dump the Goldstone report into the trash bin of history, where it belongs. Its up to you. Please let me know if my time was worth it, for next time.
I know of course about the moslem brothers. Mubarak's best friends 
- By JohnRawls
- By litwin
- By Potemkin