April 5, 2011 – New York – In a new effort to press for a repeal of the seriously flawed Goldstone Commission report, AJC today called on UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to use the moral authority of his office to urge the UN Human Rights Council, as well as the General Assembly, to revoke their endorsements of the 2009 document.

Revoking the Goldstone Commission report “will not only help right the wrong that was inflicted on the State of Israel, but it would also help restore the credibility of the UN, under whose auspices this damaging, discredited report was prepared and widely disseminated,” wrote AJC President Robert Elman and Executive Director David Harris in a letter to Ban Ki-moon.

AJC’s appeal to the UN Secretary-General to intervene comes after Judge Richard Goldstone admitted in a Washington Post opinion article that, on reflection two years later, he had erred grievously in the investigation of Israel’s actions during its campaign against Hamas in Gaza. Goldstone headed the UN commission charged with examining the Gaza conflict in December 2008 and January 2009.

“If I had known then what I know now, the Goldstone Report would have been a different document,” wrote Goldstone in the Washington Post.  He confirmed that Israel did not intentionally target Palestinian civilians, and credited the Jewish state with conducting credible investigations into alleged wrongdoing by individual soldiers.

On Saturday, AJC urged Goldstone to formally request the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council to repeal his report.

“The UN Human Rights Council must take responsibility for this defamation of  Israel and retract the report,” said Harris “The Human Rights Council initiated this process of demonizing a UN member-state by commissioning an inquiry based on a one-sided mandate into Israel’s campaign against Hamas in Gaza, and then accepted Judge Goldstone’s report without question two years ago.”

According to press reports, a UN Human Rights Council spokesman maintains that Goldstone must first submit a formal request to the Geneva-based body.

“It is imperative that Judge Goldstone unequivocally request without further delay the Human Rights Council to convene and vote to rescind his report,” said Harris. “The integrity of the world body, as well as of Judge Goldstone, is at stake in reversing, however belatedly, an incalculably damaging wrong.”