A group of American Jewish lawyers is set to file a civil lawsuit against Richard Goldstone initiated by Israeli lawmaker Danny Danon.
The class action suit against the author of the Goldstone Report, a United Nations document about Israel’s conduct during the month-long Gaza war in the winter of 2008-09, is set to be filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan by attorney Steve Goldberg, according to a statement issued last week from Danon’s office.
The lawsuit will demand that Goldstone publicly apologize to the State of Israel and pay a symbolic amount of damages for the accusations he made in the U.N. Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict report.
Danon reportedly plans to file a similar lawsuit in Israel that would go into effect if Goldstone visits. He is expected to come in July after being invited by Israeli Interior Minister Eli Yishai.
Goldstone, a former South African judge, wrote in an April 1 op-ed in the Washington Post that Israel did not intentionally target civilians as a policy during the Gaza War. But Goldstone told the Associated Press last week that he will not seek to quash the report, which was presented to the Human Rights Council in September 2009. — jta