In late 2009, American lawyer Alan Dershowitz wrote a scathing critique of the Goldstone Report for the American website The Huffington Report. In it he takes the Goldstone Report to task for accusing Israel of deliberately targeting Palestinian civilians for death. The report found those charges to be "firmly based in fact," yet concluded that Hamas was not guilty of using civilians as human shields during Operation Cast Lead in 2008-2009. Evidence of Hamas fighters dressed in civilian clothing engaged in combat or mingling with civilians with the intention of shielding themselves was ignored by the Goldstone Report, as was evidence that mosques were used as weapons storehouses.

The evidence that Israel never targeted innocent civilians for death during Operation Cast Lead, and that the Israeli Defense Forces went to extraordinary lengths to minimize civilian casualties was likewise missing from the Goldstone Report. The methodology for the fact finding that went into the Goldstone Report was skewed, particularly in its evaluation of evidence based on whether it favored Israel or Hamas.

Dershowitz also wrote an analysis of the Goldstone Report that is available online in the form of a PDF document (http://www.alandershowitz.com/goldstone.pdf. He sent the document to the United Nations Secretary General for inclusion along with other critiques of the Goldstone Report the UN received. To Dershowitz, the central problem distinguishing the conclusions regarding Israel from conclusions regarding Hamas is intentionality. The report finds that the most serious allegations against Israel were intentional and deliberate, while the most serious allegations against Hamas were unintentional.

Dershowitz' conclusion based on the evidence that was left out of the Goldstone Report was that if Hamas did in fact use human shields then the deaths of those civilians would be more attributable to Hamas than Israel. Furthermore, since intentionality appeared to be important to the Goldstone Report's conclusions, the same evidentiary standards should have applied to both Israel and Hamas.