When the Goldstone Report on Operation Cast Lead (the Gaza incursion of 2008-2009) was presented to the UN, people like Ehud Barak said that it was "biased, one-sided and deceptive".

Even so, it looks like Israel is taking some of the findings seriously.

Forward says that the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) has opened up a relationship with Human Rights Watch, an "international organization that has been often — and loudly — denounced by the Jewish world".

When HRW released their initial report in August 2009, "the credibility, the objectivity and the professionalism" of HRW was called into question. But now the IDF wants to co-operate with HRW.

The re-establishment of a relationship with HRW is the latest indication that for all its public defensiveness about the accusations of war crimes and possible crimes against humanity in the Goldstone Report, Israel has had to confront the report’s implications.

As Forward says, the HRW report into the incursion detailed seven "white flag" incidents where "civilians waving white flags had been shot" and that:

HRW officials were informed at the February 4 meeting with the IDF lawyers that all seven of the “white flag” incidents mentioned in the HRW report had been turned into criminal investigations.

The IDF must be congratulated for establishing the contact with HRW, to try and get to the truth of what happened in 2008-2009.