Prövningen av Goldstonerapporten snart klar

Israels officiella svar på den omdiskuterade Goldstone-rapporten är snart färdig. Det har gjorts en genomgång av de 36 fall av påstådda krigsförbrytelser som nämns i Goldstones rapport. Utredningarna visar enligt IDF att 30 av dessa var grundlösa anklagelser och de sista 6 visserligen baserades på verkliga händelser, men att händelserna berodde på misstag.

Själv har Richard Goldstone sagt att ”If this was a court of law, there would have been nothing proven.” Rapporten bevisar alltså ingenting, utan avsåg att sätta igång vidare utredningar, som IDF:s.

Middle East & Israel Breaking News » Israel » Article Jan 11, 2010 4:30 | Updated Jan 11, 2010 14:29 IDF nearly done with Goldstone counter-report By YAAKOV KATZ
PrintSubscribe

E-mailToolbar + Recommend: What's this?

Talkbacks for this article: 8 Article's topics: Operation Cast Lead,  Gaza,  UN,  Goldstone,  Yuval Halamish

The IDF is close to completing a comprehensive report that will respond to the accusations that were leveled at the military by the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, more commonly known as the Goldstone Report.

Goldstone in Gaza.
Photo: AP [file]

Work on the report began immediately following Operation Cast Lead but picked up speed several months ago with the appointment of Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yuval Halamish, a former senior intelligence officer, to compose the report and coordinate between the different IDF branches that have been conducting investigations into Goldstone's claims that Israel perpetrated war crimes against the people of Gaza.

IDF sources said that Halamish - together with Southern Command, the Air Force, the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories and the Military Advocate-General - were close to completing the report following which it would be released to the public.

Last month, The Jerusalem Post reported that the Southern Command had completed a review of 36 cases of alleged war crimes that Judge Richard Goldstone had accused it of perpetrating and found that 30 of then were "baseless accusations."

The six remaining cases were discovered to be based on true events and were caused by operational errors and mistakes.

The report will also include a chapter on the humanitarian efforts that the IDF made during the operation. After the report is completed, it will be reviewed by Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi.

IDF sources said the Goldstone report was also the catalyst of a new IDF initiative to try and explain to its allies the need to conduct a review of international law guidelines so they will be applicable to the types of conflicts that Israel faces in Gaza and Lebanon and the United States faces in Iraq.

The IDF has yet to make changes to its operational plans for future conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon, where Hamas and Hizbullah use civilian infrastructure to fight against Israel.

One of Halamish's first tasks was to oversee the ongoing 28 Military Police investigations and ensure that they were moving along swiftly. The IDF sources said that the investigations were close to being completed and the results would be included in the report and presented to the public like following previous military investigations into Cast Lead.

The 36 cases that were reviewed by the IDF were mentioned in the Goldstone Report as representative of the IDF operation. "We chose those 36 because they seemed to represent the most serious, the highest death toll, the highest injury toll," Goldstone said in a PBS interview in October.

"And they appear to represent situations where there was little or no military justification for what happened."