The establishment of the Goldstone Commission, aka the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, which investigated the operations of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) during Operation Cast Lead in 2008-09 and published a scathing report, is etched in the memory of Israelis as a particularly traumatic event. Later on, Judge Richard Goldstone expressed remorse over the devastating report he penned against Israel, yet the damage could not be undone.
The past few years have seen quite a few international incidents whereby senior Israeli officials had to skip over “problematic” airports, such as London’s Heathrow, lest they be arrested following private lawsuits filed against them. Tzipi Livni, once Israel’s foreign minister and today its justice minister, is a case in point.