In 2009, the UN's Goldstone Report accused Israel of deliberately targeting civilians in Gaza. In 2011, Goldstone himself acknowledged that the evidence did not support the report's central claim of an Israeli policy to target civilians. But the report was never withdrawn. Its accusations are still cited today. The deeper problem was epistemological: investigators assumed Israeli nefarious intent and interpreted ambiguous evidence accordingly. Civilian deaths became evidence that Israel wanted civilians dead. Intent cannot be established by mind-reading. It requires evidence. Yet the assumption that Israel deliberately seeks to harm Palestinians has become embedded in the way many NGOs, UN bodies and commentators interpret the Gaza wars. The Goldstone Report was a dress rehearsal for the accusations we see today, including genocide. And its most important lesson was never learned. Link to full post in next tweet.