Lieberman: Goldstone set out to charge Israel with Gaza war crimes
Foreign Minister says commission investigating Gaza war did not 'give the fact a chance to confuse them.'
By Barak Ravid Tags: Goldstone report Israel news IDFForeign Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Thursday called the Goldstone Commission's conclusion that Israel committed war crimes in the Gaza Strip "pre-determined," adding that the investigators had set out on their probe with finds already in mind.
"The Goldstone Commission was formed to find Israel of war crimes determined in advance," said Lieberman. "Members of the panel did give the facts a chance to confuse them."
"The Goldstone report is seeking to bring the UN back to the dark days in which it decided, under the guidance of states with interests, that Zionism is racism," added Lieberman in a statement sent to journalists.
The report, he continued, "has no legal, factual or ethical validity whatsoever."
"The state of Israel will continue to defend its citizens from the attacks of terrorists and terrorist organizations, and will continue to defend its soldiers against attacks of hypocrisy and distortion," he added.
Military Advocate General Brig. Gen. Avichai Mendelblit on Wednesday denounced the United Nations report as "biased" and said it blatantly overstepped the commission's mandate.
The report, by South African war crimes prosecutor Richard Goldstone, is "biased, extremely radical, and has no basis in reality," Mendelblit said.
Israel has meanwhile asked a number of senior members of the Obama administration to assist in curbing the international fallout from the Goldstone Commission report released this week, which accuses Israel of committing war crimes in Gaza during Operation Cast Lead.
The Foreign Ministry decided Wednesday to focus their efforts to combat the report's accusations on the United States, Russia and a few other members of the United Nations Security Council and the Human Rights Council that are involved in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Israeli message is that the Goldstone report threatens those countries because it makes the war on terror very difficult, and therefore efforts must be made to prevent it from being brought before the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu raised the issue Wednesday with U.S. special Middle East envoy George Mitchell, while Deputy Foreign Minister Daniel Ayalon discussed it with U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice and other senior officials.
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...except in direct relation to Israeli aggression? Their aim is not bad, it improves with Israel's aggressions and wanes when things are calm. In other words, you are mistaken. Those bottle rockets are a signal that the Palestinians will not be completely silenced as the world looks the other way while Israel steals their land and resources. The Goldstone Report examined the issues you wrote of and completely debunked your assertions with facts. Read it and the sources in it. It's a long and depressing read, but the world is noticing, and Richard Goldstone will not be able to be brushed off as a "self-hating Jew" or a "anti-Semite" because he is neither of those things, he's a mensch, has a phenomenal history, and he is the very person that Israelis always wanted investigating these issues. He wanted to be wrong, now he is filled with sadness that he was not. True friends of Israel had better take notice and fast.
He couldn't write his tripe if he had anything else to do with his life besides bash Israel.
Assuming even the Goldstone report being "biased" and "partial", does not mean its content being false. It may just be incomplete. It would be an error to shelve it. To ensure similar deeds not occuring again, its conclusions have to be discussed at political level and appropriate judiciary action taken.
sani, just curious to see how you got from terorism to muslims in one sentence. probabaly the same way they got from jewish to dirty rats for my (our?) ancestors only 60 years ago?
Gladstone could not have suggested Israel was responsible for war crimes if Israeli officials and the soldiers in the IAF and IDF didn't com- mit them -themselves. Dutch
With checkpoints, security barriers and fences, the number of successful suicide bombers has fallen to almost nothing. Cast Lead has diminished the number of rockets hitting Israeli towns. So the war on terror has been successful. But it has aroused the ire of the rest of the world that sees the blood of Jews as worthless. I just read where a woman injured in a 2005 suicide attack just died from her injuries, leaving three small children. The UN agreed to establishment of a Jewish state, knowing that the Arabs would not agree and would launch wars against that state. The hope was the the Arabs could continue with the Final Solution Hitler dreamed of and of which the world approved. Unfortunately, the UN's dream of destruction of Jews failed as they defeated all the armies sent by the Arabs, including one led by a British officer, Pasha Glubb.
you have the right to think this way but you are claiming there was no terrorism prior to the start of the war on terror and this is not true.1000 years ago the muslims were the most advance people on this planet medicine astrology and other issues were studied.nodays some extreme muslims are saying any other study which is not the qoran are blasphemy.they consider all advanced nation as a threat to their goals as they want to keep the muslim masses ignorant. so please get informed and dont say that the war on terror is the west doing you are showing the kind of ignorance that should not exist in an advanced country like Great Bririan
Why would a respected judge, who is Jewish and has an honorary doctorate from an Israeli university, have pre-determined that Israel was guilty of war crimes as Mr Liberman asserts. It simply is not believable.
The war on terror has increased terrorism on the long run. It is about time that you guys understand that.
the state of Israel made its own conclusions long ago.The UN-Report ignores the fact that the heroes og Hamas hid behind so called civilians. Those "fighters" don't wear army fatigues but civilian clothing. They forced kids that they trained to bear the brunt of the fighting.They fought from schools, UN-buildings and hospitals. Common sense makes it clear that those thousands of rockets that were shot over the year were not to be stopped by words but by military action.HAMAS'actions were intended to hit civilian areas like Sderot et alt. Of "only" a few Israeli actually died from this, it is not because of the human behaviour af Hamas but because of their inaccurate weaponry. There was no inproportunate in Israel's action. by the way: see that from that war hardly one rocket is shot CAUSE & EFFECT are clear.
"The state of Israel will continue to defend its citizens from the attacks of terrorists and terrorist organizations, and will continue". A very good idea that the left forgot.
If the report is 'biased', then tell me where. To claim that a report is biased and radical has no meaning unless you can offer some substantive criticism justifying those claims. The only thing Lieberman seems to say is that the report must be wrong for the mere fact that it criticized Israel. Its very telling that for all of these accusations, Zionists are unable to offer even one substantive critique of the report. It leads one to believe that the report must be devastatingly accurate.