Berman Conferring With Ros-Lehtinen After Charging ‘Inaccuracies’ in Goldstone Letter

After receiving a letter from Richard Goldstone, the South African judge who investigated Israeli and Hamas war crimes in Gaza, to dispute an impending bipartisan House resolution denouncing his report, staffers for Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.) are “conferring” with staffers for bill co-sponsor Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen’s (R-Fla.). “Chairman Berman is studying Judge Goldstone’s letter,” Berman spokeswoman Lynne Weil said, adding that she could not get into specific factual questions that Goldstone raised about the resolution. Weil levied a counter-charge at Goldstone, who said that almost all of the resolution is factually inaccurate or misleading, and said that “in looking at the letter, [Berman] noted that it contains a number of points that are inaccurate.” She did not specify what points those were.

Some aspects of the resolution and Goldstone’s letter cannot be reconciled. The resolution says that “Hamas was able to significantly shape the findings of the investigation mission’s report by selecting and pre-screening some of the witnesses and intimidating others.” Goldstone replied that the allegation is “devoid of truth and I challenge anyone to produce evidence in support of it.”

For a thorough and judicious reading of both the resolution and Goldstone’s letter, see this Ron Kampeas post.

The Ros-Lehtinen/Berman resolution currently has 124 co-sponsors, and unless something changes before close of business today, it should come up for debate on Tuesday. Weil said, “Chairman Berman expects to issue a complete response to Judge Goldstone” before the House considers the resolution.

Update: This item has been changed. I misunderstood Weil to say that the staffers were discussing prospective changes to the resolution text based on Goldstone; in fact, they’re just discussing the letter, and anything beyond that is premature. My apologies to Weil.