The report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, headed by former judge of South Africa's Constitutional Court Richard Goldstone, was released on Sept. 15.
Despite the fact that it confirms widely reported and analyzed Israeli military practices during the Gaza War, the 575-page report has been greeted with alarm by Israel and given much attention in the world media.
Whatever happens in the UN system and at the Human Rights Council in Geneva, the weight of the report will be felt by world public opinion. Ever since the Gaza War, the solidity of Jewish support for Israel has been fraying at the edges and will likely now fray much further. More globally, a very robust boycott and divestment movement has been gaining momentum ever since the Gaza War, and the Goldstone Report will clearly lend added support to such initiatives. There is a growing sense around the world that the only chance for the Palestinians to achieve some kind of just peace depends on shaping the outcome by way of the symbols of legitimacy, what I have called the Legitimacy War. Increasingly, the Palestinians have been winning this second non-military war. Such a war fought on a global political battlefield is what eventually and unexpectedly undermined the apartheid regime in South Africa and has become much more threatening to the Israeli sense of security than armed Palestinian resistance.
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