Andy Mager '83 and Peter Johnson '67 should have waited a few weeks before extolling the now infamous Goldstone Report to support their anti-Israeli views (Mail Room, May/June). In an April essay published in the Washington Post, Richard Goldstone wrote that if he'd known when the report was written what he knows now, "the Goldstone Report would have been a different document."

"Although the Israeli evidence that has emerged since publication of our report doesn't negate the tragic loss of civilian life," Goldstone continues, "I regret that our fact-finding mission did not have such evidence explaining the circumstances in which we said civilians in Gaza were targeted." Goldstone then writes that Hamas had not conducted any internal investigations of its own, but that Israel devoted considerable resources into looking into more than 400 accusations of operational misconduct in Gaza. Perhaps Mager and Johnson might have written different letters had they waited a bit.

Sheldon Siegel '56
Allentown, Pa.
spscomm@aol.com

Read Goldstone's complete essay, "Reconsidering the Goldstone Report on Israel and War Crimes" at www.washingtonpost.com.