Ethan Bronner, the Jerusalem bureau chief of the New York Times, writes in a lengthy April 14 dispatch that three members of the UN Goldstone inquiry panel, in a complete break with the chairman, Richard Goldstone, are sticking by  earlier charges that Israel committed "war crimes" during its anti-terrorist offensive in Gaza two years ago by deliberately targeting civilians ("3 UN Investigators Reject Goldstone's Shift on Gaza War")Bronner reports that the three -- Hina Jilani of Pakistan, Desmond Travers of Ireland and Christine Chinkin of Britain -- issued a joint statement saying that "any attempt to backtrack on their report amounted to yielding to outside pressure, and that doing so would deprive the victims of justice."Bronner calls their statement a "a firm rebuke of Mr. Goldstone, and of efforts to reconsider and even nullify the report submitted to the UN Human Rights Council in September 2009."Goldstone himself has retracted the...(Read Full Post)