Ex-justice Barak urges probe into Cast Lead report claims

Former Supreme Court President Aharon Barak has advised Attorney General Menachem Mazuz to support the setting up of a state investigative committee or a governmental inquiry committee to look into the claims raised against Israel by the Goldstone report.

Barak, whose opinion and international prestige carry considerable weight in the matter, told Mazuz recently that the report must be countered by such a committee, endowed with investigative and subpoena powers.

The chair of a state investigative committee is appointed by the president of the Supreme Court, while a governmental committee is appointed by the relevant minister. The latter body can be given investigative powers if it is chaired by a retired senior judge.

Barak appears to have rejected every other method for investigating the claims brought up by the report, into Israel's conduct during last year's Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip, but Defense Minister Ehud Barak has already said he opposed any outside investigations into the IDF.

The options open to Mazuz include the two types of committee suggested by Aharon Barak, some other investigatory panel without powers of subpoena, or not launching a new investigation at all, making do with internal reviews conducted by the IDF.

A source close to the deliberations told Haaretz that the Justice Ministry, the Foreign Ministry and the Military Prosecutor's office have all shown interest in drafting former Justice Barak to criticize the legal basis of the Goldstone report and to endorse the internal investigations of the IDF without a new inquiry.

Barak, however, is said to believe that nothing but a committee with investigative power would be an appropriate response to the claims of Israeli war crimes made in the report.

The source said either of the committees proposed by Barak would satisfy the Americans and would enable them to veto any proposal to have the events of the Gaza operation submitted for the consideration of the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in the Hague.

However, another option being considered is appointing a team of both local and foreign jurists specializing in constitutional issues and international humanitarian law.

The plan suggests that the experts would examine the internal reviews carried out by the IDF and would issue an opinion on their value. Effectively, this would a be an advisory committee tasked with certifying the results of the IDF investigations, without being imbued with investigative powers of its own.