Support growing for Israeli investigation into Gaza Operation

PM mulling commission into IDF actions during Cast Lead

Sep. 30, 2009
JPost.com Staff , THE JERUSALEM POST

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was set to convene a meeting of top ministers late Wednesday morning, to discuss establishing a commission of inquiry to investigate IDF actions during Operation Cast Lead.

The commission would aim to curb a recent wave of calls to prosecute Israeli leaders and top IDF officials for alleged war crimes, after the release of the Goldstone Report, Army Radio reported.

According to Israel Radio, senior Israeli officials said that as the Goldstone report is full of lies and distortions, Israel should probe how Richard Goldstone and the other members of the commission reached their conclusions.

The report, which was released some two weeks ago, concluded that Israel should be brought before the International Criminal Court if it did not conduct internal investigations and begin prosecutions within six months. It said the authorities in Gaza must do the same, or risk coming before the ICC as well.

After the report was published, meanwhile, Defense Minister Ehud Barak met with former Supreme Court president Aharon Barak, in an attempt to garner the latter's support in the campaign against the report.

In a statement released Wednesday, the defense minister's bureau said that over the course of the conversation, the former Supreme Court president said that if the relevant bodies requested it of him, he would "agree to examine the investigations conducted by the IDF, thus potentially contributing to the battle against the report."

"[Ehud] Barak trusts the IDF's probes and consistently rejects any external investigation in their place," the statement added. The defense minister "contends that the Goldstone Report is fraudulent, biased and manipulative; it turns the tables and analogizes the bloodthirsty terrorists and their victims, who exercised their right to self-defense."

The defense minister updated Netanyahu on the conversation.

Tovah Lazaroff contributed to this report