Tuesday
Feb022010
UPDATED Israel: The Government Responds to the Goldstone Report on Gaza
Tuesday, February 2, 2010 at 7:32 
UPDATED 2 FEBRUARY: Haaretz reports that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tried to persuade Defense Minister Ehud Barak to accept an Israeli investigation into civilian deaths during Operation Cast Lead. However, officials said that both Barak and Gabi Ashkenazi, the Chief of Staff of Israel Defense Forces, refused to yield authority to investigators from outside the defense establishment."The prime minister knows what he wants to do on this matter - but he does not want to bring the matter to the cabinet," a senior source close to Netanyahu said.
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With the General Assembly convening on 5 February 5 to discuss progress on the Goldstone Report and its recommendations, Israel submitted its response to United Nations over last year's Gaza War.
Palestine: Hamas Refuses An Independent Commission on Gaza “War Crimes”
The committee will reportedly have the authority to summon everyone who was in charge of the IDF investigations and any civilian who took part in the main deliberations. However, it will not have the authority to question operational commanders. The committee is likely to take testimony of lower-ranked officials, ensuring that there is no basis to send officials to international courts.
The Israeli Government said it is preparing to appoint a committee focusing on two main areas: 1) the quality of the investigations conducted by the Israel Defense Forces into incidents and 2) decisions taken by the Cabinet, the Security Cabinet and the IDF General Staff over the use of force. The first area will establish whether the internal investigations met the relevant international standards and the second will determine whether there is a basis to Goldstone's claims that the operation was planned in advance as a punitive campaign against the civilian population in the Gaza Strip.
Meanwhile, Mahmoud Abbas, the leader of the Palestinian Authority, announced that he has decided to establish an independent panel of inquiry to evaluate the accusations on human rights violations carried out by his PA security forces during the Gaza War.
On the political front, Israel slammed the Goldstone Report's "misrepresentations" in a written response submitted to UN chief Ban Ki-moon, "Gaza Operation Investigations: Update":
As Israel has clarified before, Israel disagrees with the findings and recommendations of the Report, which reflect many misunderstandings and fundamental mistakes with regard to the Gaza Operation, its purposes, and Israel’s legal system.
Israel is committed to ensuring that every such incident is fully and fairly investigated, to ensure that lessons can be learned and that, if justified, criminal or disciplinary proceedings initiated.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak added that the Goldstone Report was "distorted, false, and irresponsible":
This morning we handed the UN a report of the investigations and operations that took place during Operation Cast Lead. This report stresses that the IDF is like no other army, both from a moral standpoint as well as from a professional standpoint.
All of the soldiers and officers whom we sent to battle need to know that the state of Israel stands behind them even on the day after.
Reader Comments (8)
Ali,
There was some discussion about whether the number of comments on your Israeli-Palestinian posts indicated the number of readers. I, for one, may not always post a comment, but I can assure you I'll be reading all of your posts on the Goldstone report. It's really too early to comment anyway - let's see what they all come up with.
Catherine, thank you very much. You are right, it is still too early to have a clear idea what is going to take place in the next stage. There will be updates on Israel's response to the Goldstone Report.
Why condemn the good guy - heroic Israel restraint in facing Arab Muslims heinous criminals (crimes against humanity, war crimes... by Hezbollah or by Palestinians) who use their women & children in order to make sure they die?
Israel is held to higher standards because Israel is a Western-style democracy.
Nobody holds Hamas to any standards, because there aren’t any standards low enough to hold them against
Israel is a member of the UN and Hamas shooting rockets into Israeli cites should be condsidered an ‘armed attack’.
No phone calls and leaflets next time. No ceasefire until the Hamas surrender. Time to get off the UN treadmill.
Update 01 Feb 2010: Israel 'disciplines' army officers
Two Israeli army officers have been "disciplined", but not demoted, for firing artillery shells towards a densely-populated area near a UN compound during its war on Gaza last year.
The army did not say what form of discipline the men faced, but both were accused of "exceeding their authority in a manner that jeopardised the lives of others" during the shelling of Tel al-Hawa on January 15, 2009.
Mark Regev, an Israeli government spokesman, said the two officers disciplined had not committed any crime, they had only "breached guidelines" and would have an official reprimand put into their file.
"Some 36 Israeli soldiers and officers are currently under criminal investigation over conduct during the Gaza conflict. But in this incident, there was no evidence of any criminal behaviour", Regev said.
Full article:
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/02/2010211622611316.html
Catherine,
Thank you very much for the latest update. I have been busy for a couple of days cause of a conference paper but everything will be OK by tomorrow morning.
About the paucity of comment on your coverage of Israel-Palestine issues, it's basically because the sole source material used here comes from the Haaretz, which is easily accessible to English-speakers and runs a lively talkback of its own. A broader range of source material and/or a little more analysis would probably elicit a lot more comment.
RE post 7:
Sh has a point. In my case the lack of comment is because these issues are covered and analysed in great depth on Aljazeera English, which I watch every night. And I think the same goes for regular readers of Haaretz.