Israel rebuffs inquiry into Gaza war crime allegations

Reporting from Jerusalem - Israel today rejected a United Nations panel's call to open an independent inquiry into its wartime conduct in the Gaza Strip and launched a diplomatic campaign to thwart any prosecution of its soldiers in an international criminal tribunal.

Officials said President Shimon Peres, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other senior ministers were telephoning counterparts abroad in an effort to discredit a harshly critical report by the fact-finding panel. The report concluded that both sides committed war crimes during an Israeli offensive last winter that took aim at rocket-firing militants in the Palestinian enclave but also left hundreds of civilians dead.

Peres declared at a news conference that the report, issued Tuesday by former South African judge Richard Goldstone, is one-sided and "makes a mockery of history."

"It draws no distinction between the attacker and the attacked," Peres said. "The report essentially grants legitimacy to acts of terrorism, shooting and killing, and ignores the right and duty of any country to self defense, as outlined in the U.N. charter."

Israel's assertive response reflected official concern that the 22-day winter assault on Gaza was a diplomatic and strategic defeat for the Jewish state, even though it has led to a sharp reduction in rocket fire from the Hamas-ruled territory.

Although the panel said rocket fire by Gaza militants into civilian areas of Israel also constituted war crimes, the 455-page report reserved its harshest language for the Israeli military, saying that soldiers targeted and shot civilians in 11 well-documented cases.

The four-member panel called on Israel and Hamas to appoint independent investigators for separate inquiries into their own conduct. If that is not done, it said, the U.N. Security Council should refer the report to Hague-based prosecutors of the International Criminal Court.

Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said Israel rejected the idea of a special inquiry. He said the army's own ongoing investigation of its actions is open to review by "a professional, independent and forceful judiciary."

He and other officials said Israel was lobbying democratic countries abroad in an effort to head off any action by the 15-nation Security Council that could lead to criminal action against Israelis.

"The battle is political and diplomatic," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor. "We are speaking to members of the Security Council and countries that are conducting operations in Afghanistan. Our message is this: If this U.N. report is allowed to set a precedent, no country can feel safe in defending itself against terrorism or any other kind of threat."

Human rights activists have tried in the past to put Israeli military officials on trial, in countries such as Britain, Spain, Belgium and New Zealand, on charges related to operations in Palestinian territories.

Because Israel is not a member of the International Criminal Court, its citizens can be prosecuted there only if the Security Council orders an inquiry. That could happen if the matter goes to a vote in the council and the United States, which is usually reluctant to side against Israel in U.N. forums, chooses not to exercise its veto.

"Mr. Goldstone makes serious allegations, and we want to take time to review them," State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said Tuesday.

Israeli officials said they hoped to head off international action on the report by arguing that the 47-nation U.N. Human Rights Council, which created the fact-finding panel, is dominated by Arab and developing countries that are biased against Israel.

The council's original mandate was for the panel to investigate wrongdoing only by Israel. But Goldstone, a veteran war crimes investigator who is Jewish and has had close ties to Israel, undertook the mission only after persuading council members to change his marching orders to conduct a balanced inquiry. He has rejected Israel's accusation of bias.

Today his daughter, Nicole Goldstone, told Israel's Army Radio in a telephone interview from Toronto that her father's presence had softened the report's observations on Israel.

"He thought that . . . he did the best thing possible for everyone, including Israel," she said. "I have no doubt that whatever emerged would have been much worse if he had not been there."

As the controversy filled Israel's airwaves and news columns today, many analysts said the U.N. report had done lasting damage to the nation's international image and strategic position, even if no prosecutions come of it.

Aluf Benn, editor-at-large of the newspaper Haaretz, noted in a front-page analysis that Israeli leaders are contemplating military action against Iran to halt its suspected development of nuclear weapons and is weighing the cost of retaliation by Iran and its allies, Hamas and the Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah.

"The Goldstone report reinforces the most strategic threat Israel brought upon itself with the Gaza offensive, in that it saps international legitimacy for a similar operation in the future," he wrote.

"A country considering attacking the nuclear reactor in Iran, and then endangering itself to rocket fire from Lebanon and Gaza in response, will have to take into account whether the world will give Israel another opportunity for a severe, crushing response."

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