I’m coming to this a bit late, but I did have a few comments. One of the things about the attacks on Goldstone that has not made a lot of sense is that his attackers would want to emphasize his role in upholding apartheid-era laws as a judge in South Africa. After all, why would they want to point out that Goldstone was part of a government that Israel aligned itself with for decades? His enemies seem to think that this should make everyone dismiss whatever he and the U.N. Mission have had to say about Gaza, but even if we attached the worst possible interpretation to Goldstone’s record as a judge all that this would tell us is that “even an apartheid-era judge” can recognize the excesses and crimes committed in Gaza. That doesn’t muddy the waters at all, but instead makes the judgment against Israel that much more damning. That probably isn’t what his enemies had in mind when they launched this campaign against him.

It is supposed to be some sort of contradiction that Goldstone upheld harsh laws as a judge then and now is trying to hold another government accountable for its military excesses against a civilian population, but at worst this shows a habit of judging actions according to the law that exists. It could just as easily show a desire to hold even powerful states accountable for their violations of international law. Goldstone has been criticized as a “man of double standards,” but if his record shows us anything it is that this is precisely what he is not. Indeed, the reason why he has been subjected to these attacks is that he is not applying one standard for one group and another for a different group. What drives his attackers crazy is that he has applied the law to both sides of the conflict. His attackers might insist that Israel be given on a pass on any excesses and crimes it commits because Israel is on “our side” or is “like us” or “shares our values,” or more basically because Israel has a “right to defend itself” (which some of them take to mean a license to do whatever it wants). If the judgment seems biased against the vastly more powerful side, that is mostly a function of the disparity of power between the two sides. That “bias” could only be avoided if the jurist were constantly compensating for the disparity in power rather than looking at the actions committed.