The 574-page report concludes that Israel committed human-rights violations, violated humanitarian law, committed “war crimes,” and may have committed crimes against humanity. Though the report did note that investigators found evidence that armed Palestinian groups were culpable, investigators clearly place the onus for the conflict squarely on Israel. The report pays scant attention to Hamas’ cynical use of human shields and placement of munitions among the civilian population, including at hospitals, mosques, and schools.

The report’s omissions and conclusions are telling. The investigative team’s mandate from the United Nations Human Rights Council began with the premise that Israel committed “war crimes.” Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, the findings do not deviate from that thesis.

“Flawed from premise to execution, the Goldstone report perpetuates the United Nations Human Rights Council’s inherent anti-Israel bias,” B’nai B’rith International President Moishe Smith said. “For the report to give so little consideration to the constant rocket barrages into Israel, and to disregard Hamas terrorists hiding among the Palestinian civilian population is proof that Israel continues to face negative preconceptions at every turn.”

The Goldstone investigation was meant to review “Operation Cast Lead,” which sprang from the longtime rocket attacks against Israel. The investigation should have considered relevant factors in international law and Hamas’ exploitation of Palestinian non-combatants as “human shields.” Instead, and like much that takes place at the U.N., the focus was one-sided against Israel.

For the report to conclude that the Israeli military operation was directed at the Gaza civilian population omits vital information, including the reality that the terrorists who launched rocket attacks for years into southern Israel hid among the civilian population. Israel faced an impossible task in trying to avoid civilian casualties.

“For more than eight years, the people of Sderot and neighboring Israeli towns and villages lived under rocket fire from terrorists hiding in Gaza,” B’nai B’rith International Executive Vice President Daniel S. Mariaschin said. “Israel undertook a military action in Gaza to fulfill every nation’s most basic covenant with its people: to defend its citizens.”

B’nai B’rith is heartened that the report calls for the immediate release of captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who has been a Hamas hostage since the terrorist group kidnapped him three years ago. Shalit has been denied access to the Red Cross, in violation of the laws of the Geneva Conventions.

B’nai B’rith provided a written submission to the Goldstone Mission on June 30 focusing on the legal issues the mission should consider and on the total disregard by Hamas for all human rights norms in pursuing its campaign against Israel. We are frustrated that the report did not take into consideration, to a satisfactory degree, Hamas’ actions before and during the conflict.

Israel is often asked to accept conditions no other nation would be expected to endure. By focusing on the Israeli response to the Hamas attacks, instead of the years of Hamas rocket attacks that led to it, the Goldstone report does a disservice to Israel, which has been under near-constant attack from neighbors in the region from its very founding.